About
Biographies
Research Interests and Accomplishments
Sanjay Vashee joined the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, MD in 2003 as a Senior Scientist in the Synthetic Biology Group headed by Hamilton Smith at. His research interests involve developing methods and technologies to create a synthetic organism as well as understanding the basic mechanisms that underlie this goal.
Prior to joining JCVI, Dr. Vashee was a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University-School of Medicine where he was the first to characterize the DNA-binding properties of the human origin recognition complex, the initiator protein of eukaryotic DNA replication. Dr. Vashee holds a bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a master’s degree in Chemistry from Western Illinois University and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Texas at Austin.
Select Publications
Vashee, S., Cvetic, C., et al.
Sequence-independent DNA binding and replication initiation by the human origin recognition complex
Genes Dev. 2003 Aug 01; 17(15): 1894-908.
Vashee, S., Simancek, P., et al.
Assembly of the human origin recognition complex
J Biol Chem. 2001 Jul 13; 276(28): 26666-73.
Vashee, S., Willie, J., et al.
Synergistic activation of transcription by physiologically unrelated transcription factors through cooperative DNA-binding
Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 1998 Jun 18; 247(2): 530-5.
Vashee, S., Melcher, K., et al.
Evidence for two modes of cooperative DNA binding in vivo that do not involve direct protein-protein interactions
Curr Biol. 1998 Apr 09; 8(8): 452-8.
Vashee, S., Kodadek, T.
The activation domain of GAL4 protein mediates cooperative promoter binding with general transcription factors in vivo
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1995 Nov 07; 92(23): 10683-7.
Vashee, S., Xu, H., et al.
How do "Zn2 cys6" proteins distinguish between similar upstream activation sites? Comparison of the DNA-binding specificity of the GAL4 protein in vitro and in vivo
J Biol Chem. 1993 Nov 25; 268(33): 24699-706.