Medicinal Chemistry & Chemical Biology

Learn more about this group by contacting Dr. Y. George Zheng (yzheng@uga.edu) or visiting the Chemical Biology website.

Chemical Biology is an interdisciplinary field of study that bridges the traditional fields of chemistry and biology, applying chemical methods to problems in biology. Often, the tools used are compounds produced through synthetic chemistry that are designed with guidance from structural biology to manipulate physiological processes, providing insight as to how these processes work and sometimes leading to the creation of new function.

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Adams, Michael

Michael Adams Distinguished Research Professor Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Functional and structural genomics, metabolism and enzymology of organisms that grow near 100C. Website

Barb, Adam W.

Adam W. Barb Associate Professor Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Our goal is to define the impact of protein post-translational modifications on structure and function in the immune system. Website

Buell, C. Robin

C. Robin Buell Professor GRA Eminent Scholar Chair in Crop Genomics Plant Biology, Bioinformatics Plant genome biology with a focus on crops and medicinal plants; Synthetic biology; Evolution of natural product biosynthesis Website

Cai, Houjian

Houjian Cai Associate Professor Pharmaceutical & Biomedical Sciences Post-translational modification including protein acylation, fatty acid metabolism, prostate stem cell, Src family kinases, prostate cancer, small molecular inhibitor. Website

Crich, David

David Crich Professor; Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Drug Design Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Sciences; Chemistry Organic and medicinal chemistry; carbohydrate chemistry; glycomimetics; drug design and development with emphasis on multi-drug resistant infectious diseases Website

Docampo, Roberto

Roberto Docampo Professor Cellular Biology Cellular and molecular biology of acidocalcisomes; the role of polyphosphate in trypanosomatids. Website

Downs, Diana

Diana Downs Distinguished Research Professor Microbiology Bacterial physiology and metabolic integration using biochemical, genetic and metabolomics approaches. Website

Edison, Arthur

Arthur Edison Professor GRA Eminent Scholar Biochemistry & Molecular Biology; Genetics Metabolomics and systems biology of Caenorhabditis elegans using NMR, mass spec, and computational approaches. Website

Escalante-Semerena, Jorge

Jorge Escalante-Semerena UGA Foundation Distinguished Professor Microbiology Prokaryotic metabolism and physiology with emphasis on protein acetylation, toxic metabolites, and complex metabolic pathway analysis, integration. Website

Greenspan, Phillip

Phillip Greenspan Associate Professor Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Sciences Inhibition of glycation and LDL oxidation by natural products and nutraceuticals. Website

Handa, Hitesh

Hitesh Handa Associate Professor Pharmaceutical & Biomedical Sciences Translational research in biomaterials (antifouling, antiplatelet, antibacterial, and antiviral) for tissue engineering and medical device applications Website

Hines, Kelly M.

Kelly M. Hines Assistant Professor Chemistry Lipidomic and metabolomic analyses of antimicrobial resistant pathogens using ion mobility and mass spectrometry Website

Hooks, Shelley

Shelley Hooks Professor Pharmaceutical & Biomedical Sciences; Neuroscience G-protein coupled receptors, molecular pharmacology, signal transduction, ovarian cancer, neural stem cells. Website

Huet, Diego

Diego Huet Assistant Professor Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Sciences The Huet Lab will use metabolomics and CRISPR-based approaches to understand the mitochondrial and organellar biology of a class of protozoan parasites, the apicomplexans. Website

Kannan, Natarajan

Natarajan Kannan Associate Professor Biochemistry & Molecular Biology; Bioinformatics Evolutionary systems biology; protein kinase signaling in plants, pathogens and microbes. Evolution and classification of glycoenzymes. Website

Kennedy, Eileen

Eileen Kennedy Professor Pharmaceutical & Biomedical Sciences Chemical biology, kinase signaling, cancer, signal transduction, drug discovery. Website

Kipreos, Edward

Edward Kipreos Professor Cellular Biology Regulation of the cell cycle; ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis and development. Website

Krahn, Natalie

Natalie Krahn Assistant Professor, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Department Engineering tRNA technology to build novel proteins with selenocysteine. Website

Kyle, Dennis

Dennis Kyle Professor GRA Eminent Scholar Chair in Antiparasitic Drug Discovery Cellular Biology & Infectious Diseases The discovery and development of new drugs to prevent or treat malaria and diseases caused by brain-eating amoebae. Elucidating mechanism(s) of resistance and discovering new drug treatment regimens, combinations, or strategies to overcome resistance. Website

Lanzilotta, William

William Lanzilotta Associate Professor Biochemistry & Molecular Biology The mechanisms of metalloproteins involved in radical generation, oxidative stress protection, as well as heme synthesis, sensing, aquisition and transport. Website

Medlock, Amy

Amy Medlock Associate Professor Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Understanding intracellular and intercellular heme transport. Website

Momany, Cory

Cory Momany Associate Professor Pharmaceutical & Biomedical Sciences X-ray crystallography of macromolecules, prokaryotic transcriptional regulators. Website

Moremen, Kelley

Kelley Moremen Distinguished Research Professor Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Biochemistry, molecular, and structural biology of mammalian glycoprotein biosynthesis and catabolism. Website

Moreno, Silvia

Silvia Moreno Distinguished Research Professor Cellular Biology, Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases Metabolism and drug development against protozoan parasites. Calcium signaling and storage in Toxoplasma gondii. Website

Orlando, Ron

Ron Orlando Professor Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Solving biological/biomedical problems with mass spectrometry. Website

Perez, Camilo

Camilo Perez Assistant Professor Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Our research aims to elucidate the mechanism of membrane transporters, flippases, and polymerases involved in bacterial cell wall biosynthesis, unravel how their function influences bacterial adaptation, discover inhibitory molecules for the development of new antimicrobials, and repurpose the activity of these proteins for applications in the synthesis …

Phillips, Robert

Robert Phillips Professor Chemistry; Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Enzymes involved in amino acid, especially tryptophan, metabolism which may be drug targets for cancer, hypertension and neurodegenerative diseases. Website

Popik, Vladimir

Vladimir Popik Professor of Chemistry Chemistry Development of biorothogonal protein modification techniques, novel caging groups, and photoactivatable antitumor antibiotics. Website

Prestegard, James

James Prestegard Professor Emeritus, Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Application of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy to the characterization of biologically important systems. Website

Rose, John

John Rose Associate Professor Biochemistry & Molecular Biology X-ray structural biology, the mitochondrial inner membrane space transport system, structure based vaccine and therapeutic design, improved/automated methods for synchrotron SAD data collection and structure determination. Website

Schmidt, Walter

Walter K. Schmidt Jr. Professor Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Scholar Biochemistry & Molecular Biology; Neuroscience Molecular cell biology and biochemistry of proteases associated with isoprenylated protein maturation and amyloidogenic peptide degradation; cancer; Alzheimer’s disease. Website

Summers, Anne

Anne Summers Professor Microbiology; Toxicology Environmental stress biology, using biochemical, biophysical, and ‘omics approaches to define the roles of toxic metal exposure in chronic and infectious diseases. Website

Trent, M. Stephen

M. Stephen Trent UGA Foundation Distinguished Professor Infectious Diseases Characterizing the assembly of bacterial surface structures, Development of vaccines for viral and bacterial pathogens, Systems approaches to understanding microbial diseases Website

Tsai, C.J.

C.J. Tsai Professor, Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar Bioinformatics; Genetics; Plant Biology Growth-defense tradeoff, phenylpropanoid metabolism and carbon allocation, gene family evolution and functional diversification, alternative splicing and gene duplication. Website

Urbauer, Jeffrey

Jeffrey Urbauer Associate Professor Biochemistry & Molecular Biology; Chemistry Structural biology of transcription regulation, steroid hormone activation and breast cancer. Website

Wallace, Ian

Ian Wallace Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Complex Carbohydrate Research Center Biosynthesis and regulation of plant cell wall synthesis and deposition, post-translational modifications, glycan imaging and dynamics. Website

Wang, B.C.

Bi-Cheng Wang Professor, Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Structure-function studies by X-ray diffraction, transcription proteins, structural genomics, phasing methods. Website

Wang, Yifan

Yifan Wang Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry Catalytic mechanisms and structure-function correlations of metalloenzymes; biomedically essential oxygenases Website

Watford, Wendy

Wendy Watford Associate Professor Infectious Diseases Regulation of host defense and tolerance by Stat transcription factors. Website

Weiss, Ryan

Ryan Weiss Assistant Professor Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Complex Carbohydrate Research Center Investigating the regulatory mechanisms of glycosylation using genomic, chemical, and genetic approaches with particular focus on the discovery of novel drugs and targets to treat human diseases. Website

Wells, Lance

Lance Wells Professor, Georgia Research Alliance Distinguished Investigator Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Complex Carbohydrate Research Center Role of protein glycosylation in intellectual disability, congenital muscular dystrophy, cancer, and viral infection. Website

West, Christopher M.

Christopher M. West Professor Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Oxygen- and glycosylation-dependent regulation of polyubiquitin ligases in Dictyostelium and Toxoplasma gondii; Glycobiology of protozoa. Website

Wood, Zachary

Zachary Wood Associate Professor Biochemistry & Molecular Biology X-ray crystallographic and biochemical studies of nucleotide sugar metabolism. Website

Woods, Robert

Robert Woods Professor Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Immunological carbohydrate-protein interactions studied by computational simulation and experimental methods. Website

Xie, Jin

Jin Xie Associate Professor Chemistry Nanoparticle-based imaging and drug delivery; radiation therapy and photodynamic therapy Website

Zastre, Jason

Jason Zastre Associate Professor Pharmaceutical & Biomedical Sciences; Toxicology Transport, micronutrient, hypoxia, cancer. Website

Zheng, Y. George

Y. George Zheng Professor Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Scholar Pharmaceutical & Biomedical Sciences Drug Development, Chemical Biology, Cancer Disease Mechanism, Epigenetics and Genetics, Histone Modifications, Molecular Biology, Biochemistry, Enzymology, and Biophysics. Website