Faculty

Tobin Dickerson 
Assistant Professor
Department of Chemistry
TSRI - 2000

Joint Appointments 
Worm Institute for Research and Medicine (WIRM)

Education 
B.S., University of Virginia, 1999
M.A., University of Virginia, 2000
Ph.D., The Scripps Research Institute, 2004

Research Focus 
Strategies to Combat Evolving Human Disease

Our research is broadly focused at the interface of chemical biology, immunology, and medicine with particular interest in the development of technologies that allow questions of biological and clinical relevance to be addressed. A large focus of our work is the generation of methods that recreate in vitro the co-evolution of infectious diseases and the immune system. The technology we have developed, termed phage escape, also can be implemented as a novel high throughput screening method for small molecule protein-ligand antagonists, as well as a single molecule diagnostic platform. Application of these tools to diseases including avian influenza, cancer and neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are currently underway. We also study the immunological basis of NTDs, including onchocerciasis and lymphatic filariasis, to both treat these diseases as well as apply the mechanisms used by these parasites to modern medicine. An additional focus of our laboratory is aimed at understanding the biochemical mechanism of botulinum neurotoxin, the most lethal protein known and a rapidly expanding clinical tool, with the goal of developing molecules that modulate toxin function.

Selected References 
Willis, B.; Eubanks, L. M.; Wood, M. R.; Janda, K. D.; Dickerson, T. J., Lerner, R. A. Biologically templated organic polymers with nanoscale order. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 2008, 105, 1416-1419.

Dickerson, T. J.; McKenzie, K. M.; Hoyt, A. S.; Wood, M. R.; Janda, K. D.; Brenner, S.; Lerner, R. A. Phage escape libraries for checkmate analysis. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 2007, 104, 12703-12708.

Eubanks, L. M.; Hixon, M. S.; Jin, W.; Hong, S.; Clancy, C. M.; Tepp, W. H.; Baldwin, M. R.; Malizio, C. J.; Goodnough, M. C.; Barbieri, J. T.; Johnson, E. A.; Boger, D. L.; Dickerson, T. J.; Janda, K. D. An in vitro and in vivo disconnect uncovered through high throughput identification of botulinum neurotoxin A antagonists. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 2007, 104, 2602-2607.

McAllister, L. A.; Hixon, M. S.; Kennedy, J. P.; Dickerson, T. J.; Janda, K. D. Superactivation of the botulinum neurotoxin serotype A light chain metalloprotease: A new wrinkle in Botox. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2006, 128, 4176-4177.