Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics

Category: All Research

All Research

All Research / Niemi Lab

Spotlight on Research – Niemi Lab

The Niemi Lab investigates how mitochondria are built, regulated, and maintained across physiological contexts. We blend biochemistry, systems biology, and physiology to understand mechanisms of mitochondrial regulation and how they influence metabolism and organellar function. Using insights gained from our molecular studies, we aim to understand how mitochondrial dysfunction contributes to mammalian pathophysiology, with the long-term goal of translating our discoveries into new therapeutic options to restore mitochondrial function in human disease.


Mechanisms of mitochondrial biogenesis, regulation, and turnover.

All Research / Marshall Lab

Spotlight on Research – Marshall Lab

The Marshall Lab performs a synergistic application of organic synthesis (solution- and solid-phase chemistry), enzymatic assays (electrophoretic mobility shift assays (EMSA) and surface plasmon resonance (SPR)), and computational chemistry techniques (homology modeling, molecular docking, molecular dynamics simulations, QSAR and 3D QSAR models) to rationally develop novel isoform-selective Lysine Deacetylases Inhibitors (KDACIs) as new therapeutics for the treatment of cancer, HIV-1, schistosomiasis and malaria.

All Research / Greenberg Lab

Spotlight on Research – Greenberg Lab

The Greenberg Lab focuses on how cytoskeletal motors function in both health and disease. Currently, the lab is studying mutations that cause familial cardiomyopathies, the leading cause of sudden cardiac death in people under 30 years old. The lab uses an array of biochemical, biophysical, and cell biological techniques to decipher how these mutations affect heart contraction from the level of single molecules to the level of engineered tissues. Insights into the disease pathogenesis will guide efforts to develop novel therapies.

All Research / Bowman Lab

Spotlight on Research – Bowman Lab

The Bowman Lab seeks to understand the distribution of different structures a protein adopts and how this ensemble determines a proteins function. Examples of ongoing research projects include 1) understanding how mutations in the enzyme beta-lactamase change its specificity without changing the protein’s crystal structure, 2) designing allosteric drugs, and 3) developing algorithms for quickly building models of the different structures a protein adopts.

All Research / Cooper Lab

Spotlight on Research – Cooper Lab

The Cooper Lab is interested in how the actin filaments in cells assemble and how that assembly controls cell shape and movement. One focus is an actin-binding protein called “capping protein,” which caps one end of the actin filament. Capping protein is in turn regulated by intrinsically disordered regions of the CARMIL family of proteins, which exhibit positive linkage in their binding interactions.

All Research / Galburt Lab

Spotlight on Research – Galburt Lab

The Galburt Lab strives to understand the physical mechanisms of transcription initiation and other important DNA-protein interactions. More specifically, we use a variety of single-molecule and ensemble biophysical techniques including both optical and magnetic tweezers and fluorescent microscopy to investigate how the assembly of initiation complexes on gene promoters leads to DNA unwinding and transcription. Our work is currently focused on the mechanisms of basal transcription initiation in Eukaryotes and on factor-regulated transcription in Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

All Research / Burgers Lab

Spotlight on Research – Burgers Lab

The Burgers Lab studies DNA replication and DNA damage response in eukaryotic cells. Using yeast as a model organism, the lab integrates the biochemical analysis of DNA-protein interactions in purified model systems with the genetic analysis of targeted yeast mutants. Specific areas of interest are lagging strand DNA replication and Okazaki fragment maturation, damage induced mutagenesis, and DNA damage cell cycle checkpoints.


DNA replication fork and Okazaki fragment maturation

All Research / Lohman Lab

Spotlight on Research – Lohman Lab

Research in the Lohman Lab focuses on obtaining a molecular understanding of the mechanisms of protein-nucleic acid interactions involved in DNA metabolism, in particular, DNA motor proteins (helicases/translocases) and single stranded DNA binding proteins. Thermodynamic, kinetic, structural and single molecule approaches are used to probe these interactions at the molecular level.