Joseph D. Fontes, Ph.D., Professor

Regulation of gene transcription. Gap junctional coupling in neuronal survival and death.

Bret Freudenthal, Ph.D., Professor

Genome maintenance. Elucidating how DNA damage is generated, processed and repaired using structural and biochemical approaches.

Christy Hagan, Ph.D., Associate Professor

Role of hormones in breast cancer, crosstalk between inflammation and steroid receptor action.

Prakash Kharel, Ph.D., Assistant Professor

Our lab focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms of post-transcriptional gene regulation, with a particular emphasis on RNA structural motifs—especially RNA G-quadruplexes. We aim to uncover how these elements influence gene expression under both normal and pathological conditions, and to explore their potential as therapeutic targets.

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Alexey Ladokhin, Ph.D., Professor

Membrane proteins in apoptotic regulation and cancer targeting, Bcl-2 proteins, bacterial toxins, antimicrobial peptides, biophysical techniques.

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Jeroen Roelofs, Ph.D., Professor

Protein degradation in the cell. Biochemical and cell biological analyses of assembly and localization of proteasomes and their autophagic degradation.

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Chad Slawson, Ph.D., Professor

The role of post-translational modification in cell cycle progression and development; glycobiology; signal transduction.

Liskin Swint-Kruse, Ph.D., Professor and Chair

Applications of protein evolution to personalized medicine and protein engineering; transcriptional regulation of bacterial metabolism. 

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Lejla Zubcevic, Ph.D., Assistant Professor

Structural basis of sensory perception. Applying X-ray crystallography and cryo-EM to investigate how ion channels are activated by sensory inputs.