Chemical biology, biosensor design, imaging of signal transduction pathways
Our research lies at the interface of chemistry and biology, where the application of chemical and physical principles provides a unique opportunity to better understand the fundamental biochemistry of living cells. Living cells are complex and dynamic entities that must integrate internal and external signals in order to coordinate diverse functions. Deciphering the molecular details of how cellular constituents define healthy and diseased states, and how dynamics propagate from the cellular to the organismal level, is one of the great challenges in modern biology. We develop fluorescent tools to image living cells and tackle this grand challenge. For more information on active research projects, please visit our lab webpage.
A powerful complement to these cellular studies are spectroscopic and biophysical methods (absorption, circular dichroism, electron paramagnetic resonance, fluorescence, fluorescence anisotropy, stopped-flow, and surface plasmon resonance) that provide detailed information on the bonding nature, kinetics, and thermodynamics of protein-metal, protein-small molecule, and protein-protein interactions.
Specific projects in the lab include 1) the development of genetically encoded zinc sensors and examination of the role of zinc in neuronal signal transduction, 2) the design of peptide-based tools to perturb protein-protein interactions, and 3) development of probes to study the connection between amyloid-beta and calcium dysregulation.
