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.
Spotlight
Welcoming Squire Booker, PhD
We are thrilled that Squire Booker, Ph.D. will be joining the Departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Biophysics as a Penn-Integrates-Knowledge (PIK) Professor in January 2025. Squire is a world-renowned enzymologist who studies natural product biosynthesis and the use of iron-sulfur clusters in enzyme catalysis. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, an HHMI Investigator, and a dedicated mentor who has won many awards for his contributions to science and the scientific community. We are excited for the impact Squire will have in building more connections between Chemistry and the School of Medicine, and in enhancing our expertise in enzymology.
News & Publications
-
Gupta, Petersson, and Kohli Labs in Nat Struct Mol Biol
Tuesday, October 1, 2024
New collaborative paper from the Gupta, Petersson, and Kohli Labs "The LexA-RecA* structure reveals a cryptic lock-and-key mechanism for SOS activation"
-
Marmorstein Lab in Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
Tuesday, October 8, 2024
New collaborative paper from the Marmorstein Lab, "Engineering substrate channeling in a bifunctional terpene synthase"
-
Sgourakis Lab in Cell Chem Biol
Friday, October 25, 2024
New paper from the Sgourakis Lab, "Dynamic sampling of a surveillance state enables DNA proofreading by Cas9"
Seminars & Events
-
Raiziss Rounds Seminars
Thursday, September 19, 2024
Thursday, December 19, 2024
Our Fall 2024 Raiziss Rounds Seminar Series will begin on September 19th and will continue on Thursdays at 12:00 noon until December 19th. The full seminar schedule can be found on our Raiziss Rounds page.
-
Friday Research Discussions
Friday, September 13, 2024
Friday, November 22, 2024
4:00pm
Friday Research Discussions occur every Friday at 4:00pm in the JF Library. View the full schedule for the semester here.