Joseph D. Ng Ph.D.
Scientific Community
In the scientific community, I have served on the U.S. National Committee of Crystallography (USNCCr), the National Academies for ~9 years (chaired the committee for 3 of those years) in which we promoted U.S. crystallography (science and education) nationally and internationally. In addition, our team has organized many crystallographic and crystallization national and international conferences and workshops including the 14th International Conference on the Crystallization of Biological Macromolecules; Frontiers in Structural Biology of Membrane Protein and Pittsburg Diffraction Conference; SERCAT conferences and workshops. In the city of Huntsville, AL, I have been heavily involved with the Biotechnology community doing collaborative work with the UAH business school, private companies and government laboratories.
Mental Health Advocacy
Today we experience more chronic stress and anxiety more than ever before. Since our personal experience with trauma in our university shooting in 2010, we have engaged in mental health advocacy and research. Our lab has been working with many scientific collaborators and veterans in exploring the biological mechanism of trauma sensitivity/resiliency and to understand why certain individuals are susceptible or resilient to PTSD at the structural level of RNA and proteins associated with the immune system.
Academic
I am a structural biologist trained in macromolecular crystallography and molecular biology. I have combined the skill sets of these two areas to study the structure and function of proteins and nucleic acids. In the past 20+ years, I have taught and mentored undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and research associates. I have instructed numerous classes at the graduate and undergraduate levels in the biological sciences at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). Shortly after my arrival at UAH, I have helped to develop the Biotechnology Science and Engineering doctoral program and have served as its director/coordinator for ~16 years. My research accomplishments include tool development in protein crystallization; protein structure determination by X-ray and neutron diffraction; and nucleic acid synthesis for recombinant protein production and detection. Some of the output of my work was applied in the efforts of the Southeast Collaboratory for Structural Genomics program as well as in collaborative research activities with the Southeast Regional Collaborative Access Team (SER-CAT).
Entrepreneurship
Leveraging both my academic and entrepreneurial skills and experience, I had the privilege to be involved with building the biotechnology community in Huntsville, AL. Some activities include the founding of the Partnership for Biotechnology Research, serving on numerous economic development committees and being the founder of Extremozyme and iXpressGenes at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology.
