James Chen
University of California-San Francisco, CA·Biophysics·Early-career
Tuberculosis (TB), caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), is one of the leading infectious causes of death. Treatment takes a long time, and drug-resistant strains are increasing.
- Fields
Biophysics
Microbiology & Immunology
Biochemistry
- Topics
Mycobacterium tuberculosis
Mtb
Mycobacterium smegmatis
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2030
What they work on
- Purify the cell-wall proteins PonA1 and CrgA and their partner complexes directly from Mycobacterium tuberculosis and M. smegmatis, and determine their 3D structures by single-particle cryo-EM.
- Map the protein interaction networks of mycobacterial elongasome and divisome parts using proximity labeling, which tags nearby proteins in living cells, and define the roles of their extra N- and C-terminal segments.
- Capture 3D snapshots of dividing mycobacteria with cryo-electron tomography to see how elongasome and divisome proteins are arranged inside cells during uneven growth and division.
More about the research
One reason the infection is hard to cure is that Mtb grows and divides unevenly, so its daughter cells differ from one another. Some of these cells can survive heavy drug treatment. This project asks how the protein machines behind this uneven growth and division are built and how they work together.
Why it matters
Tuberculosis treatment is long and difficult, and drug-resistant strains are rising. Detailed structures of the protein machines that drive uneven growth and division in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the process that produces drug-surviving cells, could inform the design of new antibiotics and therapies for people with TB.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Elizabeth Rego
Yale University, CT·Microbiology & Immunology
Track where and when Pks13, an enzyme that builds mycolic acids for the tuberculosis outer membrane, works inside cells and how it interacts with fatty acid synthases, using light and electron microscopy.
William E Moerner
Stanford University, CA·Biophysics
Develop a 3D super-resolution microscope that images over a large depth range using pupil-plane phase patterns and a tilted light sheet, for single-molecule imaging and tracking in living cells.
Xiaojing Yang
University of Illinois Chicago, IL·Biophysics
Determine full-length cryo-EM structures of a bacteriophytochrome and a dual-sensor photoreceptor kinase in different signaling states by resolving structural heterogeneity, meaning the mix of shapes the proteins adopt.
The school
University of California-San Francisco: 89 labs on PI Pages, $2.1B a year on research, 164 research doctorates a year.
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