My research interests focus on defining the roles and the mechanisms of enzymes and other challenging proteins in complex biological processes and on developing technologies to facilitate these studies. The current research in the Craik lab focuses on the chemical biology of proteolytic and protein degradation enzymes, receptors and membrane transporters. A particular emphasis of our work is on identifying the roles and regulating the activity of key proteins associated with infectious diseases, neurodegeneration and cancer.

The long-term goals of our research are to understand how protein conformational ensembles are reshaped by perturbations, such as mutation and ligand binding, and to quantify how these perturbations impact protein function and organismal fitness. To accomplish these goals, we create new computational and biophysical approaches to study how proteins move between different conformational states.

We investigate molecular machines that coordinate gene expression or antiviral immunity. Research areas include : i- RNA decay enzymes that act in mRNA quality control and gene regulatory pathways, and ii- nucleic acid based immune systems that protect animals from viruses and neutralization of these systems by viral accessory proteins. We use tools from molecular biophysics to understand the structure and regulatory conformational dynamics in these systems with the ultimate goal of defining molecular mechanisms and avenues for structure based drug design.