Tom Ferrin, PhD
Professor
Pharmaceutical Chemistry
School of Pharmacy

415-476-2299

My research focuses on developing cutting-edge interactive software tools and advanced web-based computational resources that provide integrated visualization and analyses of molecular structures and related non-structural biological information.

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Our tools are applied daily to diverse types of biomolecular data, including atomic-resolution coordinates, 3D cryo-EM and X-ray density maps, light microscopy data sets, and protein and nucleic acid sequences, annotations, and networks. Our primary research efforts are in the interactive visualization and analysis of structures of molecules and molecular assemblies, protein sequence-structure relationships, and network representations of protein similarity, binding interactions, and biological pathways. These areas are critical for addressing important and highly relevant biomedical problems such as identifying the molecular bases of disease, annotating proteins of unknown function, identifying targets for drug development, designing new drugs, and engineering proteins with new functions. For many years we have been disseminating well-documented and robust software tools via our web site so that scientists world-wide can advance their own research programs effectively. Our current software development efforts are focused on ChimeraX, our next-generation desktop app for the interactive visualization and analysis of molecular structures and related data.

Awards

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  • Academic Senate University Service Award for outstanding contributions to the UCSF data network, 1998
  • Recognition by UC President David S. Saxon for the accomplishments and research conducted by CGL, 1980

Education & Training

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  • Ph.D. Graduate Division (Biomedical Informatics; R. Langridge and I.D. Kuntz, co-advisors) University of California, San Francisco 1987
  • B.S., Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Institute of Technology (Otto H. Schmitt, bioengineering advisor) University of Minnesota 1971

Websites

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Grants and Projects

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Publications (97)

Top publication keywords:
Imaging, Three-DimensionalDatabases, ProteinSoftwareMolecular ConformationModels, MolecularChlamydia trachomatisSequence AlignmentSequence Analysis, ProteinComputational BiologyComputer GraphicsOrganic Cation Transport ProteinsProteinsUser-Computer InterfaceProtein ConformationMolecular Sequence Annotation

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