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Hiroki Morizono, PhD
Children's National Medical Center
Children's Research Institute
Principal Investigator, Center for Genetic Medicine Research (CGMR)
George Washington University
School of Medicine and Health Sciences
Associate Research Professor, Pediatrics |
Contact Information
Children's National Medical Center
Center for Genetic Medicine Research (CGMR)
111 Michigan Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20010-2970
202-476-6029
HMorizono@cnmcresearch.org
Education & Training
| Institution & Location |
Degree |
Year(s) |
Field of Study |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MA |
SB |
1987 |
Life Sciences |
| University of Minnesota, MN |
PhD |
1997 |
Biochemistry |
Research Interests
Dr. Morizono is an assistant professor of Pediatrics and has been a faculty member since 2002. He received his PhD from the University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, and did his postdoctoral there. Dr. Morizono's interests lie in the relationships between sequence, structure, and function of proteins, particularly novel variations of questons including how does an amino acid sequence folds into a particular three dimensional shape? What are the forces that hold the protein in this folded shape? Why does this conformation catalyze a chemical reaction? Which regions of a protein are affected when mutations occur, and how do mutations affect its catalytic activity? Insights into these questions provide predictive power in determining if an inherited mutation is deleterious, and are also a basis for understanding how the different proteins and enzymes interact in our cells and our bodies. We have applied this type of analysis to ornithine transcarbamylase, the mitochondrial ornithine/citrulline transporter, and to N-acetylglutamate synthase. We have recently discovered two novel enzymes that are structurally and functionally related to ornithine transcarbamylase—they appear to have branched from the aspartate transcarbamylase and ornithine transcarbamylase at a point in time very near to the last universal common ancestor to all life on earth—the existence of these enzymes requires changes to the canonical arginine biosynthetic pathway, and provide clues as to the origins of this pathway.
Publications
View a partial list of Hiroki Morizono's publications through the National Library of Medicine's PubMed online database.
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