Synthetic & Chemical Biology

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Synthetic & Chemical Biology unifies the disciplines of chemistry, biology, engineering and computational science. Research in this area focuses on the development of fundamental molecular health sciences required to understand life processes, from the level of the single molecule to the human being. The research and training efforts of faculty in this concentration are coordinated through the Chemistry of Life Processes Institute. Research opportunities in this concentration integrate many disciplines and involve collaborative efforts between preceptors from various fields.

Chemistry of Life Processes Training Program

Faculty List

Vadim Backman, PhD
Email: v-backman@northwestern.edu
Research Interests: Imaging for non-invasive screening, diagnosis and detection of disease, biological and bioengineered tissue

Brian Hoffman, PhD
Email: bmh@northwestern.edu
Research Interests: Long-range interprotein electron transfer, ENDOR of metalloenzymes

Neha Kamat, PhD
Email: nkamat@northwestern.edu
Research Interests: Artificial cell/protocell models, membrane biophysics, emergent behaviors from synthetic membranes, membrane stress-sensing

Neil Kelleher, PhD
Email: n-kelleher@northwestern.edu
Research Interests: Top-down proteomics, natural products discovery, chromatic oncobiology, and computational proteomics

Sinan Keten, PhD
Email: s-keten@northwestern.edu
Research Interests: Molecular modeling, adhesive and structural proteins, bioinspired materials

Yevgenia Kozorovitskiy, PhD
Email: yevgenia.kozorovitskiy@northwestern.edu
Research Interests: Synaptic and circuit development in the basal ganglia

Joshua Leonard, PhD
Email: j-leonard@northwestern.edu
Research Interests: Engineering cellular systems and biomolecules for immunotherapy, synthetic biology, and biotechnology

Julius Lucks, PhD
Email: jblucks@northwestern.edu
Research Interests: Unraveling the RNA sequence/structure/function code for biology, medicine, and biotechnology

Thomas J. Meade, PhD
Email: tmeade@northwestern.edu 
Research Interests: Bioinorganic coordination chemistry, biological molecular imaging, transcription factor inhibitors, and electronic biosensors

Richard I. Morimoto, PhD
Email: r-morimoto@northwestern.edu 
Research Interests: Cell stress responses, molecular chaperones, and protein conformational disease

Heather Pinkett, PhD
Email: h-pinkett@northwestern.edu
Research Interests: Membrane proteins; emphasizing the structure & function of membrane-embedded transporters & their regulation mechanisms

Amy Rosenzweig, PhD
Email: amyr@northwestern.edu
Research Interests: Structure, function, and mechanism of metalloproteins and metalloenzymes

Danielle Tullman-Ercek, PhD
Email: ercek@northwestern.edu
Research Interests: Engineering of membrane proteins and protein membranes

Keith E.J. Tyo, PhD
Email: k-tyo@northwestern.edu
Research Interests: Microbial engineering

Xiaozhong (Alec) Wang, PhD
Email: awang@northwestern.edu
Research Interests: Genetic analysis of protocadherin diversity in the central nervous system

Eric Weiss, PhD
Email: elweiss@northwestern.edu
Research Interests: Signaling pathways in the control of cell architecture

Xiaoyu Zhang, PhD
Email: zhang@northwestern.edu
Research Interests: Chemical biology and therapeutics