Dr. Worthylake obtained his Bachelor of Science in Physics from Southern Oregon State University in 1986. His Masters in Physics was awarded by the University of Oregon in 1991 and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry was awarded in 1998 by the University of Utah. From 1998 to 2004, Dr. Worthylake has been working with Dr. John Sondek at the University of North Carolina studying the mechanism of activation of Rho GTPases by members of the Dbl family of guanine nucleotide exchange factors.

Worthylake DK, Rossman KL, Sondek J, Crystal Structure of the DH/PH fragment of Dbs without bound GTPase, Structure 12(6):1079-1086, 2004.

Worthylake DK, Rossman KL, , Snyder JT, Cheng L, Whitehead IP, Sondek J, Functional analysis of Cdc42 residues required for GEF-catalyzed exchange, J Biol Chem 277(52):50893-8, 2002.

Worthylake DK, Rossman KL & Sondek J, Crystal structure of Rac1 in complex with the guanine nucleotide exchange region of Tiam1, Nature 408(6813):682-8, 2000.

Gamble TR, Yoo S, Vajdos FF, von Schwedler UK, Worthylake DK, Wang H, McCutcheon JP, Sundquist WI, Hill CP, Structure of the Carboxyl-Terminal Dimerization Domain of the HIV-1 Capsid Protein, Science 278 849 – 853, 1997.

Hill CP, Worthylake D, Bancroft DP, Christensen AM, Sundquist WI, Crystal structures of the trimeric human immunodeficiency virus type 1 matrix protein: Implications for membrane association and assembly, Proc Natl Acad Sci 93 3099 – 3104, 1996.