His major research interests lie in the structural biology of anti-HIV antibodies and HIV virion coat proteins. Dr. Nicely received his Ph.D. in Structural and Molecular Biochemistry from NC State University in 2005 with Dr. Carla Mattos. He then completed a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Al Claiborne in the Center for Structural Biology at Wake Forest University. After a brief stint working in computational biology and bioinformatics with the Renaissance Computing Institute at the University of North Carolina, Dr. Nicely came to the Duke Human Vaccine Institute in early 2008 to complete the construction of the X-ray crystallography facility and to undertake the DHVI's structural biology program.