Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics Graduate Group Faculty

Faculty name

Research description

Katsura Asano

Regulation of protein biosynthesis, Yeast genetics and biochemistry, Molecular and cell biology of insects and cancer

Ming-Shun Chen

Molecular interactions between plant and parasites, Host plant resistance, Effectors and effector-triggered signaling pathways, wheat breeding and gene editing.

Timothy Durrett

Biochemistry of triacylglycerol biosynthesis; structure and function of membrane bound acyltransferases; genetically modifying the physical properties of seed oils for industrial and biofuel applications.

Peying Fong

Regulation of sodium and chloride transport by epithelial cells, with a focus on the functional interactions between the epithelial sodium channel (ENaC) and the Cystic Fibrosis Transmembrane Conductance Regulator (CFTR).

Brandon Garcia

Lyme Disease Pathogenesis, Mechanisms of Bacterial Immune Evasion, Protein Structure-Function, Drug Discovery.

Brian Geisbrecht

Innate Immunity; Molecular Basis of Infectious Diseases and Host-Pathogen Interactions; Structural Biology and Molecular Recognition

Erika Geisbrecht

Mechanisms that underly muscle structure and function.

Maureen Gorman

Insect biochemistry, molecular biology and genetics; Mechanisms of iron metabolism in insects; Function of insect multicopper oxidases; Insect innate immunity

Revathi Govind

Pathogenic microbiology and bacterial genetics.

Shijiao Huang

Understanding the mechanisms of aging and developing clinically relevant drugs to delay aging and enhance human health and longevity.

Michael Kanost

Insect biochemistry and molecular biology; structure and function of hemolymph serine proteinases, proteinase inhibitors, and antibacterial response proteins from insects; biochemistry of insect cuticle sclerotization.

Phillip Klebba

Iron acquisition by active transport through the cell envelopes of bacteria; Immunological approaches to bacterial pathogenesis; Biophysical analyses of bacterial membrane transport in living cells.

Kristin Michel

Regulation of mosquito innate immunity; malaria parasite-mosquito interactions.

Om Prakash

Structural characterization and molecular recognition using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and Computer Aided Molecular Design (CAMD).

Ryan Rafferty

Synthetic organic chemistry; Drug discovery and selective delivery; Medicinal chemistry; Chemical biology.

Jeremy Schmit

Biomolecule phase separation; Amyloid fibril formation; Drug formulations; Self-assembly.

Kathrin Schrick

Plant molecular biology, developmental biology, plant sterols, START domains, sterols and cellulose; broadly focusing on deciphering the molecular mechanisms underlying growth and development of flowering plants.

Bruce Shultz

Understanding the physiological regulation of epithelial ion transport and barrier functions.

Paul Smith

Computer simulation of the structure and dynamics of peptides, proteins and nucleic acids; cosolvent effects on peptides and proteins; modeling of opioid peptides and their receptors.

Nicholas Wallace

Human Papillomavirus; Viral Oncogenesis; DNA Damage Repair

Ruth Welti

Developing and implementing mass-spectrometry-based lipid profiling strategies to understand the roles of particular lipids, as well as genes and proteins involved in lipid metabolism and lipid signaling.

Anna Zolkiewska

Cell adhesion molecules and their role in cell growth and differentiation.

Michal Zolkiewski

Protein structure and function, protein folding and aggregation, molecular chaperones and cellular stress.