Richard Allen White III
Richard Allen White III
B.S. Cellular and Molecular Biology California State University – East Bay (formally Hayward)
M.S. Biology (Molecular Virology) California State University – East Bay (formally Hayward)
Ph.D. Microbiology and Immunology University of British Columbia
Postdoctoral Computational biology Pacific Northwest National Lab (PNNL)
Specialities:
– Bioinformatics/Computational biology
– Multiomics (Next Generation Sequencing/Mass Spectrometry)
– Virology
– De novo assembly (complex metagenomes/large genomes)
– Novel antivirals and antimicrobials
– Phage therapy
Model systems:
– Mammals (Bats, rodents, humans)
– Microbialites/stromatolites/Microbial mats
– Rhizosphere
The bedrock of his work is how “viral lifestyles,’ (i.e., whether lytic or lysogenic) in phage (viruses that infect bacteria) impacts the ‘guts’ of humans, bats, rodents, plants (e.g., the rhizosphere), and modern microbialites. He has recently returned to his roots of molecular virology of human viruses by tackling RNA viruses (e.g., SARS-CoV-2, Influenza, and Hantavirus) by targeting replication mechanisms with novel therapies.
Selected publications:
Bioinformatics/Computational Biology
Bellanger M, Figueroa III JL, Tiemann L, Friesen ML, White III RA. 2024. NFixDB (Nitrogen Fixation DataBase)—a comprehensive integrated database for robust ‘omics analysis of diazotrophs. NAR Genomics and Bioinformatics 6 (2) (Editors Pick).
Figueroa III JL, Redinbo A, Panyala A, Colby S, Friesen ML, L Tiemann L, White III RA. 2024. MerCat2: a versatile k-mer counter and diversity estimator for database-independent property analysis obtained from omics data. Bioinformatics Advances, vbae061
Link [https://doi.org/10.1093/bioadv/vbae061]
Figueroa III JL, Dhungel E, Bellanger M, Brouwer CR, White III RA. 2024. MetaCerberus: distributed highly parallelized HMM-based processing for robust functional annotation across the tree of life. Bioinformatics 40 (3), btae119
Link [https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btae119]
Fulghum B, Tanker SH, White III RA. 2024. DeGenPrime provides robust primer design and optimization unlocking the biosphere. Bioinformatics Advances 4 (1), vbae044
Link [https://doi.org/10.1093/bioadv/vbae044]
Modern Microbialites
Bellanger MA, PT Visscher PT, White III RA. 2023. Viral enumeration using cost-effective wet-mount epifluorescence microscopy for aquatic ecosystems and modern microbialites. Applied and Environmental Microbiology.
Link [https://doi.org/10.1128/aem.01744-23]
White III RA, Visscher PT, Burns BP. 2020. Between a rock and a soft place: The role of viruses in lithification of modern microbial mats. Trends of Microbiology. 29 (3), 204-2013 (Cover article)
Link [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tim.2020.06.004]
Rhizosphere
Carreira C, Lønborg C, Acharya B, Aryal L, Buivydaite Z, Borim Corrêa F, … White III RA, … et al. 2024. Integrating viruses into soil food web biogeochemistry. Nature Microbiology, 1-11.
Link [https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-024-01767-x]
White III RA, J Rosnow J, PD Piehowski PD, Brislawn CJ, Moran JJ. 2021. In situ non-destructive temporal measurements of the rhizosphere microbiome ‘hot-spots’ using metaproteomics. Agronomy 11 (11), 2248