Audrey Burnim

Postdoctoral Fellow since 2023

Research areas

  • Functional annotation of enzymes
  • Microbiome bioinformatics
  • Host-pathogen-virus interactions

Education

  • BS: Bryn Mawr College, Chemistry, (2017)
  • PhD: Cornell University, Chemistry and Chemical Biology, (2023)
Audrey Burnim

Background

My name is Audrey Burnim and I am an IRTA Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Institutes of Health in the lab of Dr. Xiaofang Jiang. My research aims to identify enzymes important for human gut microbiome health using comparative genomics, phylogenetics, and other bioinformatic tools. This work involves developing novel tools to analyze large scale public datasets. I am particularly interested in the evolution of enzymes through host-microbiome-virome interactions. Outside of enzyme evolution, I am passionate about science communication and diversifying science.

Papers from time in Jiang lab

  1. Kim SK, Orr MW, Turdiev H, Jenkins CC, Lormand JD, Myers TM, Burnim AA, Carter JA, Kung WC, Jiang X, Sondermann H, Winkler WC, Lee VT. 2024. Diribonuclease activity eliminates toxic diribonucleotide accumulation. Cell Reports. 43: . DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2024.114759.
  2. Burnim A, Dufault-Thompson K, Jiang X. 2024. The three-sided right-handed β-helix is a versatile fold for glycan interactions. Glycobiology. 26: cwaw\e037. DOI: 10.1093/glycob/cwae037.