Dr. Darland heads the team in our biological sciences department. He joined the Metagenics family after 23 years of research experience in natural products, and biochemistry and microbial genetics at Merck Research Laboratories. He received his doctorate in microbiology from the University of Washington. Prior to joining Merck, he was a visiting Fellow at the Centers for Disease Control in the Enteric Disease Section and an Assistant Professor at California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo.
In addition to bench research in microbial biochemistry and genetics, Dr. Darland has been involved in the design and evaluation of clinical trials. These activities have led to the publication of several papers dealing with drug metabolism and the biosynthesis of natural products. He currently supervises the cell biology laboratory of the MetaProteomics� Nutrigenomics Research Center. The laboratory utilizes a variety of proteomic techniques, including ELISA and Western blots, as well as RT-PCR for screening and mechanistic studies on natural products. These techniques can also be applied to both cultured cells and to human clinical samples, in particular whole blood. |