Is a Fellow of the National Institutes of Health. Consults for numerous pharmaceutical companies on the methods for stabilizing and characterizing solid pharmaceuticals. Has written for newspapers and worked with television in these areas. Member of American Society of Microbiology, American Society of Virology, and International Society for Interferon and Cytokine Research. Expertise in areas of viruses and immunology.
Research focuses on how antibodies kill viruses and the structure of various viral components.
Also using crystallography with electron microscopy to probe the structure of several togaviruses, a family of viruses responsible for several tropical diseases, such as yellow fever and dengue. Uses X-ray crystallography to study biological structures in three dimensions to determine how these molecules function. Has worked extensively with the media in these areas. In 1985, his group became the first to solve the structure of an animal virus when it mapped the three-dimensional structure of a common cold virus, making it possible to study surface features and interactions of a cold virus at atomic resolution. In 1986, his team pinpointed the site in a common-cold virus where antiviral agents bind and work to prevent the virus from reproducing.