Christopher Henry
MCS Division
Supervisor: Rick Stevens

At Argonne National Laboratory, I am working on constructing and applying genome-scale metabolic models of prokaryotes. Half of my work involves the development of automated methods for constructing new genome-scale models based on their sequenced genomes. This work endeavors to eliminate the current disparity that exists between the time required to sequence and annotate a genome (about one week) and the time required to construct a genome-scale model of that organism (about one year). This includes curation and integration of annotation and biochemistry databases as well as the use of optimization to fit models to available experimental data. The other half of my work focuses on building a high-quality genome-scale model of one organism in particular, B. subtilis , and applying that model to facilitate the development of a minimal strain of B. subtilis . A minimal strain is appealing because it will grow and produce products more efficiently due to reduced metabolic burden, and its behavior will be more predictable due to reduced complexity. In the development of a minimal organism, the genome-scale model is used to identify the coessential genes in the organism that cannot be removed simultaneously without destroying strain viability. We also use the model to learn more about why certain mutant strains fail to be viable or display other interesting phenotypes. The model is continuously improved based on the results of new experiments performed such that we will emerge from this project not only with a minimal strain of B. subtilis by also with a much improved model of B. subtilis .

Email: chenry@mcs.anl.gov
Phone number: 630-252-6501