I am a computational biologist specializing in comparative and evolutionary genomics, molecular evolution, and computational structural biology. My research focuses on understanding how proteins and molecular systems originate, diversify, and acquire new functions across evolutionary time. A major focus of my work is the discovery and evolutionary analysis of prokaryotic defense systems and phage counter-defense mechanisms, with particular interest in how protein domains and structural folds are recruited and repurposed to generate new molecular functions. I also study the evolution of proteins in eukaryotic RNA and DNA viruses, tracing their evolutionary origins, structural relationships, and functional diversification, with an emphasis on illuminating the largely unexplored viral protein universe. More broadly, my research extends to lineage-specific gene-family diversification and receptor–ligand evolution, using comparative genomics, phylogenetics, sequence analysis, genomic context, and protein structure as complementary approaches to reconstruct molecular evolutionary histories.