Raven Huang is interested in understanding how protein enzymes catalyze novel chemical reactions. His research focuses on drug discovery, enzymology, host-pathogen interactions, protein synthesis, protein-nucleic acid interactions, RNA biology, and toxins. Since Huang started his independent career at the University of Illinois, his primary focus has been mechanical and structural studies of protein enzymes involved in RNA modifications and editing. More recently, his lab mainly studies RNA damage by ribotoxins and protein enzymes performing RNA repair as antidotes of ribotoxins.
Huang received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington. During his postdoc, he focused on HIV-1 reverse transcriptase studies interacting with DNA template primer and an incoming dNTP.