The Sarafianos Laboratory works towards unraveling the molecular details of how biomedically-relevant enzymes function, how they are inhibited, how they develop drug resistance and towards developing drugs that will treat human disease by novel mechanisms of action. In pursuit of these goals they use a combination of conventional and cutting-edge research tools, including protein biochemistry, molecular biology, fluorescence imaging/microscopy, macromolecular engineering, X-ray crystallography, molecular modeling, enzymology, and high-throughput technologies. Target proteins include HIV reverse transcriptase, HIV capsid protein, Hepatitis B virus (HBV) reverse transcriptase, and HBV capsid protein. Ongoing efforts focus on various steps of HIV, HBV, and Hepatitis C virus (HCV) life cycles, including cell entry, uncoating, reverse transcription, nuclear entry, assembly, and host interactions towards developing novel therapeutics.