Byron K. Murray
Department of Microbiology and Molecular Biology
Office: 857 WIDB
Office Phone: 801-422-6207
Email: byron_murray@byu.edu
Education
I received my Ph.D. at Brigham Young University, and was a post-doctoral fellow and Assistant Professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. I served as an Assistant Associate Professor at the Medical College of Virginia, and was tenured there. I have been at BYU for 16 years and directed the Cancer Research Center for seven years.
Research Interests
My laboratory develops anti-viral and anti-cancer drugs, and currently we are working on anti-oxidant vitamins and their role in preventing cancer and inducing programmed cell death, or apoptosis. We have also used several compounds and chemicals from natural products both as anti-viral and anti-cancer agents.
Student Involvement/ Requirements
I will train 6-8 undergraduates in my lab. Undergraduates are trained first by a journal class, in which they read literature from the area in which I work. Also, students research current literature – each student is assigned a journal to review and we meet once a week to report the current topics in the journals. As far as learning techniques in the lab, they work with me and with established students, both graduate and undergraduate, on learning protocols in the projects we are working on.
I take undergraduate students at any time in their education. Students need to be a Microbiology major and need to have taken a 200-300 course level series in Microbiology. Previous experience makes the student a more attractive candidate. Most students work in the lab anywhere from 1-3 years. The work is publication oriented and undergraduates do appear on publications. The source of funding is private.
