Home | Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics | Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Welcome to the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics

As one of the first departments of Biochemistry and Biophysics in the nation, we are proud of our strong tradition of combining cutting-edge technology with impactful biology. We continue to leverage this interdisciplinary approach to yield break-through discoveries in biomedicine.

Our faculty of over 30 primary and secondary members cover a broad range of research areas, with particular strengths in structural biology, chemical biology, gene regulation and protein folding.

We are also the proud home of the Eldridge Reeves Johnson Research Foundation which offers advanced physical instrumentation and instruction to researchers across campus.

We are actively growing, with several recent hires, and our faculty are broadly engaged across campus with many joint appointments in other departments, institutes and centers.

We welcome you to learn more about our department in the following pages or contact us.

Titan Krios...
Installation Phase One

News & Publications

Englander and Shorter in PNAS
March 2019
Walter Englander and Jim Shorter labs team up to use HX to determine dynamic behavior of Hsp104
Marmorstein Lab in JBC
March 2019
ATP-citrate lyase multimerization is required for coenzyme-A substrate binding and catalysis
Garcia Lab in JBC
March 2019
SILAC and LCMS/MS reveal that phosphorylation of proteins by the kinases PKC, CDK, and MAPK promote myogenic differentiation
Garcia Lab in Epigenetics & Chromatin
February 2019
Ben Garcia's lab uses time-resolved Mass Spec to map the network of protein changes during EMT

Seminars & Events

Friday Research Discussion | Shorter Lab
Friday, April 12, 2019 • 3:30 pm | JF Library, 2nd floor Anatomy Chemistry
Mining disaggregase sequence space for enhanced variants
Raiziss Seminar | Stephen, PhD
Thursday, April 18, 2019 • 12 noon | Austrian Auditorium, CRB
Dynamics of RNA polymerase II transcription
BMB Thesis Defense | Ismail Ahmed
Monday, April 22, 2019 • 3:00 pm | Lynch Lecture Hall, Chemistry Bldg
The development of unnatural amino acid-based probes and methods for biological studies
BMB Thesis Defense | Enrique Lin Shiao
Wednesday, April 24, 2019 • 1:00 | Law Auditorium, JMEC
Establishment and regulation of epithelial enhancers by p63

Faculty Spotlight

Jeremy Wilusz, PhD

The Wilusz lab aims to reveal new insights into how RNAs are generated, regulated, and function. By combining high-throughput approaches with detailed biochemical studies, the laboratory has revealed new mechanisms controlling transcription, pre-mRNA processing, and translation of many protein-coding genes. Ongoing efforts are focused on circular RNAs, which have covalently linked ends, and a novel role for the Integrator complex in transcription termination. Congratulations to two postdoctoral fellows in the Wilusz lab who have successfully obtained NIH Pathway to Independence (K99/R00) Awards in the past year!