UCSD Chemistry Biochemistry

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Congratulations Abby!

Congratulations Alexis!

Well deserved! Congratulations Neal!

Humans produce on their skin and other places a short peptide called LL-37 as a defense against infectious microbes. This peptide kills disease-causing bacteria by puncturing their cell membranes. However, the bacterium Strep A, a cause of ‘fleshing-eating’ disease and toxic shock syndrome, thwarts the killing ability of LL-37 while establishing serious infections. Strep A does this by capturing LL-37 on its surface, preventing LL-37 from getting to the underlying membrane and puncturing it. It was known that the M protein of Strep A is responsible for capturing LL-37, but it was not known how M protein does this. We investigated this using a technique called X-ray crystallography and visualized atom-by-atom how M protein from a Strep A strain that is an emerging public health threat captures LL-37. Remarkably, we saw that the M protein opens up or unfurls to expose parts that are usually hidden to capture LL-37. The precise level of information on which parts of M protein unfurl to capture LL-37 gained from our study will be useful to designing therapies that combat Strep A infections.

Congratulations John!

Congratulations Itay!

Congratulations Professor Prather!

Congratulations on an outstanding project, Itay!

Huge congratulations to Professor Rommie Amaro and Amaro Lab!

The Society of Hellman Fellows is an endowed program at all ten University of California campuses that provides research funding to promising assistant professors who show capacity for great distinction in their chosen fields. Since it’s founding in 1995, more than 1,900 promising early-career faculty have received Hellman Fellowships, with many recipients going on to become department chairs, award-winning researchers, and MacArthur “genius” grant recipients. Congratulations Shaowei!

We proudly announce that the National Science Foundation has selected Ke'la Kimble (Prather Lab) from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry as a recipient of the 2021 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship!

Congratulations also to the NSF-GRFP Honorable Mentions: Lannah Abasi, Adarsh Balaji, Krista Balto, Sally Burke, Alysia Kohlbrand, Dylan Mills, Conor Q'Herin, Emily Pool