Research Areas - Biochemistry and Biophysics

The biochemistry research area of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UCSB offers a wide range of research possibilities. Common themes encompass enzyme structure-function studies, RNA folding and modification, transcriptional regulation, epigenetics, membranes and membrane proteins, bioinorganic chemistry, protein folding, molecular motors, biomaterials and biomolecular engineering.

Experimental and computational methods employed in the department span the range of modern approaches, including rapid kinetic analysis, diverse spectroscopy techniques (e.g., CD, UV, NMR), biomolecular structure determination (NMR and X-ray), AFM, mass spectrometric analysis and the full gammet of computational techniques.

Biochemistry Research Faculty

• Bowers, Michael
  Mass spectroscopy of biomolecules, protein aggregation
• Brown, Frank
  Computational biophysics, molecular dynamics, membrane structure and dynamics
• Butler, Alison
  Iron transport, bioinorganic chemistry
• Dahlquist, Rick
  Protein structure and function, protein dynamics, kinetics, NMR structure elucidation
• de Vries, Mattanjah
  Laser spectroscopy of biomolecules
• Han, Song-I
  Biophysics, highly-amplified (DNP) NMR, membrane-protein systems
• Jaeger, Luc
  RNA structure, assembly and biophysics, RNA evolution, RNA synthetic biology, RNA bionanotechnology
• Plaxco, Kevin
  Biomaterials, biophysics, electrochemistry, sensors
• Reich, Norbert
  DNA methylation mechanisms, epigentics, proteomics, cell biological tools
• Shea, Joan-Emma
  Computational biophysics, protein misfolding and aggregation, membranes
• Waite, J. Herbert
  Molecular biology, biosynthesis, bio-inspired adhesives, marine proteins and organisms

Lecturer Faculty

• Kahn, Kalju
  Computational modeling of biochemical problems

Emeritus Faculty

• Bruice, T.C.
  Bioorganic, synthesis, computational biochemistry
• Gerig, J. Thomas
  Small molecule-protein interactions, biophysical chemistry
• Little, Daniel
  Biosynthetic chemistry, redox chemistry
• Parsons, Stanley
  acetylcholine uptake in neuronal vesicles, biological chemistry
• Perona, John
  t-RNA synthetases, protein crystallography, biological chemistry