Deputy Director:  Dr. Cynthia Peterson

Senior Administrative Services Assistant: Tina Tolley McConnell

The core members of the center and their specific research areas are:

Jeffrey Becker       Structure & function of peptides; peptide hormones and their receptors; peptide transport; virulence factors of human fungal pathogens; antifungal drugs. 

 David Baker     Chemistry of the carbohydrates, nucleosides, cyclitols, and N-heterocyclic compounds; design and evaluation of drugs and prodrugs for the chemotherapy of viruses and cancer; novel inhibitors of adenosine deaminase.

Barry Bruce     Import of proteins into chloroplasts; molecular Chaperones.

Gerard Bunick     Study of macromolecular structures utilizing single crystal x-ray diffraction complemented by neutron and x-ray small-angle scattering.

Michelle Buchanan         Organic and Biological Mass Spectrometry.

Kelsey Cook     Mass spectral characterization of solutions and solution chemistry, including investigation of the structures of biopolymers and their interactions in solution (e.g., protein interactions in A-beta fibrils associated with Alzheimer's disease). Fundamentals of matrix-assisted ionization. Process and membrane mass spectrometry.

Chris Dealwis     Structure-function study of Signal Transduction pathways. Knowledge-based drug design, Crystallography and Neutron scattering.

Dominic Desiderio     Study of the molecular components involved in several human neuropeptidergic systems. involved in stress, pain, and pituitary tumor formation. State-of-the-art mass spectrometric methods are used to analyze the neuropeptides involved in those processes.

Elias Fernandez    Structure and functional studies of cytoplasmic signaling molecules using biophysical techniques. Protein biochemistry and X-ray crystallography.

Solon Georghiou     Dynamic and excited-state properties of DNA; interaction of melittin with model biological membranes. Fluorescence spectroscopy of biomolecules.

Elias Greenbaum     Photosynthesis, renewable hydrogen production, nanoscale photosynthesis, nanobiotechnology, molecular electronics, artificial sight, biomedical research.

Leif Hanson     Protein crystallography, molecular recognition, cryogenic Thermodynamics.

Bob Hettich     High-resolution detection and structural characterization of important biomolecules, such as proteins and protein variants, by mass spectrometry.

Liz Howell     Structure, function, assembly & folding of Dihydrofolate reductase; comparison of chromosomal and R-plasmid forms.

Dabney Johnson     Dr. Johnson's laboratory analyzes the molecular and functional consequences of induced germline mutations on obvious and subtle whole-organism phenotypes in the mouse.

Frank Larimer     Microbial genome structure: gene modeling; operon, regulon, and supra-regulon organization. Mechanism-based homology modeling methods for functional assignments of novel ORFs. Genomic sequencing.

Richard Lee     Design and synthesis of new drugs targeting non-classical antibacterial drug targets using interdisciplinary approaches and the latest technologies.

Salil Niyogi     Our research is aimed at elucidating structure/function relationships of biologically important proteins by site directed mutagenesis.

Cynthia Peterson     Protein folding and stability; Macromolecular interactions; Coagulation and fibrinolysis.

Daniel Roberts     Structure and function of calcium modulated proteins and their targets.  Structure, function and regulation of membrane channel proteins.

Engin Serpersu     Antibiotic resistance, Structure and Function of Antibiotic modifying enzymes, NMR studies of biological molecules, computer modeling and drug design.

Jochen Weiss  Physicochemical properties of biological macromolecules; investigation of molecular basis of structure-function relationship of proteins; self-assembly and interfacial adsorption phenomena of surface-active biopolymers; colloidal interactions between macromolecules.  Dr. Weiss's website.

Ron Wetzel     Protein folding and stability; protein misfolding and human pathology, including Alzheimer's Disease, Huntington's Disease, and other conditions involving amyloid fibril formation.

Peter Zhang    Synthesis and biomedical applications of porphyrins and metalloporphyrins; metalloenzyme mimics.