Participating Faculty

Training Faculty

Name	Research Interests	Mentor Training
Tobias Baumgart, Ph.D. Chemistry/Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering	Thermodynamics and mechanics of membrane curvature sensing and generation	Completed
Kara Bernstein, Ph.D. Biochemistry/Biophysics	DNA damage, repair, and tumorigenesis	Completed
Ben E. Black, Ph.D. Biochemistry and Biophysics	Chromosome segregation; chromatin structure; epigenetic centromere specification; hydrogen/deuterium exchange	Completed
Gerd Blobel, Ph.D. Pediatrics	Higher order chromatin structure, gene expression, epigenetics, globin genes, sickle cell disease, therapeutics	Completed
Greg Bowman, Ph.D. Bioengineering/Biochemistry and Biophysics	Protein folding, structure and dynamics, simulations	Completed
Lukasz Bugaj, Ph.D. Bioengineering	How cells perceive molecular signals by using synthetic biology and optogenetics to stimulate and observe signals with high precision	Completed
George Burslem, Ph.D. Biochemistry and Biophysics	Chemical biology of lysine post-translational modifications	Completed
Yi-Wei Chang, Ph.D. Biochemistry and Biophysics	Structural cell biology through cryo-electron tomography	Completed
David M. Chenoweth, Ph.D. Chemistry	Development and application of synthetic methods for creating molecules that mimic or interact with biomolecules.	Completed
David W. Christianson, Ph.D. Psychiatry	Protein crystallography; metalloenzymes; enzymes of terpenoid and steroid biosynthesis	Completed
Cesar de la Fuente, Ph.D. Chemistry	To use the power of machines to accelerate discoveries in biology and medicine	Completed
Roberto Dominguez, Ph.D. Physiology	Structural biology & biophysics of proteins that regulate actin cytoskeleton and membrane dynamics	Completed
Mark D. Goulian, Ph.D. Biology/Physics	Two-component signaling, bacterial regulatory circuits	Completed
Jina Ko, Ph.D. Bioengineering	Develop novel technologies using bioengineering, molecular biology, and chemistry tools to address currently intractable diagnostic challenges for precision medicine	Completed
Rahul Kohli, M.D., Ph.D. Medicine	Enzymatic basis for diversity in the immune system and pathogens; enzyme mechanisms, chemical biology, protein evolution	Completed
Melike Lakadamyali, Ph.D. Physiology	Super-resolution microscopy; spatiotemporal organization and regulation of these macromolecular complexes	Completed
Bomyi Lim, Ph.D. Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering	Regulation of chemical kinetics in biological systems, especially in understanding how inherently stochastic gene expression dynamics are "tamed" to produce reliable cellular outcomes.	Completed
Kathy (Fange) Liu, Ph.D. Biochemistry and Biophysics	RNA Modifications: functions, mechanisms, and relationships to metabolic syndromes	In Progress
Kristen W. Lynch, Ph.D. Biochemistry and Biophysics	Biochemical, structural, and biophysical basis of regulation of RNA processing	Completed
Ronen Marmorstein, Ph.D. Biochemistry and Biophysics	X-ray crystallography, epigenetics, tumor suppressors, oncoproteins, kinases, aging, structure-based inhibitor design	Completed
Megan L. Matthews, Ph.D. Chemistry	Uniting enzymology and chemical biology to develop novel chemical proteomics technologies	Completed
Mustafa Mir, Ph.D. Cell and Developmental Biology	Imaging, single molecule dynamics of gene expression	Completed
Vera Moiseenkova-Bell, Ph.D. Pharmacology/Biochemistry and Biophysics	My program has two main areas of research. First is to determine the structural basis of TRP channel activation, inhibition, and desensitization mechanisms by utilizing cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM); Second is to understand how TRP channels regulate cellular functions and the role of their dysregulation in human disease.	Completed
Kenji Murakami, Ph.D. Biochemistry and Biophysics	Transcription initiation and regulation in eukaryotes; electron microscopy	Completed
Michael Ostap, Ph.D. Physiology	Molecular mechanisms of cell motility	Completed
Jesper Pallesen, Ph.D. Wistar Institute, Vaccine & Immunotherapy Center	Cryo-electron microscopy of bio-molecular protein complexes relating to infectious disease and immunobiology	In Progress
Amish J. Patel, Ph.D. Pharmacology	Molecular simulation and thermodynamics; Soft matter and complex fluids	In Progress
Trevor M. Penning, Ph.D. Pharmacology	Structure-function of aldo-keto reductases; role in steroid hormone action and chemical carcinogenesis	Completed
E. James Petersson, Ph.D. Chemistry	Development of methods for protein labeling by semi-synthesis, application to the study of folding and proteolysis	Completed
Ravi Radhakrishnan, Ph.D. Bioengineering/Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering	Computational structural biology and systems biology; cell membrane mediated trafficking; targeted drug delivery; cancer signaling	Completed
Ravinder Reddy, Ph.D. Radiology	Sodium and oxygen-17 MR methods; multiple quantum and polarization transfer MR techniques	In Progress
Elizabeth Rhoades, Ph.D. Chemistry	Single-molecule fluorescence characterization of conformational ensembles of proteins states in vitro and in cells	Completed
Jeffery G. Saven, Ph.D. Chemistry	Theory, simulation, and design of proteins and molecular systems	Completed
Mark Sellmyer, M.D., PhD Radiology	Molecular imagine, chemical biology, synthetic biology	Completed
Nikolaos G. Sgourakis, Ph.D. Biochemistry and Biophysics	Dr. Sgourakis’ research focuses on understanding the intricate molecular mechanisms that determine the vast repertoire of peptide antigens displayed by the proteins of the Major Histocompatibility Complex for immune surveillance by T cells and Natural Killer cells.	Completed
Kim A. Sharp, Ph.D. Biochemistry and Biophysics	Theory of protein and nucleic acid structure and function	Completed
Yihui Shen, Ph.D. Bioengineering	Raman spectroscopy and imaging, metabolomics and metabolic flux analysis, tumor metabolism	Completed
James Shorter, Ph.D. Biochemistry and Biophysics	Regulation of beneficial or neuropathogenic prions and amyloids by protein-remodeling factors, molecular chaperones, and small molecules	Completed
Cornelius Taabazuing, Ph.D. Biochemistry and Biophysics	Innate Immunity. Molecular mechanisms of cell death	Completed
Blanton Tolbert, Ph.D. Biochemistry and Biophysics	Biochemical mechanisms of RNA virus replication	Completed
Gregory D. Van Duyne, Ph.D. Biochemistry and Biophysics	Structural biology; protein-protein interactions; X-ray crystallography	Completed
Sergei A. Vinogradov, Ph.D. Biochemistry and Biophysics	Functional macromolecules, optical imaging probes, porphyrin chemistry, dendrimer chemistry, oxygen microscopy, and tomography	In Progress
Felix W. Wehrli, Ph.D. Radiology	MRI studies of architecture, physiology, and function of tissues	Completed
Lijun Zhou, Ph.D. Biochemistry and Biophysics	RNA enzymology in lipid membranes, non-natural RNA chemistry and the interaction of RNA with lipids and proteins	Completed

*denotes membership in Training Grant Executive Committee
FCCC = Fox Chase Cancer Center (Penn affiliate)
PSOM = Perelman School of Medicine
SAS = School of Arts & Sciences
SEAS = School of Engineering and Applied Sciences