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.
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
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
Roberts, Arthur
Arthur Roberts Professor Pharmaceutical & Biomedical Sciences; Toxicology Development of high-throughput structural biology tools, biophysical methods, NMR, and computer-aided drug-design to investigate drug-protein interactions and human disease. 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