Werner Braun, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology · UTMB
Werner Braun, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston and a core investigator in the Sealy Center for Structural Biology. He received his doctoral training at ETH Zürich in the laboratory of Dr. Kurt Wüthrich, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (2002), and subsequently completed a research fellowship at Kyushu University in Japan. He later returned to ETH Zürich, where he was appointed Privatdozent in Biophysics in 1987. Dr. Braun joined UTMB in 1995 and was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2007 in recognition of his contributions to structural biology and computational immunology. His research has been continuously supported by major federal agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He has also served on numerous national scientific review and advisory panels. Dr. Braun’s research program integrates structural biology, immunology, and computational biology to elucidate the molecular principles governing protein function, antigenicity, and allergenicity. His work encompasses the development of computational methods to predict antigenic determinants and immune cross-reactivity, structural characterization of allergens and their interactions with IgE, and analysis of viral envelope proteins to support rational vaccine design. In addition, his laboratory develops sequence- and structure-based approaches to assess the potential toxicity of novel proteins, contributing to early-stage safety evaluation in biotechnology and regulatory science. Collectively, Dr. Braun’s research advances the field of computational structural biology and its application to immunology, vaccine development, and protein safety assessment, providing widely used tools and resources for allergen research and predictive immunoinformatics.
Surendra Negi, Ph.D.
Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology · UTMB
Surendra Negi, Ph.D., is a research scientist specializing in developing cutting-edge bioinformatics methods, AI-driven tools, and computational models for protein function prediction, immunoinformatics, and molecular modeling to advance biomedical research. His diverse research portfolio spans 13 key areas including vaccine design, epitope discovery, protein-protein interaction analysis, allergenicity prediction, and deep learning applications for protein classification, with a particular focus on addressing challenges in structural biology where only a small fraction of protein complex structures are known. Dr. Negi has translated his research into practical applications by developing eight widely-used software tools and web servers, including InterProSurf for protein surface analysis, AllergenPred and AllergenAI (a deep learning model predicting allergenicity based on protein sequence) for allergy prediction, and Cross-React for allergen cross-reactivity assessment. He has made significant contributions to fields ranging from SARS-CoV-2 mutation analysis and vaccine development to structural analysis of allergenic proteins, leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning approaches to solve complex biological problems.
Office Support
Rebecca Whitton
Office Assistant
Former group members
Catherine H. Schein, Ph.D.
Assistant/Associate Professor (R) 2004–2012 · Senior Fellow
Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution (FfAME), Gainesville, FL · Google Scholar
Ovidiu Ivanciuc, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor (R) 2007–2013
Numan Oezguen, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Research Fellow 2000–2010
UTMB Internal Medicine-Endocrinology
David Power, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow 2003–2011 · Research Scientist I 2011–2012
Wenzhe Lu, Ph.D.
Graduate Student 2008–2013
IMS Health
Deliang Chen, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Research Fellow 2005–2011
Tzintzuni I. Garcia, Ph.D.
Graduate Student 2004–2009
Xiphophorus Genetic Stock Center, Texas State University
Petr Danecek, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow 2008–2009
Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Cambridge, UK
Shubhra Ghosh Dastidar, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow 2007
Bioinformatics Institute (A-STAR), Singapore
Bin Zhou, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow 2003–2006
Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation, San Diego
Yuan Xu, Ph.D.
Computational Core Manager 1996–2006
Milind Misra, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow 2006–2007
Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM