James (Jim) R. Thompson, Ph.D.

My current research interests include:

• Assembly, structure and function of lipoproteins and of other proteins involved in lipoprotein function
• Structure and function of proteins involved in DNA repair mechanisms
• Structure-based drug discovery

Molecular biology, biochemistry, biophysics and structural biology are all important components of my team's research.

I am the director of the Mayo Clinic X-ray Crystallography Core Facility and co-director of macromolecular crystallization and crystallography resources located in the Kahlert Structural Biology Center at the University of Minnesota.

All required crystallography infrastructure, plus a significant level of automation, is in place to support a world-class level of structural biology. These research activities occur within a collaborative atmosphere and involve scientists both within the Mayo Clinic and at external institutions.

We are also developing a silkworm-based protein production technology for high-yield expression and co-expression of proteins that are difficult to obtain using other methods. Our silkworm expression technology requires one-third of the effort and is one-sixth the cost of insect or mammalian cell culture methods. The method works for the expression of recombinant cytosolic, secretory or membrane proteins.