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Dr. Yee's research interests span a variety of biomedically important proteins and enzymes with interesting mechanistic questions. Her lab has studied proteins involved in drug metabolism, neurodegenerative disorders, and antiviral defense, or are model systems for human metabolic enzymes. Her approach combines X-ray crystallography with modeling and mutagenesis studies to investigate the relationship between structure and function in several systems.

Dr. Yee's group published the first crystal structure of the human prion protein, whose conformational transformation to a pathogenic form is believed to be important in an intriguing family of neurological diseases, the spongiform encephalopathies.  By comparing structures of wild-type and mutant prion proteins, her group highlights structural features which may play a role in the disease process.  Dr. Yee's lab was also part of a large pharmacogenomics investigation of drug metabolizing enzymes. Using a combination of experimental and computational methods, her group compared wild-type and variant enzyme structures in order to understand the molecular and functional consequences of genetic polymorphisms responsible for variation in patient drug responses.  Other projects in Dr. Yee's group focused on blood coagulation proteins and on biotin-dependent enzymes which are important in a variety of metabolic processes. Her lab's elucidation of these structures provided insight into catalytic mechanisms and the structural consequences of human disease mutations.

As the Department's Vice Chair for Education, Dr. Yee is responsible for improving program curricula, and developing mentoring and outreach programs.