Prof. Smita Patel University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, USA

Dr. Smita Patel, Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey, received her PhD in Chemistry from Tufts University. She obtained postdoctoral training in Prof. Kenneth Johnson's lab at the Pennsylvania State University where she studied the kinetic pathway and fidelity of... read moreDNA synthesis by T7 DNA polymerase using transient state kinetic approaches. The research in her laboratory is focused on understanding the mechanisms of enzymes involved in DNA replication and transcription. Her work has focused on elucidating the nucleic acid unwinding mechanisms of DNA and RNA helicases from phage T7 and hepatitis C virus. She studies the mechanisms and regulation of transcription initiation in phage and mitochondrial RNA polymerases using transient state kinetic approaches.