The Strauch Lab uses both computational and experimental methodologies to understand, inhibit and re-purpose biological processes on the protein level. The main focus of Dr. Straub’s research is on how to diagnose, prevent and treat viral infections with the aim to generate new antivirals and candidates for vaccination through protein design. For that, her lab develops and uses new cutting-edge technologies involving structural design as well as pooled oligo-synthesis and next-generation sequencing. While her team in the lab studies viral surface proteins principally to understand how they can target them or provide new immunogens, they also seek to shed light on how protein chemistry is involved in making viruses so successful. Viruses and their surface proteins hold the molecuar keys for identifying speciic host cells, entering them and re-programming them — much of what is needed to fight cancer.