| Faculty | Department | Research interests |
|---|---|---|
| Kate Adamala | Molecular, Cellular, Developmental Biology, and Genetics | We are combining top-down and bottom-up approaches to synthetic biology; we use tools of protein engineering and molecular biology, together with novel synthetic cell technologies, to understand and modulate biological processes in complex systems. |
| Hideki Aihara | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | DNA rearrangement systems relevant to human health |
| Emilyn Alejandro | Integrative Biology and Physiology | Roles of nutrient sensor proteins OGT and mTOR in pancreatic beta-cell function/development and placental regulation of fetal programming of obesity and type 2 diabetes. |
| Grant Anderson | Pharmacy Practice and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the Dulth campus | Thyroid Hormone, Brain Development, Blood Brain Barrier, Drug Transport and Metabolism, Lipid Metabolism |
| Edgar A. Arriaga | Chemistry | Explore and characterize organelles to elucidate the complexities of biological systems and to address current biomedical problems |
| David A. Bernlohr | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | Adipose Biology and Obesity Linked Insulin Resistance, Oxidative Stress and Mitochondrial Function, Adipokine Biology and Insulin Resistance |
| Daniel R. Bond | Microbiology and Immunology | Bacteria can transfer electrons to metals and other organisms, powering global geochemical cycles and industrial processes. Microbial electrochemical technologies harness this ability, using electrodes as electron sources and sinks for metabolism. We aim to discover conductive pathways at the core of this electron flow, and understand how organisms sense redox conditions that require different electrical pathways. |
| Christina Camell | Immune-metabolic interactions | Cellular and molecular changes within tissue resident immune cells that drive metabolic imapirments in tissues. |
| Erin Carlson | Chemistry | The Carlson lab is pursuing the discovery of the master regulators of bacterial growth and communication and ultimately, the identification of new antibiotics through the application of diverse tools at the interface of chemistry and biology. |
| Clay Carter | Plant Biology | Plant-microbe and plant-animal interactions, protein trafficking in plant cells |
| Yue Chen | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | Functional proteomics and protein posttranslational modification networks in diseases. |
| Benjamin Clarke | Biomedical Sciences at the Duluth campus | Immunoendocrinology, with an emphasis on the role of neuroendocrine peptide hormones as autocrine regulators of immune function |
| Robert Cormier | Biomedical Sciences at the Duluth campus | Identification and characterization of susceptibility genes for colorectal cancer including analysis of both human cancer tissues and mouse models of colorectal cancer (CRC) |
| Naomi Courtemanche | Molecular, Cellular, Developmental Biology, and Genetics | Structure, assembly and dynamics of actin-based cytoskeletal network |
| Peter Crawford | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | Obesity and cardiovascular disease are among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Our research focuses on the interplay between intermediary metabolism and these disease processes. |
| Scott Dehm | Laboratory Medicine and Pathology | Role of the androgen receptor (AR) and alterations in AR signaling in prostate cancer development and progression |
| Lester R. Drewes | Biomedical Sciences at the Duluth campus | Molecular characterization of the blood-brain barrier/neurovascular unit with an emphasis on nutrient and drug transport in health and disease. |
| Mikael Elias | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | Cellular phosphate uptake and bacterial virulence, chemical bonds to phenotypes, Molecular engineering of enzymes and biotechnological applications |
| Aaron Engelhart | Molecular, Cellular, Developmental Biology, and Genetics | The research in the Engelhart laboratory is directed towards better understanding nucleic acid folding and function in order to advance two broad themes: 1) the development of novel nucleic acid-based imaging, analytical, and diagnostic technologies and 2) the elucidation of unanticipated roles for nucleic acids in vivo. |
| James M. Ervasti | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | Define the function of dystrophin in striated muscle to understand how its absence or abnormality leads to the pathologies observed in Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophies |
| Tanya Freedman | Pharmacology | Immune-cell signaling, including kinase-mediated feedback regulation of macrophages and other myeloid cells |
| Michael Freeman | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | Natural product biosynthesis, Microbial genetics, Targeted metagenomics |
| Melissa Gardner | Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development | Biophysical Studies of Mitotic Microtubule Dynamics and Spindle Function |
| Aaron Goldstrohm | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | Principles and mechanisms that control expression of genes |
| Wendy Gordon | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | How cell surface receptors convert signals from extracellular stimuli like mechanical force into a biological response |
| Jeffrey Gralnick | Microbiology | Understanding the physiology ofShewanella, a species of gram-negative bacteria found throughout the world in aquatic environments |
| Timothy J. Griffin | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | Development and application of mass spectrometry-based tools to study proteins and proteomes |
| Susan Hafenstein | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | An expert in cryoEM, utilizing local reconstruction approaches to solve atomic resolution maps of viruses |
| Daniel Harki | Medicinal Chemistry | Design, synthesis and biophysical characterization of small molecules that influence cellular function |
| Thomas Hays | Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development | Applying genetic, molecular and biochemical approaches in Drosophila to study the molecular regulation of motor proteins and intercellular transport |
| Anne Hinderliter | Chemistry and Biochemistry at the Duluth campus | Membrane-localized phenomena |
| Fumiaki Katagiri | Plant Biology | Plant immune network |
| Romas J. Kazlauskas | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | Protein engineering for biocatalysis |
| Do-Hyung Kim | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | Biological networks that coordinate metabolism and growth |
| Ryan A. Langlois | Microbiology and Immunology | Immunity to influenza virus infections |
| Michael Latham | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | Our research program focuses on understanding the interplay of protein structure, dynamics, and function, particularly in large macromolecular assemblies. Our current emphasis is the characterization of an essential protein complex that recognizes double-strand breaks in our DNA. |
| Nicholas Levinson | Pharmacology | How protein-protein interactions induce conformational changes at a distance, a phenomenon termed allostery |
| Fang Li | Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences | Structural and molecular basis of human diseases including virus infections and cancer |
| Hinh Ly | Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences | Molecular mechanisms of Lassa fever virus replication and host immune suppression |
| Louis Mansky | Microbiology and Immunology | Cell and molecular biology of HIV and HTLV; Antiviral drug target identification; Antiviral drug resistance; HIV genetic variation, evolution and population genetics; Viral quasispecies; Virus assembly; Evolution of emerging viruses; Paleovirology |
| Douglas Mashek | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | Characterizing the alterations in metabolism that define diseases such as fatty liver disease and Type 2 Diabetes |
| Kevin H. Mayo | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | Structural biology is aimed at understanding cell adhesion at the molecular level where protein-protein and protein-carbohydrate interactions ae critical |
| Luiza Mendonça | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | My research interests lie at the intersection of virology, structural biology and cellular biology. In particular, I am an expert in RNA viruses (such as HIV-1 and SARS-CoV-2), cryoelectron microscopy and tomography (cryoEM/ET), cellular cryoET, correlative light and electron microscopy (CLEM) and multimodal imaging approaches. |
| Joseph M. Metzger | Integrative Biology and Physiology | Integrative systems biology of cardiovascular function; Cardiac gene therapy; Transgenic models of heart disease; Molecular mechanisms of sarcomere function; Human iPS cell cardiac myocytes |
| Sharon E. Murphy | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | Metabolism of nicotine and nitrosamines, characterize the enzymes involved in nicotine metabolism |
| Chad Myers | Computer Science and Engineering | Bioinformatics and Computational Biology |
| Hai Dang Nguyen | Pharmacology | Our lab focuses on two main areas: 1) developing tools and assays to dissect the crosstalk between RNA biology and DNA damage response in normal and cancer cells, and 2) developing new therapeutic strategies to target cancers harboring RNA splicing factor mutations. |
| Laura Niedernhofer | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | My research is focused on discovering fundamental mechanisms that drive aging and age-related diseases. In particular, we are interested in determining how spontaneous endogenous DNA damage contributes to aging. We use transgenic mice, primary cells and patients with rare genome instability disorders to study senescence and aging. |
| Laurie Parker | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | Assay development for post-translational modifications (PTMs), with a focus on protein phosphorylation by tyrosine kinases |
| William C. Pomerantz | Chemistry | Research in our group focuses on modulating protein-protein interactions through the use of small molecules and bio-inspired peptide scaffolds. By controlling such processes using synthetic molecules that we make in the laboratory, we seek to develop new chemical probes for understanding the underlying biology of protein-protein interactions in disease and ultimately novel therapeutics. |
| Juan Carlos Rivera-Mulia | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | Research in our lab is focused in understanding the mechanisms that control the genome organization and function during development, as well as their alterations in human diseases. We are exploiting differentiation protocols of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) derived from patients to model disease progression and genomic technologies to characterize nuclear organization |
| Paul Robbins | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | |
| Daniel Schmidt | Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development | Invents and applies protein engineering technologies to study fundamental functional principles of natural and artificial living systems at a cellular level |
| Claudia Schmidt-Dannert | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics |
Synthetic biology, biosynthetic pathway/enzyme engineering and discovery, cell-free biosynthesis/biocatalysis, design of protein-based nanoarchitectures. |
| Burckhard Seelig | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | Synthetic biology – artificial proteins – origin of life: We generate novel enzymes for synthetic biology and biomedical applications. We study the origin and evolution of functional proteins. We investigate the history of the genetic code. |
| Michael Sheedlo | Pharmacology | Research in the Sheedlo lab is focused on defining the mechanisms that govern interactions at the host-pathogen interface. Specifically, we are interested in using structural biology (cryo-electron microscopy and X-ray crystallography) to obtain a framework that we can then probe in a physiologically relevant context. |
| Sivaraj (Shiv) Sivaramakrishnan | Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development | Our lab at the University of Minnesota is focused on engineering protein interactions in vitro, in live cells, and in whole organisms, in order to bridge the gap between our structural understanding of proteins and their emergent cellular function. |
| Michael Smanski | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | Natural products discovery in the post-genomics era, Precision engineering of diverse bacterial species |
| David D. Thomas | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | Fundamental molecular motions and interactions that are responsible for cellular movement, to determine the molecular bases of muscle disorders, and to devise novel therapies based on these discoveries |
| Stefani Thomas | Laboratory Medicine and Pathology | The Thomas lab applies mass spectrometry-based proteomics methods to elucidate the biology of ovarian cancer. Protein function is studied in the context of altered pathways that contribute to disease pathogenesis and treatment response |
| Margaret Titus | Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development | Understand how the actin cytoskeleton and its associated motors, myosins, and actin binding proteins that link the cytoskeleton to adhesion receptors are used to generate amoeboid motility and how cells interpret extracellular cues to move directionally |
| Natalia Tretyakova | Medicinal Chemistry | Investigate the structural basis for carcinogenic and anticancer activity of DNA- and protein-modifying agents |
| Thu Truong | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | My laboratory research is focused in the areas of cancer stem cells and cancer metabolism. Our current objectives are focused on defining how steroid receptors (e.g., estrogen receptor [ER], progesterone receptor [PR]) and their associated co-activators mediate the survival and expansion of breast CSCs with emphasis on altered signaling pathways and metabolic reprogramming. |
| Lawrence P. Wackett | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | Enzyme transformations for biotechnological applications |
| Kendall B. Wallace | Biomedical Sciences at the Duluth campus | Mechanisms by which foreign chemicals, including drugs and industrial and environmental pollutants, interfere with mitochondrial metabolism and genetics to bring about various metabolic diseases |
| Carrie M. Wilmot | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | Understand the mechanisms of post-translational modification required for protein enzyme activity |
| Jeongsik Yong | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | Function of RNA-binding proteins and non-coding RNAs in post transcriptional gene regulation mechanisms |
| Lei Zhang | Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics | The general interest of the Zhang Laboratory focuses on genome and epigenome instability in aging and longevity applying single-cell multi-omics technologies. |