Paul Jardine
- Health
- COVID-19
- Research
Introduction
Paul J. Jardine, Ph.D., is a professor in the School of Dentistry at the University of Minnesota, where he studies virus structure and assembly and teaches microbiology.
Jardine's Interests revolve around the investigation of viral assembly and the description of biological motors at the molecular level. Both historically and experimentally, bacteriophages provide a perfect system to address both of these issues.
Jardine’s current focus is on the study of bacteriophage phi29 DNA packaging. A molecular motor assembles transiently to the phi29 prohead capsid and packages DNA to near crystalline density, powered by ATP hydrolysis.
As a phage biochemist, Jardine’s role is to translate the basic components of phi29 packaging from a robust in vitro packaging system into the hands of specialists who can address the questions of interest his work has generated, as well as develop new approaches to probe the packaging mechanism.