Current Research and Scholarly Interests
The goal of our laboratory is to develop and disseminate molecular technologies for improving the study of living cells and neurons. We are best known for the development of proximity labeling (PL) for spatial mapping of proteomes, interactomes, and transcriptomes in living cells and animals. Our engineered PL enzymes APEX2, TurboID, and miniTurbo are widely used in academic and industrial labs across the world. In addition, we have created numerous other technologies including: calcium integrators for stable tagging of activated neural ensembles, genetically-encoded probes for electron microscopy, fluorophore ligases for site-specific protein labeling with chemical probes in living cells, monovalent streptavidin, and synthetic GPCRs for programmable antigen sensing and control of cell behavior.
The core capabilities of our lab are protein engineering, directed evolution, enzyme biochemistry, chemical synthesis, computational protein design, proteomics, and transcriptomics. We also apply our new technologies to biological problems related to mitochondria, neuroscience, and immuno-oncology, within our own lab and via extensive collaborations with other groups.
