Research

Our faculty members are from numerous departments such as Biochemistry, Chemistry, Biology, Medicinal Chemistry, Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Neurobiology and Anatomy, Oncological Sciences, Pharmacology and Toxicology.

Faculty

Featured

Markus Babst, Ph.D.

Professor

School of Biological Sciences

Protein Trafficking

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Kuby Balagurunathan, Ph.D.

Professor

Medicinal Chemistry

Glycobiology, Glycomedicine, and Carbohydrate Biosynthesis, Chemical Biology of Heparan Sulfate Proteoglycan

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Vahe Bandarian, Ph.D.

Professor

Chemistry

Molecular understanding of biosynthesis of complex natural products

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Amy Barrios, Ph.D.

Professor

Medicinal Chemistry

Metals in Medicine; Probes of Tyrosine Phosphorylation

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Lou Barrows, Ph.D.

Professor

Pharmacology and Toxicology

Natural products drug discovery, anti-cancer and anti-infective agents

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Brenda Bass, Ph.D.

Professor

Biochemistry

Double-Stranded RNA, RNA Editing, RNA Interference

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David Blair, Ph.D.

Professor

School of Biological Sciences

Bacterial Motility

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Mark Bortolato, M.D., Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Pharmacology and Toxicology

Neuropharmacology/neurobiology, with an emphasis on drug development for neurodevelopmental disorders

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Jessica Brown, Ph.D.

Asst. Professor

Pathology (MB)

Pathogenesis, fungal genetics, host-pathogen interaction

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Beth Buck-Koehntop, Ph.D.

Asst. Professor

Chemistry

Biomolecular NMR and Epigenetics

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Grzegorz (Greg) Bulaj, Ph.d

Associate Professor

Medicinal Chemistry

Molecular-Behavioral Combination Therapies; Epilepsy; Cancer; Digital Health; Mobile Medical Apps

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Cynthia Burrows, Ph.D.

Professor

Chemistry

Nucleic Acid Chemistry

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Brad Cairns, Ph.D.

Professor and Chair

Oncological Sciences

Chromatin Transcription, Genomics, Gene Expression

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Erhu Cao, Ph.D.

Asst. Professor

Biochemistry

Ion channels, receptors, structural biology, and cryo-EM

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Demián Cazalla, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Biochemistry

Functions and Mechanisms of Non-Coding RNAs

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Dipayan Chaudhuri, M.D., Ph.D

Assistant Professor

Internal Medicine

Mitochondria, heart failure, ion channels, calcium channels, mitochondrial diseases, voltage-clamp electrophysiology, metabolism, calcium imaging, mitochondrial calcium uniporter

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Tom Cheatham, Ph.D.

Professor

Medicinal Chemistry

Biomolecular Simulation/ Computational Chemistry

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Mingnan Chen, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Chemistry

Peptides, host immune systems, peptide materials

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Danny Chou, Ph.D.

Asst. Professor

Biochemistry

Diabetes, Insulin, Peptide and Protein Therapeutics, Chemical Biology

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Darrell Davis, Ph.D.

Professor and Chair

Medicinal Chemistry

RNA Structure/Function

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Katharine Diehl, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Medicinal Chemistry

Chromatin and histone modifications, Epigenetics and metabolism, Protein chemistry, Metabolite sensors

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Gregory Ducker, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Biochemistry

Cancer Metabolism, Mass Spectrometry, Antimetabolites, Chemical Biology, Mitochondria, Tetrahydrofolates

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Tim Formosa, Ph.D.

Professor

Biochemistry

Chromatin in DNA Replication

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Sarah Franklin, Ph.D.

Asst. Professor

Internal Medicine / Biochemistry

Chromatin, Chromatin Remodeling, Epigenetics, Proteomics

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Raphael Franzini, Ph.D.

Asst. Professor

Medicinal Chemistry

Drug development, chemical probes, imaging agents

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Hamid Ghandehari, Ph.D.

Professor

Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Chemistry

Nanomedicine and Drug Delivery

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David Grainger, Ph.D.

Professor

Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Chemistry

Biomaterials and Drug Delivery

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Barbara Graves, Ph.D.

Professor

Oncological Sciences

Transcriptional Regulation, Transcription Mechanisms, Protein Biochemistry, autoinhibition and specificity of ETS transcription factors

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Ming Hammond, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Chemistry

Biosensors, RNA, Fluorescence Imaging, Bacterial and Immune Cell Signaling

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Chris Hill, Phil.D.

Professor and Co-Chair

Biochemistry

Protein Structure & Function

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Featured

Martin Horvath, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

School of Biological Sciences

Structural Biology, X-Ray Crystallography

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Adam Hughes, Ph.D.

Asst. Professor

Biochemistry

Aging, metabolism, and organelle quality control

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Janet Iwasa, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Biochemistry

Molecular Animation, Multimedia, Visualization, Education, Cell Biology, Biochemistry

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Michael Kay, M.D., Ph.D.

Professor

Biochemistry

Protein Design, Viral Entry, and Synthetic Biology

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Kristen Keefe, Ph.D.

Professor

Pharmacology and Toxicology

Neuroscience, Neurological and neurophychiatric disorders basal ganglia, Neurobiology

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Matt Kieber-Emmons, Ph.D.

Asst. Professor

Chemistry

Metalloprotein mechanism, bioinspired catalysis, signaling

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Mei Koh, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Pharmacology and Toxicology

Solid tumor hyposia, kidney cancer, liver cancer, HIF-1 and HIF-2

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Jindřich Kopeček, Ph.D., Sc.D.

Professor

Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Chemistry

Biorecognition & Drug Delivery

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Jessica Kramer, Ph.D.

Asst. Prof

Bioengineering

Apply synthetic polypeptides to address unmet medical needs in the study and treatment of cancer, preservation of medical tissues, and delivery of therapeutic molecules.

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Carol Lim, Ph.D.

Professor

Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Chemistry

Novel Cancer Therapeutics, Steroid Hormone Receptors

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Ryan Looper, Ph.D.

Professor

Chemistry

Small Molecule Interactions in Biological Systems

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Martin McMahon, Ph.D.

Professor

Dermatology/Oncological Sciences

Translational Cancer Research, Mouse Models, Melanoma, Lung Cancer, Thyroid cancer, RAF Kinase, PI3 Kinase, Experimental Therapeutics

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Matthew Miller, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Biochemistry

Chromosome Segregation, Cell Division, Microtubules, Cell Biology, Biochemistry, Biophysics

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Ben Myers, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Oncological Sciences

Signaling across the membrane in development and cancer: Hedgehog, Wnt, primary cilium, membrane proteins / lipids, second messengers

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Shelley Minteer, Ph.D.

Professor

Chemistry

Bioelectrocatalysis, metabolic pathways

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"Toto" Baldomero Olivera, Ph.D.

Professor

Biology

Conotoxins; Molecular Neuroscience

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Shawn Owen, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Chemistry

Biotherapeutics, Biomaterials for cell-based therapy

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Randy Peterson, Ph.D.

Professor and Dean, College of Pharmacy

Pharmacology and Toxicology

Zebrafish, phenotypic screening, behavior, neuropharmacology, disease models, genome editing, therapeutics

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Aaron Puri, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Chemistry

Chemical ecology, drug discovery, microbiome, natural products, microbiology, biosynthesis, secondary metabolites

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Christopher Reilly, Ph.D.

Professor

Pharmacology and Toxicology

Pulmonary Toxicology, Drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics

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Andrew G. Roberts, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Chemistry

Chemical protein synthesis, peptides, organocatalysis, catalysis, natural products

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Minna Roh-Johnson, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Biochemistry

Cell Migration, Tumor Microenvironment, Cytoskeleton, Zebrafish, Mouse, Immunology, Breast Cancer, Melanoma

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Jared Rutter, Ph.D.

Professor

Biochemistry

Cancer metabolism, Diabetes & obesity, Metabolic signaling

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Saveez Saffarian, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Physics & Astronomy

Enveloped Virus Budding

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Amnon Schlegel, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Internal Medicine

Metabolism, type 2 diabetes mellitus, atherosclerosis, fat, cholesterol, glucose

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Eric Schmidt, Ph.D.

Professor

Medicinal Chemistry

Natural Products Chemistry/Biology

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Janet Shaw, Ph.D.

Professor

Biochemistry

Mitochondrial Dynamics and Disease

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Peter Shen, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Biochemistry

Protein Homeostasis, Protein Structure, cryo-EM, Image Processing, Protein quality control, Proteopathy, Protein Complexes

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Jason Shepherd, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Neurobiology and Anatomy

Synaptic plasticity, memory and neurological disorders, Memory Formation

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Paul Sigala, Ph.D.

Asst. Professor

Biochemistry

Malaria biochemistry and cell biology, heme metabolism, organelle function and adaptation

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Featured

Scott Summers, Ph.D.

Professor and Chair of Nutrition and Integrative Physiology

Diabetes, dyslipidemia, metabolic disease, sphingolipids, ceramide, insulin resistance and beta cell failure

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Wesley Sundquist, Ph.D.

Professor and Co-Chair

Biochemistry

Retrovirus Biochemistry, HIV Assembly, HIV Replication

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Jessica Swanson, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Chemistry

Research Interests

Thanh Truong, Ph.D.

Professor

Chemistry

Computer Modeling, Enzyme Mechanisms

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Michael Vershinin, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Physics & Astronomy

Molecular Motors, Biophysics

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Brian Welm, Ph.D.

Adjunct Associate Professor

Oncological Sciences

Breast Cancer/ Stem Cells

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Karen Wilcox, Ph.D.

Professor and Chair

Pharmacology and Toxicology

Anticonvulsant Drugs; inflammation; epilepsy

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Jaclyn Winter, Ph.D.

Asst. Professor

Medicinal Chemistry

Natural product biosynthesis, genetic engineering, biocatalysts, combinatorial biosynthesis

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Michael (Seungju) Yu

Professor

Biomedical Engineering

Drug delivery, Tissue engineering, Regenerative medicine, Biopolymers, Collagen, Peptide

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Ilya Zharov, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Chemistry

Nanoparticles for Drug Delivery, Organic and Biological Materials

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Xiaoyang Zhang, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Oncological Sciences

Cancer genomics, Cancer epigenetics, Genome/Epigenome editing, 3D chromatin structure

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