RECOMMENDATIONS

What colleagues say

Decades of collaborative work across biochemistry, structural biology, and computer science — in the words of the scientists who know it best.

“
Terry Oas and I have collaborated and consulted together for nearly three decades, and I can say without reservation that he is among the most rigorous quantitative scientists I have encountered in a long career working at the intersection of chemistry and biology. On the projects we published together, Terry's thermodynamic and kinetic framework was decisive — the kind of mechanistic clarity that simply doesn't come from the biology side alone. It requires someone who thinks in the language of thermodynamics and kinetics as naturally as most scientists think in English. Terry is that person.
RL
Robert J. Lefkowitz
Duke Health Distinguished Professor of Medicine · HHMI Investigator
Duke University Medical Center
NOBEL LAUREATE IN CHEMISTRY, 2012
Collaboration on ligand-specific conformations of the β2-adrenergic receptor and the active conformation of β-arrestin1 — Kahsai et al., Nat. Chem. Biol. 2011; Nobles et al., J. Biol. Chem. 2007
“
I've known Terry for almost 40 years. He is one of the most talented protein scientists alive. In a world where hype seems to be taking over, Terry has the bona fides — he understands not only fundamental equilibrium thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, and kinetics, he is also an expert in all the practical aspects of protein chemistry and biochemistry.
GP
Gary J. Pielak
Kenan Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, Biochemistry & Biophysics
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
“
Our collaboration with Terry Oas transformed our understanding of how zinc regulates the antifungal activity of Histatin 5. Terry's thermodynamic framework revealed that the true zinc affinity is nearly two orders of magnitude tighter than previously reported and uncovered multiple binding modes that shift with temperature. That level of mechanistic clarity is only possible when you bring in someone who understands both the physical chemistry and how to extract it rigorously from the data.
KF
Katherine J. Franz
James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Chemistry
Duke University
“
My group partnered with Terry to develop a rigorous thermodynamic and statistical mechanics framework for a highly complex ion channel system that is an important drug target. His sharp, intuitive grasp of protein biophysics has been crucial to our progress, helping us navigate intricacies that standard models often miss. What makes Terry uniquely valuable is his ability to provide the critical balance needed to interpret and validate biophysical and computational data. He translates raw predictive models into true atomic-level details and dynamic conformational ensembles, yielding the accurate ligand-protein energetics critical for drug development. ThermoProt is an invaluable asset for any team translating complex biophysics into therapeutic breakthroughs.
SL
Seok-Yong Lee
George Barth Geller Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology · Duke University School of Medicine
“
Terry Oas's thermodynamic expertise was essential to our work on SpA-N interdomain dynamics. He provided the experimental NMR ground truth that anchored our computational models, and his thermodynamic framework was what allowed us to connect interdomain orientation distributions to the free energy of antibody binding — a connection that neither of our groups could have made alone. Working with Terry is what transforms a structural measurement into a biological insight.
BD
Bruce R. Donald
James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Computer Science & Biochemistry · Duke University

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Tell us about the protein, the data, and the question. We'll tell you whether a thermodynamic or kinetic model can answer it — and how.

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