Faculty Profile - University of Houston
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Faculty Profile

James M. BriggsJames M. Briggs

Professor and NSM Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs
Department of Biology and Biochemistry

Office: Houston Science Center, 402D and Science & Research 1, 214
Contact: jbriggs@uh.edu - (713) 743-8366

Education: Ph.D., Purdue University, B.S., University of Texas, El Paso

Google Scholar Profile

Dr. James Briggs’ research is focused in the highly interdisciplinary and collaborative area of computational chemistry/biochemistry. He develops and applies computational methods to problems of chemical and biochemical interest. His research falls into two general categories: computer-aided inhibitor design/discovery and computational biophysics. Briggs’ main target areas in the inhibitor/ligand area are: liver X receptor, calcium channel proteins, Rho kinase 1 (heart disease), PTEN (cancer), PTEN/5HTC2C (addiction control), BCL2 (cancer), gluconeogenesis and glucose uptake (cancer); those for the computational biophysics area include protein-ligand binding, cholera toxin, biofilm control, RNA structure prediction, protein electrostatics and pKa predictions, and identification of protein/enzyme function from structure only.

Organizations, Outreach, Boards, Memberships

Elected, Senior Member, National Academy of Inventors, 2023
Faculty Senate, University of Houston, 2019–present; Chair Budget and Facilities Committee, 2021–present
Editorial Advisory Board, Journal of Molecular Graphics and Modelling, 2009–present
Associate Editor, PLoS Computational Biology, 2008–present