Robert Rambo

Robert Rambo is the Principal Beamline Scientist (PBS) for the solution state SAXS beamline B21. During his Ph.D., Robert was trained as an RNA crystallographer in the laboratory of Jennifer A. Doudna at Yale University where he helped determine the structure of the bacterial signal recognition particle (SRP) and a structural role for potassium ions in the P4-P6 RNA domain (the organizational center for the group I intron). In addition, Robert’s thesis focused on protein-RNA assemblies providing key insights into the folding of protein-assisted group II introns.

After graduating, Robert worked briefly as a web-application programmer before starting his post-doctoral training at the Advanced Light Source with the SIBYLS beamline (a dual SAXS and MX development beamline headed by John A. Tainer of the Scripps Research Institute). Here, Robert helped establish standard purification methods for RNA SAXS experiments and developed new methods for analyzing SAXS data including the volume-of-correlation and chi-free.

Robert’s expertise is in applying new mathematical methods (convex optimization and semi-definite programming) to SAXS experiments. He is the author of ScÅtter, a java-based program for bioSAXS and creator of BioIsis.net (a solution SAXS database).

Post-Doctoral Training
Advanced Light Source
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory,
Berkeley, CA, USA
PI: John Tainer

2003 Ph.D. Yale University
Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry
PI: Jennifer A. Doudna

1996 B.S. Mathematics and Chemistry
University of Alaska, Anchorage