Bryan Gibb completed his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania in the laboratory of Gregory D. Van Duyne and studied the molecular mechanisms of DNA recombination enzymes using biophysical, structural, and biochemical methods. His dissertation project focused on the site-specific DNA recombinase Cre, which is widely used as a tool in genome engineering.
Following graduate school, Gibb joined the laboratory of Eric Greene at Columbia University as a postdoctoral researcher. In Greene's lab, Gibb developed a novel single molecule method of studying proteins that bind and function on single-stranded DNA (ssDNA). Using this technique, he was able to reveal novel mechanisms in the ssDNA binding protein RPA and Rad52. These two proteins play essential functional roles in DNA damage repair pathways. Disruption of these proteins or the associated pathways has been linked to cancer. Additional studies using this technique revealed detailed mechanistic details in the DNA recombinase Rad51.
Gibb's research at New York Tech will focus on understanding molecular mechanisms of DNA binding proteins, specifically those involved in CRISPR pathways that are widely being employed in genome engineering technologies. The long term aim of this work is to find new tools or improve existing methodologies that can then be harnessed for biotech applications such as gene therapy.
A second line of research will seek to understand and develop bacteriophages as therapeutics. Every year more than 2 million people acquire an infection resistant to at least one antibiotic, and more than 23,000 people die as a direct result of antibiotic-resistant infections (CDC 2014). Given the growing inability to treat bacterial infections, novel approaches must be pursued. Bacteriophages are viruses that attack bacteria naturally, so they are an attractive tool that may be discovered from natural sources and improved by directed evolution or directed engineering approaches to be an effective therapy for bacterial infections.
Recent Projects/Research
- Development of tools for genome engineering applications (CRISPR, Cas9)
- Bacteriophage therapy
- DNA damage repair
Selected Publications
- Redding S, Sternberg S, Marshall M, Gibb B, Bhat P, Guegler C, Wiedenheft B, Doudna J, Greene EC, "Surveillance and processing of foreign DNA by the Escherichia coli CRISPR-Cas system." Cell. 2015. PMID: 26522594.
- Qi Z, Redding S, Lee JY, Gibb B, Kwon Y, Niu H, Gaines WA, Sung P, Greene EC., "DNA sequence alignment by microhomology sampling during homologous recombination." Cell. 2014. PMID: 25684365
- Gibb B., Ye L.F.*, Kwon Y., Niu H., Sung P., Greene E.C., "Protein dynamics during presynaptic-complex assembly on individual single-stranded DNA molecules" Nature Structure & Molecular Biology. 2014. PMID: 25195049
- Deng S., Gibb B., Almeida M.J., Greene E.C., Symington L.S., "RPA antagonizes microhomology-mediated repair of DNA double-strand breaks" Nature Structure & Molecular Biology. 2014. PMID: 24608368
- Gibb B., Ye L.F., Gergoudis S.C., Kwon Y., Niu H., Sung P., Greene E.C., "Concentration-dependent exchange of Replication protein A on single-stranded DNA revealed by single-molecule imaging" PLoS One. 2014. PMID: 24498402.
Courses Taught at New York Tech
- Bio l235: Microbiology