Gustatory receptors (GRs) are a large superfamily of ligand-gated chemosensory ion channels in insects. The Gaudet lab and others have determined structures of some insect GRs in ligand-bound and apo forms. These structures also reveal the presence of several lipid molecules that interact with protein subunits. I am interested in determining the chemical identities of these lipid molecules and how they affect the function of insect GRs using a combination computational tools such as phylogenetic analysis, molecular modeling, and molecular dynamics simulations.