Eric Bell

Education

B.A. with High Honors in Biochemistry, minor in Computer Science, Oberlin College (2017)

B.M. in Horn Performance, Oberlin Conservatory of Music (2017)

Research Interests

In general, my interest is in probing the relationship between protein structure and function.  While my early research focused on protein-ligand interactions, my current work now focuses on prediction of protein-protein interactions on a whole proteome scale, specifically through methods common to the field of protein structure prediction, such as protein threading, structure alignment, and machine/deep learning.

Professional History

2021-Present: Graduate Research Assistant

Peter Freddolino Lab, University of Michigan

Winter 2020: Graduate Student Instructor, BIOINF 524/525: Foundations of Bioinformatics

University of Michigan

Fall, 2019: Graduate Student Instructor, BIOINF 528: Structural Bioinformatics

University of Michigan

2018-2021: Graduate Research Assistant

Yang Zhang Lab, University of Michigan

2017-2018: Program in Biomedical Sciences (PIBS) Graduate Student

University of Michigan

2013-2017: Undergraduate Research Assistant

Oberlin College

Selected Publications

Bell, E.W.; Schwartz, J.H; Freddolino, P.L.; Zhang, Y. “PEPPI: Whole-proteome protein-protein interaction prediction through structure and sequence similarity, functional association, and machine learning” (2022). J. Mol. Bio. (In revision; biorxiv link).

Bell, E.W.; Zhang, Y. “DockRMSD: an open-source tool for atom mapping and RMSD calculation of symmetric molecules through graph isomorphism” (2019). J. Cheminf. 11:40. 

Zhang C.; Zheng W.; Huang X.; Bell, E. W.; Zhou X.; Zhang, Y.  “Protein structure and sequence re-analysis of 2019-nCoV genome refutes snakes as its intermediate host or the unique similarity between its spike protein insertions and HIV-1.” (2020). J. Proteome Res. 19:1351-1360.

Zhang, W.; Bell, E.W.; Yin, M.; Zhang, Y. “EDock: Blind Protein-ligand Docking by Replica-Exchange Monte Carlo Simulation.” (2020). J. Cheminf. 12:37.

Bell, E.W.; Zheng, E.J.; Ryno, L.M. “Identification of inhibitors of the E. coli chaperone SurA using in silico and in vitro techniques” (2018). Bioorg. Med. Chem. Lett. 28(22): 3540-3548. 

Fellowship and Awards

University of Michigan Department of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics (DCMB) Bioinformatics Academic Achievement Award (2019)

NIH Training Program in Bioinformatics [T32 GM070449] (2018 – 2019)

Hypercube Scholar Award (2017)

The Norman C. Craig (’53) Endowed Chemistry Scholarship Fund (2016)