Andrew J. Howard, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Biology and PhysicsCo-Director, Masters in Health Physics Program
BCPS Dept./ Biology Div.
Office: 174B Life Sciences Building
Office Hours: TR 10:30am - 1:00pm
Phone: 312.567.5881
Fax: 312.567.3576
Email:
howard@iit.edu
Web:
Howard's Web page
Expertise
- Macromolecular crystallography, particularly methods development
- Protein expression and purification
Education
- B.S. Pomona College (1975)
- Ph.D. Physics, University of California, San Diego (1981)
Curriculum Vitae
Research & Major Accomplishments
Prof. Howard's research includes:
- Crystallographic software development at SER-CAT Robotics and data management tools for crystallography
- Development of massive data archives for crystallographic data images.
- Expression, purification, and structure determination on cholera toxin complexes, bacterial hemoglobin mutants, constructs derived from human dystrophin, and other proteins.
- Crystallographic educational projects.
Prof. Howard's Accomplishments include:
- Development of a 100,000-line data processing software package used worldwide for macromolecular diffraction.
- Management and leadership in building a two-beamline facility for pharmaceutical crystallography from 1996-2002.
- Co-PI on a productive structural genomics project, 1997-2009.
- Director, American Crystallographic Association's Summer School in Macromolecular Crystallography, 2002-2008.
- Co-Director of IIT's Masters in Health Physics program, 2001-present.
Current Projects
- Development of X-GEN, a crystallographic data processing software package
- Optimization of a Vitreoscilla hemoglobin protein-expression plasmid (Park et al (2003), Plasmid 50:169)
- Structural studies of spin states in Pseudomonas cytochrome C peroxidase
- Structural studies of cholera toxin in complex with human ARF-6 protein
- Structural genomics studies of proteins from Haemophilus
- Structural genomics studies of multiple-splice variants
- Beamline software development at Southeast Regional Collaborative Access Team
- Development of an independent, Python-based crystallographic data processing software system
- Optimizations of crystallographic data collection strategies under conditions of rapid sample decay
- Providing user support at SER-CAT
- Expression and purification of Vibrio cholerae toxin A subunit in complex with the human proteins ARF-6 and ARF-1
- Continued development of IIT's Masters in Health Physics curriculum
Awards/Honors
- Elected member, Data Standards & Computing Committee of the American Crystallographic Association (current)
- Founding chair, Advanced Photon Source CAT Directors' Council (1997-1999)
- Chair, Gordon Conference on Diffraction Methods in Molecular Biology, 2000
Patents
Books
Selected Publications
Howard, A. (2002) Macromolecular crystallography at third-generation synchrotron sources. Chapter for Third Generation Hard X-ray Synchrotron Radiation Sources: Source Properties, Optics, and Experimental Techniques. D.M. Mills, ed. Wiley: 406pp.
Howard, A.J. (2000) Data processing in macromolecular crystallography. Chapter in: Crystallographic Computing 7: Proceedings from the Macromolecular Crystallographic Computing School, 1996. P.E. Bourne and K.D. Watenpaugh, eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Eisenstein, E., Gilliland, G.L., Herzberg, O., Moult, J., Orban, J., Poljak, R.J., Banerjei, L., Richardson, D., and Howard, A.J. (2000) Biological function made crystal clear - annotation of hypothetical proteins via structural genomics. Current Opinions in Biotechnology 11: 25-30.
Jin, T., Guo, F., Kim, S., Howard, A., and Zhang, Y.-Z. (2007) X-ray crystal structure of TNF ligand family member TL1A at 2.1 Å. Biochem.Biophys.Res.Comm. 364: 1-6.
Kim, S.-K., Reddy, S.K., Nelson, B.C., Vasquez, G.B., Davis, A., Howard, A.J., Patterson, S., Gilliland, G.L., Ladner, J.E., and Reddy, P.T. (2006) Biochemical and Structural Characterization of the Secreted Chorismate Mutase (Rv1885c) from Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv: an *AroQ Enzyme Not Regulated by the Aromatic Amino Acids J. Bacteriol. 188: 8638-8648.
Professional Society Memberships
Editorial Board Service
Professional Society Service
- American Crystallographic Association
- American Chemical Society
Grants
- SER-CAT software development and user support (University of Georgia), 2002-present
- NIH subcontract through University of Maryland for structural genomics, 1997-2008
- IMCA-CAT contract: Director and PI, 1996-2002; Chief Scientific Officer, 2002-2004
Community Service
- Judge for annual Junior Science & Humanities Symposium, 1999-present
- Frequent judge for high-school science fairs
- Mentor for K-12 science teachers, 1999, 2003, 2008-present
- NIH Small Business Grant special study section member, 1992-present
