CBI Scholars
Current Scholars
Solongo Batjargal
Advisor: James Petersson
I am developing strategies to incorporate thioamides, which can be used as fluorescence quenchers, into proteins to study conformational changes.
Joel Courter
Advisor: Amos Smith
HIV-1 entry inhibitors and Ultrafast Photochemical Triggers as probes of peptide dynamics are being designed, synthesized and biologically evaluated.
Mark Fegley
Advisor: James Petersson
Design of a universal synthetase through the synthesis and design of charged adenosine analogs that are capable of binding to a modified tRNA synthetase enzyme and capable of aminoacylation of tRNA.
Ian Farrell
Advisor: Barry Cooperman
Time resolved fluorescent measurements are used to study tRNA movement on the bacterial ribosome.
Kyle Harpole
Advisor: Josh Wand
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance methodologies are being used to probe the role of conformational entropy on protein interactions with small molecules.
Yu-San Houh
Advisor: Kate Ferguson
Biochemical and structural techniques are being employed to determine the molecular basis for substrate recognition by the E3 ubiquitin ligase Pellino.
Tomoyasu Mani
Advisor: Sergei Vinogradov
Photophysical and photochemical methods are being employed to design and develop advanced probes for optical imaging.
Mark Mason
First year student
Brittani Ruble
Advisor: Ivan Dmochowski
Synthetic nucleic acid chemistry is being applied to develop probes to turn target genes on and off with light.
Kate Smith
Advisor: Feng Gai
Single-molecule and ensemble fluorescence techniques are being developed and applied to investigate the dynamics and mechanism of protein folding and interaction.
Lee Speight
Advisor: James Petersson
My research currently focuses on the synthesis of acridonylalanine (Acd), a fluorescent amino acid, and derivatives, as well as the use of mutant tRNA aminoacyl synthetases to allow for in vivo incorporation of this fluorophore into proteins.
Liz Sweeny
Advisor: Jim Shorter
Biophysical and chemical methodologies are being used to probe the protein folding and disaggregration properties of the heat shock protein HSP104.
Zhengyi (Neo) Wu
First year student
Graduated Scholars
Brian Frederick
Advisor: Alan Diehl
Identifying a mechanistic explanation for PERK-mediated cell survival and motility in response to ER stress and the tumor microenvironment using biochemistry and molecular cell biology.
Patrick Lombardi
Advisor: David Christianson
Chemical and structural approaches are being used to understand the molecular basis for the unique substrate specificity of acetylpolyamine amidhydrolase amongst the Arginase-class I/II deactylase related family of enzymes.
Kate Thorn
Advisor: David Christianson
Synthetic organic chemistry and structural biology is being combined to develop potent and selective Arginase I inhibitors.
Renee Carrington
Advisor: Greg Vanduyne
Biochemical and biophysical analysis is being carried out to characterize the function of the conserved YG box of the spinal muscular atrophy-determining gene, SMN.
Bryan Gibb
Advisor: Greg Vanduyne
Chemical probes, biochemistry and structural biology is being used to investigate the mechanism of catalysis by Cre recombinase.
Andre Isaacs
Advisor: Jeff Winkler
Alkaloid Cyclopamine analogue inhibitors of the Hedgehog signaling pathway are being designed, synthesized and evaluated in cells.
Michelle Kinder
Advisor: Ellen Puré
Biochemistry and cell biological techniques are being employed to study the role of fatty acid metabolism and hematopoiesis.
Kim Malecka
Advisor: Ronen Marmorstein
Small molecule screens for inhibitors of human Papillomavirus E6 protein is being carried out and these inhibitors are being evaluated in vitro and in cells.
Julie Norseen
Advisor: Paul Lieberman
The role of the G-quadruplex RNA binding motif of EBNA1 protein in the mechanism of EBV DNA replication and maintenance during latency is being studied using small molecule probes.
Garry Seward
Advisor: Ivan Dmochowski
Synthetic chemistry and biochemistry is being applied to develop xenon biosensors for cancer diagnostics.
Jun Wang
Advisor: Bill Degrado
Novel influenza A virus M2 proton channel inhibitors are being designed, synthesized, screened and structurally characterized.
