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.

News & Publications

Liu Lab in JBC
July 2020
Structural and Catalytic Roles of the Human 18S rRNA Methyltransferases DIMT1 in Ribosome Assembly and Translation
Shorter Lab in eLife
June 2020
Skd3 (human CLPB) is a potent mitochondrial protein disaggregase that is inactivated by 3-methylglutaconic aciduria-linked mutations
Collaborative paper between Murakami lab and Dominguez lab in Sci Adv
June 2020
Cryo-EM Structure of NPF-bound Human Arp2/3 Complex and Activation Mechanism
Lynch Lab in RNA
June 2020
Meta-Analysis of Transcriptomic Variation in T cell Populations Reveals both Variable and Consistent Signatures of Gene Expression and Splicing

Seminars & Events

Faculty Spotlight

Nicolai Doliba

Nicolai Doliba is a Research Associate Professor and Technical Director of the Islet Cell Biology Core, which serves academic and industry partners in the functional characterization of pancreatic islets as part of the Diabetes Research Center at Penn's Institute for Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism.

Dr. Doliba currently oversees the islet physiology arm of the Human Pancreas Analysis Program, the multi-institutional initiative to characterize the cellular and molecular events which lead to dysfunction in Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes. He develops bioenergetic methods to understand stimulus-secretion coupling and neuro-endocrine regulation, as well as their changes during diabetes mellitus. Together with his colleagues in the department, Dr. Doliba established the relationship between energy production and insulin secretion using novel phosphorescence methods for measuring oxygen consumption. In partnership with Hua Medicine, Dr. Doliba is studying the reparative effects of dorzagliatin, a novel antidiabetic drug that is currently in phase III clinical trials