Charles McAnany

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Charles joined the lab in 2019 to apply his knowledge of biomolecular structure to genomics. He holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Virginia, where he specialized in molecular dynamics simulations of biomolecular assemblies and intrinsically disordered proteins. He has studied the formation of adhesive junctions between cells, developed a tool for identifying biomaterials to use in traumatic brain injuries, explained the oligomeric plasticity of an ancient family of proteins, and studied the atomic details of the surface of an RNA binding protein. In the course of his reasearch, Charles served as the acceptance tester for a 4000-core supercomputer being installed at the University of Virginia, created numerous striking renderings of simulation data to convey the motion in biomolecules, and designed and taught a complete undergraduate course on computational biophysics. Before that, he received two bachelors degrees from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, where he worked to develop a microfluidic device to directly couple capillary electrophoresis with mass spectrometry. In his free time, he is an avid photographer, with a full darkroom in his basement capable of processing and printing negatives from his 4x5 camera. He is actively involved in the Alpha Chi Sigma Professional Chemistry Fraternity; he serves as the correspondent for the Fraternity magazine for the Kansas City chapter, and serves as the official photographer for the fraternity at its national meetings.