Meet the CBI Faculty
Ariel Alperstein (Chemistry and Biochemistry)
Interests: Spectroscopy, cell/tissue imaging, super-resolution instrument development, transport kinetics, protein structure, protein-protein interactions
Learn about Dr. Alperstein’s Research HERE.
Brian Bahnson (Chemistry and Biochemistry)
Interests: Intermediates of Enzyme Reactions; Interfacial Membrane Proteins and Enzyme Motions in Catalysis Viewed by X-ray Crystallography
Learn about Dr. Bahnson’s Laboratory and Research HERE.
Mark Blenner (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)
Interests: Engineering Cells (Yeast, Mammalian, and Bacteria) to make Biopharmaceuticals, Natural Products, Industrial Enzymes, Renewable Chemicals, Biomaterials, and Biosensors
Learn about Dr. Blenner’s Laboratory and Research HERE.
Karl Booksh (Chemistry and Biochemistry)
Interests: In situ chemical sensors for environmental, biomedical, and inductrial process monitoring
Learn about Dr. Booksh’s Laboratory and Research HERE.
Fidelma Boyd (Biological Sciences)
Interests: Mechanisms of Emergence of Enteric Pathogens
Learn about Dr. Boyd HERE.
Matthew Butchbach (Affiliated Faculty)
Interests: Early-onset Motor Neuron Diseases; Genetics, Molecular Mechanisms and Drug Discovery
Learn more about Dr. Butchbach HERE.
Wilfred Chen (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)
Interests: Development of Biomolecular Tools in addressing key global problems in Viral Infection, Disease pathogenesis, biofuel production, and separation of protein pharmaceutics
Learn more about Dr. Wilfred Chen’s Laboratory and Reasearch group HERE.
Emily Day (BioMedical Engineering)
Interests: Engineering Nanoscale Materials with unique physical and chemical properties so that they can be used to transform the study, detection and treatment of cancer.
Learn more about Dr. Day’s Laboratory and Research HERE.
Charles Dhong (Materials Science and Engineering)
Interests: The Dhong lab measures or controls mechanical forces at biological interfaces, ranging from cells to the human sense of touch. We seek to develop new methods to control the sense of touch to create better tactile aids for people with low vision or blindness, and develop platforms which can translate mechanical biomarkers for practical drug discovery or drug modeling
Learn more about Dr. Day’s Laboratory and Research HERE.
Melinda Duncan (Biological Sciences)
Interests: Molecular mechanisms of ocular wound healing
Learn more about Dr. Duncan HERE.
Joe Fox (Chemistry and Biochemistry)
Interests: Biomedical Research Excellence on Molecular Discovery
Learn more about Dr. Fox HERE.
Velia Fowler (Biological Sciences)
Interests: Red Blood Cell Shape, Red Blood Cell Formation, Eye Lens Function
Learn more about Dr. Fowler here.
Catherine Fromen (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)
Interests: Immune Engineering through Pulmonary Aerosol Delivery
Learn More about Dr. Fromen HERE.
Eric Furst (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)
Interests: Cytoskeletal Structure Function, Motor Protein Biophysics, and Tissue Engineering
Learn more about Dr. Furst’s Laboratory and Research HERE.
Jason Gleghorn (BioMedical Engineering)
Interests: Mechanical and Chemical Regulation of of Embryonic Organ Morphogenesis
Learn more about Dr. Gleghorn’s Laboratory and Research HERE.
Jodi Hadden-Perilla (Chemistry and Biochemistry)
Interests: Currently focused on the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, the hepatitis B virus, the cytoplasmic dynein molecular motor, the role of carbohydrates and glycoconjugates in immunity and disease, and improving accessibility of the computational microscope for researchers who are blind.
Learn about Dr. Hadden-Perilla’s Laboratory and Research HERE.
Catherine Leimkuhler Grimes (Chemistry and Biochemistry)
Interests: Bacterial Activation of the Innate Immune System
Learn more about Dr. Grimes’s Laboratory and Research HERE.
Thomas Hanson (College of Agriculture)
Interests: Microbial Biochemistry, Biogeochemistry, Genomics, and Proteomics
Learn more about Dr. Hanson HERE.
Aimee Jamarillo-Lambert (Biological Sciences)
Interests: genetic interactions between top-2 and meiotic chromosome components; role of TOP-2 in chromosome structure; the components required to regulate TOP-2 during meiosis.
Learn more about Dr. Jamarillo-Lambert and her research HERE
Arthi Jayaraman (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)
Interests: Molecular Simulations, Theory, polymer nanocomposites, self-assembly, polymer-based materials for drug and gene delivery
Learn more about Dr. Jayaraman’s Laboratory and Research HERE.
Xinqiao Jia (Materials Science)
Interests: Novel Biomimetic Materials; Functional Biointerfaces; Tissue Engineering and Drug Delivery
Learn more about Dr. Jia’s Laboratory and Research HERE.
Laure Kayser (Materials Science and Engineering)
Interests: designing, synthesizing, and understanding the next generation of soft organic electronic materials to study or repair the nervous system; interdisciplinary research team, working at the intersection of organometallic chemistry, polymer synthesis, and materials and device engineering
Learn more about Dr. Keyser and her research HERE.
Kristi Kiick (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Materials Science)
Interests: Poymeric Materials for Cellular and Molecular Recognition
Learn more about Dr. Kiick’s Laboratory and Research HERE.
April Kloxin (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)
Interests: Dynamic Biomaterials
Learn more about Dr. Kloxin’s Laboratory and Research HERE.
John Koh (Chemistry and Biochemistry)
Interests: Bioorganic Chemistry and Chemical Biology of Nuclear and Steroid Hormone Receptors; Light-Activated Transcription
Learn more about Dr. Koh’s Laboratory and Research HERE.
Aditya M. Kunjapur, PhD (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)
Interests: Synthetic biology using expanded biochemistry: Protein engineering via non-standard amino acids; metabolic engineering via unusual functional groups; selective proteolysis via engineered protein quality control.
Learn more about Dr. Kunjapur and his research HERE.
Salil Lachke (Biological Sciences)
Interests: RNA interactions in organ development
Learn more about Dr. Lachke’s Laboratory and Research HERE.
Jung-Youn Lee (Plant and Soil Science)
Interests: Molecular Mechanisms and Components of Cell-Cell Communication
Learn more about Dr. Jung-Youn Lee HERE.
Kelvin Lee (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)
Interests: Gene Expression Profiling to Identify Rate-limiting Steps in Protein Secretion Pathways
Learn more about Dr. Kelvin Lee’s Laboratory and Research HERE.
Jeffrey Mugridge (Chemistry and Biochemistry)
Interdisciplinary approach to understand how the cell controls RNA function to regulate gene expression
Learn about Dr. Mugridge’s Laboratory and Research HERE.
Ramona Neunuebel (Biological Sciences)
Interests: Molecualr Mechanisms of Intracellular Bacterial Pathogens
Learn more about Dr. Neunuebel HERE.
Anja Nohe (Biological Sciences)
Learn more about Dr. Nohe HERE.
Justin Parreno (Biological Sciences)
Interests: delineating the involvement of actin network reorganization in regulating articular cartilage and ocular lens biology and disease; vision is to develop novel actin-based therapeutics against disease..
Learn about Dr. Parreno’s Laboratory and Research HERE.
Tatyana Polenova (Chemistry and Biochemistry)
Interests: Biophysics and Structural Biology of Protein Interfaces; Protein Assemblies, and Metallo-proteins; Biomolecular Solid-State NMR Spectroscopy
Learn more about Dr. Polenova HERE.
Christopher Roberts (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)
Interests: Protein Aggregation, Prediction of Protein Degradation and Shelf-life; Protein Preservation
Learn more about Dr. Roberts’s Laboratory and Research HERE.
Sharon Rozovsky (Chemistry and Biochemistry)
Interests: Function of Membrane Proteins; Lipid-Protein Interactions; Membrane Biophysics
Learn more about Dr. Rozovsky’s Laboratory and Research HERE.
Karl Schmitz (Biological Sciences)
Interests: Structure, function, and regulation of Bacterial Proteases
Learn more about Dr. Schmitz HERE.
Erica Selva (Biological Sciences)
Interests: Genetic and Molecular Control of Signal Transduction during Drosophila Development
Learn more about Dr. Selva HERE.
Kevin Solomon (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)
Interests: Study and engineering of environmental microbes for biopharmaceuticals, bioenergy, and sustainability; protein engineering of viral-like particles for biotemplated nanomaterials synthesis; environmental microbiome engineering
Learn about Dr. Solomon’s Laboratory and Research HERE.
Jia Song (Biological Sciences)
Interests: Regulatory roles of microRNAs in early development
Learn more about Dr. Song HERE.
Millicent Sullivan (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering)
Interests: Design of Polymeric Materials for Improved Drug and Gene Transport; Engineering of Cell-Biomaterial Interactions
Learn more about Dr. Sullivan’s Laboratory and Research HERE.
Molly Sutherland (Biological Sciences)
Interests: Molecular mechanisms of cytochrome c biogenesis; heme; membrane proteins; microbiology
Learn about Dr. Sutherland’s Laboratory and Research HERE.
Jessica Tanis (Biological Sciences)
Interests: Regulation of Ca2+ homeostasis in C. elegans
Learn more about Dr. Tanis HERE.
Colin Thorpe (Chemistry and Biochemistry)
Interests: Enzymology of Protein Disulfide Bond Formation
Learn more about Dr. Thorpe’s Laboratory and Research HERE.
Donald Watson (Chemistry and Biochemistry)
Interests: Organic Synthesis and Transition Metal Catalysis
Learn more about Dr. Donald Watson’s Laboratory and Research HERE.
Mary Watson (Chemistry and Biochemistry)
Interests: Catalytic Methods for Stereoselective Synthesis)
Learn more about Dr. Mary Watson’s Laboratory and Research HERE.
Shuo Wei (Biological Sciences)
Interests: Regulation of cell signalling by metalloproteinases in development and cancer
Learn more about Dr. Wei HERE.
Eric Wommack (Plant and Soil Sciences)
Interests: influence and importance of viral processes within natural ecosystems
Learn more about Dr. Wommack HERE.
Donna Woulfe (Biological Sciences)
Interests: Signaling mechanisms of platelet activation and platelet’s contribution to thrombosis in vivo
Learn more about Dr. Woulfe HERE.
Zhihao Zhuang (Chemistry and Biochemistry)
Interests: Mechanisms of Protein Machineries in DNA Damage Repair and Tolerance Pathways, particularly Regulation by PTM by Ubiquination and Sumoylation
Learn more about Dr. Zhuang’s Laboratory and Research HERE.
Neal Zondlo (Chemistry and Biochemistry)
Interests: Functional Molecular Recognition by Designed Architectures
Learn more about Dr. Zondlo’s Laboratory and research HERE.
