Elhabashy Lab

Protein–protein interactions underpin nearly all biological processes in health and disease. Yet fundamental questions remain unresolved: which proteins interact, how these interactions are established, through which conformational landscapes they are mediated, and what functions they ultimately perform. This knowledge gap limits our understanding of cellular systems and constrains progress in biomedical research. Evolution provides powerful guidance. Proteins are products of billions of years of natural selection, and their sequences encode the physical and functional constraints that govern molecular recognition and interaction. Deciphering this information is key to revealing the principles that shape biological organization. The recent expansion of sequence and structural databases, alongside high-throughput experimental technologies, now offers an unprecedented opportunity to uncover these evolutionary principles and to study protein interactions at scale.

In our laboratory, we develop evolution-informed computational frameworks that integrate artificial intelligence, computational biophysics, and bioinformatics to systematically map and characterize protein interactions within and across species. Close collaboration with experimental partners enables rigorous model validation and iterative refinement, ensuring both accuracy and biological relevance. Our mission is to achieve a quantitative, molecular-level understanding of cellular systems and to translate these insights into transformative applications in precision medicine—advancing diagnostics, enabling targeted therapeutics, and deepening our understanding of human health and disease.