Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics

Category: All Research

All Research

Adhikari Lab / All Research

Spotlight on Research – Adhikari Lab

The Adhikari Lab focuses on interrogating RAS oncoprotein signaling networks through the lens of interactomes in cancer, based on an innovative functional proteomics platform combining proximity labeling technology coupled to CRISPR/Cas9 screening. We employ a multifaceted approach by leveraging biochemistry, cell signaling, proteomics, genomics into a range of experimental systems including cell culture, three-dimensional organoids and genetically engineered mouse models. The overarching goal of our laboratory is to elucidate mechanistic underpinnings of reprogramming of oncoprotein signaling networks in space and time to transduce aberrant signaling and promote cancer initiation and tumorigenesis, as a discovery point to reveal new actionable targets that can counter therapeutic resistance.

All Research / Holehouse Lab

Spotlight on Research – Holehouse Lab

The Holehouse Lab works to understand how intrinsically disordered regions – protein regions that lack a stable 3D structure – facilitate molecular and cellular function. The lab combines computational and experimental approaches to elucidate how disordered regions behave in isolation, how they interact with partners, how they evolve, and how mutations in disordered regions impact their normal cellular function in the context of human disease. The lab explores these questions in various contexts, combining synthetic biology and protein design to decode the underlying principles that relate sequence to function.

All Research / Egervari Lab

Spotlight on Research – Egervari Lab

The Egervari Lab’s goal is to elucidate how metabolic changes influence gene expression in the brain in physiological and pathological states. We combine state-of-the art proteomic, genomic and metabolomic approaches including on the single cell level, with quantitative and mechanistic studies, using disease-relevant in vitro and in vivo models. Our hope is that this work will identify new therapeutic targets for a variety of human diseases, and transform our understanding of how the brain adapts to environmental stimuli.

All Research / Goo Lab

Spotlight on Research – Goo Lab

Young Ah Goo’s lab specializes in using mass spectrometry-based multi-omics to address biological questions, particularly the discovery of diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets for human diseases. She directs The Mass Spectrometry Technology Access Center, which supports advanced technologies in proteomics, metabolomics, lipidomics, and mass spectrometry imaging.

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 / 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 / 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.