WELCOME TO MY SITE ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB. Here you will find information about our research including the complete text and figures of all our publications; they are available to read online or download. The Associates section has photos and biographical sketches of students, postdocs and collaborators. A variety of links to information on topics from biochemistry to caribbean cooking can be found in the Links section. Finally, if you are a student in one of my courses, you can find useful materials, notices and posted grades in the section titled Courses To make this site a valuable resource for biochemists and an enjoyable place to browse, it will be frequently revised. Please visit often and explore. Send comments and suggestions to me at : gilles-gonzalez.1@osu.edu

ABOUT MYSELF: I was born in Jeremie, Haiti. I came to the USA when I was thirteen. Like Spike Lee and Bugs Bunny , I grew up in Brooklyn , New York City. I lived in the colorful and lively Bedford-Stuyvesant section. After obtaining my Bachelor's in Biochemistry from the S.U.N.Y. at Stony Brook State University of New York at Stony Brook, I studied under Dr. Gobind Khorana at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Khorana won the Nobel Prize for solving the triplet code by which amino acid sequences are encoded in DNA. He has developed many of the methods on which modern molecular biology is based, including oligonucleotide synthesis. For my Ph.D thesis, I applied his then novel approach of oligonucleotide directed mutagenesis to structure-function studies of the proton pumping membrane protein, bacteriorhodopsin. In 1991, during my first postdoctoral job with Dr Helinski at U.C. San Diego, I discovered the first direct sensor of oxygen. Since then I have devoted my research to understanding the mechanisms by which organisms respond to oxygen. The protein I first purified and began to study in San Diego is an enzyme (a histidine kinase) called FixL, whose activity is controlled by a heme moiety on the same molecule. I next took my research to the laboratory of the world's most distinguished authority on heme proteins, Dr. Max Perutz. Dr. Perutz won a Nobel Prize for solving the first three-dimensional structure of a protein (hemoglobin). He is also known for discovering the allosteric regulation of oxygen binding to hemoglobin. While working at the Medical Research Council in England, I made great progress in elucidating the mechanism by which the FixL protein responds to oxygen, described in the section on Research I have a sunny, well-equipped laboratory in Room 244 of Rightmire Hall on the west campus of The Ohio State University (you can use the campus map at this site to find the lab). I have a joint appointment with the Biochemistry Department and the Plant Biotechnology Center. I am also on the faculty of the graduate programs in: Biochemistry (OSBP); Biophysics; Chemistry-Biology Interface; and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology (MCDB).