List of Participating Faculty

Natalie G. Ahn (Chemistry & Biochemistry and HHMI) Control of cellular signal transduction by phosphorylation; regulatory mechanisms of enzymes in the growth factor-regulated MAP kinase pathway; use of mass spectrometry and proteomics to identify intracellular targets of kinases; NMR structural studies of kinases

Kristi S. Anseth (Chemical & Biological Engineering and HHMI) Polymers, engineering of novel biomaterials, photopolymerization of biomaterials and medical applications, computer simulation

Robert Batey (Chemistry & Biochemistry) X-ray crystallographic studies of the structures and mechanisms of ribonucleoprotein enzymes and switches, including those involved in signal recognition during membrane targetting, in biogenesis of ribosomes, and in RNA regulation

Meridith Betterton (Physics) Mathematical modeling and computational analysis of biophysical problems, including the unwinding of DNA by helicases, and the physical properties of DNA tethers used in single molecule studies

Thomas R. Cech (Chemistry & Biochemistry and HHMI) Use of X-ray crystallography to understand the folding and catalytic function of ribozymes and other large RNA molecules; combinatorial (in vitro selection) approaches; kinetic and thermodynamic analysis

Noel A. Clark (Physics) Dynamics and materials properties of nucleic acids; use of nucleic acids in the development of new liquid crystal materials and switching devices

Shelley D. Copley (Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology) Microbial degradation of xenobiotic pollutants; evolution, mechanism, and quality of function of enzymes recruited to serve novel functions in a new metabolic pathways; physical organic chemistry of catalytic mechanisms; catalysis in biogenesis on early Earth

Niels H. Damrauer (Chemistry & Biochemistry; Physical Chemistry) Photochemical control of electron-transfer and multielectron chemistry using shaped light fields and molecular structure; use of laser spectroscopy to probe dynamics and electron transfer reactions in proteins

Joseph J. Falke (Chemistry & Biochemistry) Biophysical chemistry; in situ spectroscopic studies of membrane-bound signaling complexes; NMR, EPR and fluorescence; novel uses of site-directed sulfhydryl chemistry to probe membrane protein structure and dynamics; prokaryotic and eukaryotic chemotaxis pathways

Ryan T. Gill (Chemical &Biological Engineering) Systems biology and bioengineering including analysis and engineering of metabolic pathways, DNA array analysis of cellular pathways, development of optimized cellular systems for protein synthesis

James A. Goodrich (Chemistry & Biochemistry) Molecular mechanisms and kinetics of human mRNA transcription, transcriptional regulation, reconstitution and kinetic characterization of transcriptional complexes, FRET analysis of transcriptional complex structure and dynamics

Andreas Hoenger (Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology) Cryo-electron microscopy-based three-dimensional (3-D) reconstruction of large macromolecular assemblies and cellular structures, whenever possible within the context of an intact cell; microtubule structures, MAPS and molecular motors (Boulder Lab for 3-D Fine Structure)

James T. (Casey) Hynes (Chemistry & Biochemistry; Physical Chemistry) Microscopic theory and computer simulation of chemical reactions in enzyme active sites and in biological photoprocesses, focusing on proton, hydrogen atom, and hydride transfers

Ralph Jimenez (Chemistry & Biochemistry; Physical Chemistry) Protein dynamics, ultrafast laser spectroscopies for measuring dynamics on the femtosecond through nanosecond time scales, role of protein flexibility in immune system recognition

Rob Knight (Chemistry & Biochemistry) Development of new computational and experimental techniques to analyze the information contents, compositions and functions of biomolecules, genomes, and communities

Tad H. Koch (Chemistry & Biochemistry; Physical and Mechanistic Organic Chemistry) Photocrosslinking studies of protein-nucleic acid interactions; mechanistic studies of photo- and chemical crosslinking; design, synthesis and evaluation of drugs targeted to cancer

Robert D. Kuchta (Chemistry & Biochemistry) Mechanistic studies of DNA polymerase alpha-primase, including pre-steady state and steady state kinetics, atomic force microscopy, interactions with accessory proteins. Inhibition of protein and lipid glycosylation, including inhibitor design, receptor function, and carbohydrate analysis

Leslie A. Leinwand (Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology) Biophysical studies of motor protein performance; formation, function and dysfunction of skeletal and cardiac muscle; components of the sarcomere including myosin heavy chain and troponin T; mutations that cause heart disease

Charles S. McHenry (Chemistry & Biochemistry) Mechanism of DNA replication; the ATP-powered assembly of the replicase on DNA; mechanism of elongation and the coordination of the activities of the leading and lagging strand halves of the replicase with the helicase and other components present at the replication fork.

J. Richard McIntosh (Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology) Analysis of the structure, mechanism, and regulation of the chromosomal segregation machinery; molecular, cellular, and biophysical methods; use of electron microscopy to reconstruct organellar structure in 3 dimensions (Boulder Lab for 3-D Fine Structure)

David J. Nesbitt (Chemistry & Biochemistry; Physical Chemistry; JILA) Confocal far field microscopy of single protein molecules; single molecule kinetics of substrate-protein binding; high resolution scanning optical microscopy on subnanometer length scales; single molecule fluorescence, non-linear and Raman spectroscopies

Norman R. Pace (Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology) Structures and mechanisms of ribonuclear proteins and enzymes, including crystallographic analysis of RNP high resolution structure, and kinetic analysis of RNP enzymes

Amy Palmer (Chemistry & Biochemistry) Chemical biology, biosensor design, imaging of signal transduction pathways; development of novel FRET sensors and reporters; phage display, rational protein design, and peptide synthesis; spectroscopic and biophysical methods

Arthur Pardi (Chemistry & Biochemistry) Biophysical chemistry and NMR spectroscopy; high-resolution multi-dimensional NMR; structure and dynamics of biomolecules in solution; structural studies of RNA enzymes

Thomas T. Perkins (Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology, JILA) Single molecule analysis of biological motors using optical tweezers and single molecule spectroscopy, motor proteins involved in DNA unwinding, transcription and translation, state-of-the-art laser spectroscopy

Theodore W. Randolph (Chemical & Biological Engineering) Pressure effects on protein folding and unfolding; protein stability; protein-solvent interactions; processing and formulation of protein-based pharmaceutical products; spectroscopies including EPR, FTIR, circular dichroism, light scattering, and surface plasmon resonance

Tarek Sammakia (Chemistry & Biochemistry; Physical and Mechanistic Organic Chemistry) Mechanistic investigations of chemical and biochemical reactions that proceed with a high degree of selectivity; total synthesis of biologically active natural products; spectroscopic methods to analyze molecular structure

Marcelo Sousa (Chemistry & Biochemistry) X-ray crystallographic analysis of proteins and protein complexes; development of novel methods for high throughput protein cloning, expression, and purification; crystallographic of membrane signaling proteins

Michael H.B. Stowell (Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology) Electron and x-ray crystallographic structure analysis of proteins and larger protein complexes, architectural arrangement of signaling proteins and enzymes in macromolecular assemblies at the synapse, tomography and 3-D image reconstruction

Dylan J. Taatjes (Chemistry & Biochemistry) Structural and functional studies of large, multi-subunit complexes involved in gene regulation; cryo-electron microscopy; mediator complexes CRSP and ARC-L

Deborah Wuttke (Chemistry & Biochemistry) High-resolution, heteronuclear, multi-dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance studies of biomolecules and their complexes; use of NMR and biochemical methods to probe the relationship between three-dimensional structure and function in solution

Michael Yarus (Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology) Mechanisms of RNA binding and catalytic sites; selection-amplification to isolate new RNA activities; mechanism of translation, particularly the role of RNA