Dr. Nickle's has a broad array of global health interests, and has been published in the areas of bioinformatics, vaccinology and population genetics. He has devoted a good deal of his research career to issues pertaining to vaccine design and infectious disease, and has recently been working on the genetics of complex human diseases such as COPD using a systems biology approach. The approach Dr. Nickle's uses relies on coalescing data from all levels along the central dogma chain (from DNA to metabolite). The interplay between these high throughput data types forms the foundation of this approach.

Much of Dr. Nickle's past work has focused on the development of an HIV vaccine, but his work has general application to a variety of issues in the field of computational biology and complex diseases. His computational skills and the systems biology outlook can also be applied to a wide variety of problems including the development of novel methods for understanding the genetic architecture of disease as well as the architecture of wild populations. Dr. Nickle's is strongly motivated to work on problems that impact the human condition, and can offer a high level of enthusiasm, self-reliance, and creativity.