Faculty Research Interest

Professor & Chair Chemistry & Biochemistry

Research Interest:听Computational Chemistry: Modeling studies of bioinorganic systems, including thyroid activation and oxidative scavenging.

Assoc Prof & Assoc Dean Chemistry & Biochemistry

Research Interest: Biochemistry; Bioinformatics: The fundamental determinants of protein structure, stability, folding and evolution are investigated as well as genomic adaption.

Research Interest:听Bioinorganic Chemistry:Transition metal complexes as inorganic pharmaceuticals.

Professor Chemistry & Biochemistry

Research Interest: Bioenergetics: Exploration of the role of protons and water in the mitochiondia are undertaken to address their functional role in proton coupling energy transduction and implications in human health and aging.

Associate Professor Biological Sciences

Research Interest:听Genetics: Nanotoxicology, identifying cellular responses to nanomaterials in epigenetics, mutagenesis, and immunotoxicity.

Professor Chemistry & Biochemistry

Research Interest: Structural Biology; Virology: Development and Application of Structural Biology approaches to medically relevant systems, such as virus replication machinery, and proteins linked to cancer and Alzheimer's disease. 

Associate Professor Chemistry & Biochemistry

Research Interest:听Computational Chemistry: Molecular dynamics simulations are performed on proteins to study their folding.

Associate Professor Chemistry & Biochemistry

Dr. Erin Purcell Biochemistry; Signal Transduction: The role of intracellular signaling pathways in bacterial pathogenesis is studied to guide the design of enzyme inhibitors that could serve as novel antibiotics. 

Associate Professor Chemistry & Biochemistry

Dr. Bala Ramjee Nanomaterials: A major focus is on the synthesis and functionalization of nanocapsules for drug delivery and in vivo imaging. Another area is functionalization and sensing using inorganic nanoparticles. 

Professor Chemistry & Biochemistry

Dr. Guijun Wang Drug Synthesis; Chemical Biology: We are interested in the synthesis and properties of compounds of biological activities. These include chiral small molecules that are building blocks for many drugs and certain enzyme inhibitors that are important for cardiovascular systems. Another main area of focus is to synthesize and study soft biomaterials. 

Professor in Chemistry, Biochemistry, Biomedical Sciences & Biomedical Engineering Chemistry & Biochemistry

Dr. Nancy Xu BRAIN/Single Cell/Cancer Biology/Nanobiotechnology/Nanomedicine/Nanotoxicity/ Optogenetics: Modern Molecular Biomedical Sciences/Engineering: The Xu lab has been developing cutting-edge technologies, including Single Molecular and Single Live Cell Imaging, Single-Cell Genomics, Nanobiotechnology, and Optogenetics, to unlock neuron-neuron communication, revolutionize early cancer detection, unravel developmental biology (embryonic stem cell differentiation), decipher nanotoxicity, understand multidrug resistance, and design groundbreaking nanomedicines and biocompatible nanomaterials.