University of Georgia, Ph.D., Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 1996 University of Colorado, B.A., Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, 1978

Dr. York's diverse research interests include the development and application of spectroscopic and computational methods for the structural and conformational analysis of complex carbohydrates, the development of bioinformatics tools to study the roles of carbohydrates in living systems, and the use of these tools to develop realistic models describing the assembly and morphogenesis of the "primary cell walls" that surround the growing cells of higher plants. His early research focused on the analysis of plant cell walls using a multidisciplinary approach. Extensive spectroscopic analysis of xyloglucan, a load-bearing polysaccharide involved in controlling the rate and orientation of cell wall growth, have been performed in Dr. York's laboratory. The results of these spectroscopic studies have been summarized in the form of a database that provides chemical shift information taken from the NMR spectra of over 50 xyloglucan oligosaccharides that have been characterized in Dr. York's laboratory. The organization and user interface of this database facilitates the retrieval of information regarding specific correlations between structural featurres of the oligosaccharides and the chemical shifts of diagnostic resonances in the NMR spectra. The availability of this information makes it possibly to rapidly and accurately identify oligosaccharides that are present in the database and to identify structural features of related oligosaccharides that have not yet been characterized. As a result of Dr. York's interest in database development and data mining methodology, he has recently initiated a bioinformatics project as part of the Integrated Technology Resource for Biomedical Glycomics funded by the National Center for Research Resources of the NIH.