Peng Chen
Cornell University, NY·Chemistry
Bacteria constantly move metals and electrons across their outer layers, and how they organize this traffic shapes both disease and the environment. These grants study two such processes in Gram-negative bacteria, the group with two membranes around each cell: how a soil bacterium passes electrons to metals outside the cell, and how the gut bacterium E.
- Fields
Chemistry
Biophysics
Microbiology & Immunology
- Topics
extracellular electron transfer
Shewanella oneidensis
CymA
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jun 2028
What they work on
- Define how the electron-relay protein CymA changes its location and movement in live Shewanella oneidensis cells as electron transfer activity rises, using single-molecule fluorescence imaging and single-cell electrochemical control.
- Map where the periplasmic partner proteins of CymA sit over time and test whether they cluster with CymA, combining protein tagging, genetic manipulation and photoelectrochemical microscopy.
- Define a "through-DNA" mechanism in E. coli in which the zinc sensors ZntR and Zur act on each other while bound to DNA to balance zinc uptake against export.
- Determine how the multi-part ZnuABC transporter coordinates zinc uptake inside living E. coli cells, using single-molecule and single-cell imaging.
- Dissect how neighboring cells interact to maintain zinc balance within bacterial communities, using microfluidic and optogenetic manipulation.
More about the research
coli keeps zinc, an essential but toxic-in-excess metal, at the right level. Both projects use single-molecule and single-cell imaging. These are microscopy methods that track individual proteins inside living cells to see where and when they act.
Why it matters
Understanding how Shewanella moves electrons to metals could help engineer bacteria that clean up uranium, chromium and toxic organic pollutants at contaminated sites and in wastewater treatment. Knowing how Gram-negative bacteria, a group that includes many human pathogens, control zinc could suggest chemical strategies that starve invading bacteria of zinc or make excess zinc toxic to them. Such strategies may offer new routes to antimicrobial treatment.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Michael Stephen Trent
University of Georgia, GA·Microbiology & Immunology
Develop an analytical tool that measures LPS molecules in transit, and combine it with mass spectrometry of the enzyme LpxC and LPS precursors to determine how the YejM-YciM system controls LPS production in E. coli.
David Cafiso
University of Virginia, VA·Biophysics
Test models of how TonB-dependent transporters such as BtuB, the vitamin B12 transporter, move nutrients across the E. coli outer membrane, using site-directed spin labeling and EPR spectroscopy on active proteins.
Jochen Zimmer
University of Virginia, VA·Biochemistry
Determine how cellulose biosynthesis is controlled in enterobacteria such as E. coli, building on the lab's structures of the supramolecular cellulose synthase complex that both polymerizes and secretes this glucose chain.
The school
Cornell University: 37 labs on PI Pages, $1.6B a year on research, 537 research doctorates a year.
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