Structural Biology & Biophysics Program @ Duke University


Faculty pics, links, & research interest summaries (also see: Faculty research highlights and Faculty listed by department)

Lorena S. Beese
Biochemistry

Structure and mechanism of proteins and macromolecular assemblies central to DNA replication, DNA repair and cellular signaling. X-ray crystallography. Structure-based drug design. Cancer biology. (website)

David Beratan
Chemistry

Molecular mechanisms that enable the function of complex biological machines and molecular materials (website)

Richard G Brennan
Biochemistry

Structural and biochemical aspects of gene expression regulation, transcriptional control of multidrug resistance. X-ray crystallography. (website)

Nicolas Buchler
Biology & Physics

Molecular mechanisms and the evolution of switches and oscillators in gene networks; systems biology; comparative genomics(website)

Patrick Charbonneau
Chemistry

Theory and simulation of dynamical properties of self-assembly of .e.g. glasses, gels, colloids, as well as protein aggregation and crystallization.(website)

Bruce R. Donald
Computer Science

Algorithms in structural molecular biology and proteomics. Computational methods in biomolecular NMR. Protein design and the non-ribosomal peptide synthetase pathway. (website)

Glenn Edwards
Physics

Biological physics and Free-Electron Laser (FEL) applications (website)

Sharyn Endow
Cell Biology

Motor mechanisms, including directionality and force production; mediation of spindle and chromosome dynamics by motors. (website)

Harold P. Erickson
Cell Biology

Mechanism of bacterial cell division, basic principles of assembly that apply to both FtsZ and tubulin, extracellular matrix and cell adhesion (website)

Michael C. Fitzgerald
Chemistry

Mass spectrometry, chemical synthesis, and biophysical techniques to investigate both fundamental and practical aspects of protein folding reactions. (website)

Katherine J. Franz
Chemistry

The confluence of inorganic, organic and biological chemistry; esp. bioinorganic chemistry of post-translational protein modifications and the role of metal ions in neurochemistry(website)

Dan Kiehart
Biology

Biophysical approaches to cellular, molecular and developmental biology. (website)

Seok-Yong Lee
Biochemistry

Molecular mechanism of integral membrane proteins responsible for ion transport across cell membranes using a multidisciplinary approach including X-ray crystallography, biophysics and electrophysiology. (website)

Piotr Marszalek
Mech. Eng. / Mat. Sci.

AFM and single-molecule biophysics. Mechanical folding of individual proteins. Applications of AFM to DNA damage and repair studies. (website)

Thomas J. McIntosh
Cell Biology

(1) The composition, structure, and properties of membrane microdomains or "rafts", (2) the interactions between cell-lytic peptides and membranes, and (3) the use of bilayer vesicles in drug delivery. (website)

Terrence G. Oas
Biochemistry

Protein folding; structure-function relationships of proteins; multidimensional NMR structure determination of macromolecules. (website)

David C. Richardson
Biochemistry

Structural Bioinformatics: concepts and computer tools to visualize, analyze, and correct protein and RNA structures. (website)

Jane S. Richardson
Biochemistry

3D structural bioinformatics of protein and RNA: structures, interactions, motions, & design; techniques for improving model accuracy. (website)

Scott C. Schmidler
Institute of Statistics & Decision Sciences

Theoretical and applied research in Bayesian statistics, bioinformatics, and computational biology. (website)

Maria A Schumacher
Biochemistry

X-ray crystallography: atomic-level understanding of key biological processes involving protein-nucleic acid interactions, especially DNA segregation. (website)

Barbara R. Shaw
Chemistry

Chemical reactivity of DNA; modified nucleic acids as potential antitumor and antisense agents. (website)

Leonard D. Spicer
Biochemistry

Structure-function studies of proteins using high-field NMR techniques; physical biochemistry. (website)

Eric J. Toone
Chemistry

Biocatalysis/applied enzymology, ligand binding and the activity of water, and the synthesis of novel donors of nitric oxide. (website)

Warren Warren
Chemistry

Novel pulsed techniques, using controlled radiation fields to alter dynamics, usually ultrafast laser spectroscopy or nuclear magnetic resonance. (website)

Weitao Yang
Chemistry

Methods for quantum mechanical calculations of large systems. (website)

Kenichi Yokoyama
Biochemistry

Enzyme Mechanisms, Radical Reactions, EPR spectroscopy, Natural Product Chemistry and Chemical Biology(website)

John D. York
Pharmacology & Cancer Biology

The role of inositol signaling pathways in growth control and in the pharmacologic action of lithium used for the treatment of bipolar disease. (website)

Stefan Zauscher
Mech. Eng. / Mat. Sci.

The structure- property- performance behavior of peptide polymers, synthetic polymers, and cross-linked hydrogels. (website)

Pei Zhou
Biochemistry

Molecular recognition and conformation variability of protein complexes in crucial biomedical processes; state-of-the-art NMR techniques. (website)