Welcome to the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics

Chair

Vice Chair
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
- Congratulations to Yale Goldman
April 2022
Dr. Goldman was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences - Congratulations to Kenji Murakami
April 2022
for his new NSF and renewed NIH R01 to study the structure and function of enzymes in transcription and DNA repair - Moiseenkova-Bell Lab in Cell Reports
April 2022
Structural basis of TRPV5 regulation by physiological and pathophysiological modulators - Congratulations to Kathy Liu
April 2022
for her new grant from the ACS to study RNA helicases in leukemia
Seminars & Events
- Friday Research Discussions | David Issadore Lab
Fri, May 6, 2022 • 4:00 pm | Virtual on Bluejeans
Micro and Nano Device Engineering to Revolutionize Medical Diagnostics - Raiziss Rounds Seminar | Morgan DeSanits, PhD
Thurs, May 12, 2022 • 12 noon | Austrian Auditorium, CRB, and virtual on Bluejeans
Linking cytoplasmic dynein-1 regulation to discrete cellular events
Faculty Spotlight
Elizabeth Rhoades, PhD
Elizabeth Rhoades is a professor in the Department of Chemistry with a secondary appointment in Biochemistry & Biophysics, as well as co-PI of the Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics Training Grant. Research in her lab focuses on determining functional mechanisms of intrinsically disordered proteins, with a particular interest in two proteins involved in neurodegenerative disorders, alpha-synuclein and tau. The lab uses a variety of biophysical and cell biological approaches, with special expertise in single molecule fluorescence. Recent efforts from the lab have focused on identifying cellular binding partners of alpha-synuclein (publication) and determining molecular mechanisms of tau-mediated polymerization of tubulin (publication).