Participating Faculty Members
The participating faculty are drawn from the Departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Physics, Biomedical Sciences, and reflect a wide diversity of research interests and expertise. Brief descriptions of the research areas represented by individual faculty members are summarized below.
Chemistry and Biochemistry
| Name/Contact Info | Research Topics |
|---|---|
Rommie AmaroProfessor of Chemistry and BiochemistryThe Amaro Research Group ramaro@ucsd.edu |
Computational Chemistry and Biophysics |
Itay BudinAssistant Professor of Chemistry and BiochemistryThe Budin Research Group ibudin@ucsd.edu |
Biochemistry and synthetic biology of cell membranes |
Galia DebelouchinaAssistant Professor of Chemistry and BiochemistryThe Debelouchina Lab gdebelouchina@ucsd.edu |
Chemical and spectroscopic approaches for structural biology of complex biological systems |
Lalit DeshmukhAssistant Professor of Chemistry and BiochemistryThe Deshmukh Research Group ldeshmukh@ucsd.edu |
Solution NMR spectroscopy, retroviruses, protein and nucleic acid biochemistry |
Neal DevarajProfessor of Chemistry and BiochemistryThe Devaraj Research Group ndevaraj@ucsd.edu |
Tetrazine Cycloadditions for bioorthogonal chemistry and functional materials. Imaging and in vivo chemistry |
Fleur FergusonAssistant Professor of Chemistry and BiochemistryThe Ferguson Lab flferguson@ucsd.edu |
Targeted protein degradation, oncology, neurodegeneration |
Kamil GodulaAssociate Professor of Chemistry and BiochemistryThe Godula Group kgodula@ucsd.edu |
Nanotechnologies for analysis of glycan function during development. Glycomaterials for stem cell-based tissue regeneration |
Mark HerzikAssistant Professor of Chemistry and BiochemistryThe Herzik Research Group mherzik@ucsd.edu |
Elucidating the mechanisms of macromolecular transport into and within mitochondria |
Simpson JosephProfessor of Chemistry and BiochemistryJoseph Lab sjoseph@ucsd.edu |
Biochemistry & Biophysics: ribosome structure, function and dynamics; discovery of novel antibiotics |
Elizabeth A. KomivesProfessor of Chemistry and BiochemistryThe Komives Lab ekomives@ucsd.edu |
Structure, function, dynamics and thermodynamics of protein-protein interactions: NMR, mass spectrometry and kinetics |
Alexis KomorAssistant Professor of Chemistry and BiochemistryThe Komor Lab akomor@ucsd.edu |
DNA damage and repair; Genome editing; Chemical biology of aging |
Colleen McHughAssistant Professor of Chemistry and BiochemistryThe McHugh Research Group c1mchugh@ucsd.edu |
RNA-protein interactions; Assembly of RNPs; Structural biology of multimeric complexes |
Tatiana MishaninaAssistant Professor of Chemistry and BiochemistryThe Mishanina Lab tmishanina@UCSD.EDU |
Molecular mechanisms of transcription in bacteria and human mitochondria |
Johannes SchoenebergAssistant Professor of Chemistry and BiochemistryThe Schoeneberg Lab jschoeneberg@ucsd.edu |
Cellular organelle dynamics by lattice light sheet microscopy |
Susan TaylorProfessor of Chemistry and BiochemistryProfessor of Pharmacology Howard Hughes Medical Institute Susan S. Taylor Lab staylor@ucsd.edu |
Structure, Function, Dynamics, and Localization of PKA as a Prototype for the Protein Kinase Superfamily. |
Akif TezcanProfessor of Chemistry and BiochemistryTezcan Lab tezcan@ucsd.edu |
Bioinorganic and biophysical chemistry; Metalloprotein structure, function and biosynthesis; Biomaterials |
Navtej ToorAssoc. Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistryntoor@ucsd.edu |
Structure and Function of Introns and Retroelements |
Wei WangProfessor of Chemistry and BiochemistryWei Wang Research Group wew002@ucsd.edu |
Inference of gene regulatory networks and determination of protein specificity |
Brian ZidAssistant Professor of Chemistry and BiochemistryThe Zid Research Group zid@ucsd.edu |
Dynamics of mRNA localization in the control of gene expression. |
Biomedical Sciences
| Name/Contact Info | Research Topics |
|---|---|
Geoffrey ChangProfessor of Pharmacyg1chang@ucsd.edu |
Structural biology of transporters |
Kevin CorbettAssociate Professor, Cell and Molecular Medicine; Head of Laboratory of Structural Biology at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer ResearchStructural Biology Lab kcorbett@ucsd.edu |
We use biochemical and macromolecular structure tools to understand the organization of meiotic chromosomes, the regulation of meiotic DNA recombination to create crossovers, and the checkpoint mechanisms that monitor these events. |
Michael GilsonProfessor, Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Science; Chair in Computer-Aided Drug Design, Co-Director UCSD Center for Drug Discovery InnovationGilson Lab mgilson@ucsd.edu |
Computer-aided molecular design, physical chemistry of molecular recognition, drug discovery, host-guest chemistry, cheminformatics, simulations and molecular modeling. |
Tracy HandelProfessor of Pharmacythandel@ucsd.edu |
Chemokines, G Protein-Coupled Receptors (GPCRs), glycosaminoglycans, cancer, structural biology, biophysics |
Andres LeschzinerProfessor of Cellular and Molecular MedicineThe Leschziner Lab aleschziner@ucsd.edu |
Chromatin dynamics and intracellular transport: Movement of cytoplasmic dynein and mechanism of ATP-dependent nucleosome remodeling. |
Samara Reck-PetersonProfessor of Cellular and Molecular MedicineThe Reck-Peterson Lab sreckpeterson@ucsd.edu |
Determining the mechanisms underlying intracellular transport. |
Roger SunaharaProfessor of Pharmacologyrsunahara@ucsd.edu |
Mechanism of cell signaling in the G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) field. |
Dong WangAssociate ProfessorSkaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences Wang Lab dongwang@ucsd.edu |
Molecular Mechanisms of DNA Damage Processing Pathways |
Jin ZhangProfessor of Pharmacologyjiz175@ucsd.edu |
Spatiotemporal regulation of signal transduction |
Physics
| Name/Contact Info | Research Topics |
|---|---|
Elena KosloverAssistant Professor of PhysicsThe Koslover Research Lab ekoslover@ucsd.edu |
Structural Cell Biology, Cryo-Electron Microscopy, Multiscale modeling |
Douglas SmithProfessor of Physicsdes0free@gmail.com |
Mechanical manipulation and imaging of single DNA molecules; Viral DNA packaging in bacteriophages phi29, lambda, and T4; Function of ATP-dependent molecular motors; Single polymer dynamics (polymer physics, DNA properties, rheology); Chromatin assembly and structure; Enzyme mediated DNA looping; Restriction endonuclease function; Physics of knot formation |
Biology
| Name/Contact Info | Research Topics |
|---|---|
Elizabeth VillaAssistant Professor of Chemistry and BiochemistryVilla Lab evilla@ucsd.edu |
Structural Cell Biology, Cryo-Electron Microscopy, Multiscale modeling |