Editors for Biochemistry and Chemical Biology

We aim to publish studies that provide new mechanistic insights into the structure, function, and regulation of biological molecules including proteins, nucleic acids, lipids, carbohydrates, and natural products. In addition, we are interested in studies that illuminate complex biological processes using chemical tools and approaches. Read the latest research in this subject area.

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Senior editors

Philip Cole

Harvard Medical School, United States

Phil Cole is Professor of Medicine and Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School and is a Senior Investigator in the Division of Genetics at Brigham and Women's Hospital. He graduated from Yale University with a B.S. in Chemistry and then spent a year as a Churchill Scholar at the University of Cambridge prior to obtaining M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine where he pursued research in bioorganic chemistry. Cole then entered post-doctoral and clinical training at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital. He subsequently held faculty positions at Rockefeller University and then Johns Hopkins where he was Chair of Pharmacology prior to returning to Harvard in 2017. His research interests are related to the chemical biology of cell signaling and epigenetics. His group has developed and applied methods for protein semisynthesis and small molecule probes for kinases, acyltransferases, deacetylases, and demethylases. His honors include election to the ASCI, fellow of the AAAS, and receipt of an NIH MERIT award.

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology

Research focus
chemical biology
signal transduction
epigenetics

Competing interests statement
Philip Cole is on the Scientific Advisory Boards of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the Maryland Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology Research, and the Searle Scholars Program. He is a cofounder of Acylin Therapeutics Inc and a science advisor for the Abbvie, Epizyme, and Forma companies and has been a consultant for MPM Capital. Cole has received research funding from the NIH, the FAMRI foundation, and the V Foundation. He is a member of the editorial boards of the following journals: J Biol Chem, Biomed Central Biology, ChemBioChem, and Bioorganic Chemistry.
John Kuriyan

University of California, Berkeley, United States

John Kuriyan is Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology and also of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. Before this, he was on the faculty at The Rockefeller University, New York, where he began his career in 1987, leaving for Berkeley in 2001. Since 1990, he has been an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Kuriyan completed undergraduate studies in chemistry at Juniata College, Huntingdon, PA. His doctoral research, on the dynamics of proteins, was carried out at MIT, under the guidance of Greg Petsko and Martin Karplus (Harvard University). Kuriyan’s research is aimed at understanding the structure and mechanism of the enzymes and molecular switches that carry out cellular signal transduction and DNA replication. His laboratory uses x-ray crystallography to determine the three-dimensional structures of proteins involved in signaling and replication, as well as biochemical, biophysical, and computational analyses to elucidate mechanisms. Kuriyan was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences in 2001.

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

Research focus
protein science and biochemistry
signaling
crystallography
electron microscopy
modeling
molecular dynamics

Competing interests statement
John Kuriyan has received funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the US National Institutes of Health, and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. He serves on the editorial board of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and on the Scientific Advisory Boards of Carmot Therapeutics (San Francisco) and Jubilant Biosys (Bangalore). He is a founder of Nurix (San Francisco).
Vivek Malhotra

The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Spain

Vivek Malhotra was a professor in the biology division at UC San Diego from 2007 and is now the ICREA Professor and Chair of the Cell and Developmental Biology at Center for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona. His research focuses on a central station of the secretory pathway, the Golgi complex. Specifically, his work has resulted in the identification of the machinery required for the sorting and packaging of secretory cargoes. His recent work has uncovered a novel secretory routing that bypasses the conventional pathway of protein secretion. He has identified new genes required for the export of bulky collagens and the regulated secretion of mucins. He received his BSc from Stirling University and was a Pirie–Reid scholar at Oxford; a Damon Runyon Walter Winchell and an American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellow at Stanford; and Basil O’Conner scholar, established Investigator of the American Heart Association, and Senior Investigator of Sandler’s Foundation for Asthma at UC San Diego. He received the MERCK award from the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, is a fellow of the American association of the arts and science, and is an elected EMBO member.

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Cell Biology

Research focus
Golgi apparatus: biogenesis, structure, and function
Collagen and Mucin secretion

Competing interests statement
Vivek Malhotra receives funding from ERC/European Research Council, Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, AGAUR and the Plan Nacional (Spain) He is a Scientific Advisory Board member of TIGEM (Naples, Italy), CNR (Naples, Italy), CBMSO (Madrid, Spain) and Department of Biotechnology (India). He has served on the editorial board of Cell and was an associate editor of Molecular Biology of the Cell. He is currently on the editorial boards of Journal of Cell Biology and Current Opinion in Cell Biology.
Michael Marletta

University of California, Berkeley, United States

Michael Marletta is the Aldo DeBenedictis Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. Previous to his appointment at UC Berkeley, he was a former President and CEO of The Scripps Research Institute. He has also been on the faculty of the University of Michigan, where he was an HHMI Investigator, and MIT. Marletta obtained an A.B. in chemistry and biology from the State University of New York at Fredonia, a Ph.D. from UCSF under George Kenyon and, after a postdoctoral appointment at MIT under Chris Walsh, began his independent career. His work has spanned protein chemistry and enzymology. He has made many contributions to our understanding of nitric oxide signaling and more generally in molecular mechanisms of gas sensing in eukaryotes and prokaryotes. More recent studies have involved novel enzymes involved with cellulose degradation. Marletta is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology

Research focus
chemical biology
nitric oxide signaling
gas sensing
structural basis of enzyme activity

Experimental organism
E. coli
human

Competing interests statement
Michael Marletta has received funding from the NIH, HHMI, and Burroughs-Wellcome Fund. He was a member of the PNAS Editorial Board (until July 2012) and Biochemistry. He is a Scientific Advisory Board member of Lycera, Inc., Galleon Pharmaceuticals, Viamet Pharmaceuticals, and N30. He serves on the Scientific Review Board of HHMI. He is an External Review Board member of the Vanderbilt Institute of Chemical Biology, Georgia Tech School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Chair, Natural Science Advisory Council, SUNY Fredonia. He is a co-founder of Omniox, Inc.
David Ron

Cambridge University, United Kingdom

David Ron is a Professor at Cambridge University. He directs a lab at the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research (CIMR) studying protein-folding homeostasis in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). The lab uses biochemical, biophysical and cell-based tools to research both the molecular mechanisms that recognize the burden of unfolded proteins and thus initiate signalling in the ER unfolded protein response (UPR) and the downstream effector pathways by which cells adapt to unfolded protein stress in their ER. These effector mechanisms engage post-translational regulation of ER chaperone function, regulated translation of mRNA and transcriptional control of gene expression and thus interface with other cellular stress pathways.

To eLife, David Ron brings scientific expertise in the study of the unfolded protein response, chaperone function and stress-induced regulation of mRNA translation and editorial experience from having served as an eLife Reviewing Editor since 2012.

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Cell Biology

Research focus
chaperones
unfolded protein response
oxidative protein folding
protein synthesis

Experimental organism
C. elegans
E. coli
human
mouse
S. cerevisiae

Competing interests statement
David Ron holds a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellowship and is on the editorial advisory boards of J. Cell Science, PLOS Biology and EMBO J.
Cynthia Wolberger

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, United States

Cynthia Wolberger is a Professor of Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, whose faculty she joined in 1991. She received her AB in Physics from Cornell University and her PhD in Biophysics from Harvard University, where she did thesis work on the structural basis of protein-DNA interactions under the guidance of Steve Harrison and Mark Ptashne. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco with Bob Stroud, she worked on the crystal structures of homeodomain-DNA complexes in the laboratory of Carl Pabo at Johns Hopkins. Her earlier worked focused on the structural basis for combinatorial regulation of gene expression and the molecular mechanisms of the sirtuin family of protein deacetylases. Her current research centers on the mechanisms by which ubiquitin plays a signaling role in transcription and the DNA damage response. Wolberger was a recipient of the David and Lucile Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering, a March of Dimes–Basil O’Conor Starter Scholar Award, and an American Cancer Society Junior Faculty Award, and was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator from 1994–2014. She received the Protein Society’s Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin Award and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Expertise
Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics
Chromosomes and Gene Expression
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology

Research focus
x-ray crystallography
enzymology
transcriptional regulation
ubiquitin signaling

Competing interests statement
Cynthia Wolberger receives funding from the National Institutes of Health and the US–Israel Binational Science Foundation. She chairs the Scientific Advisory Committee of the RCSB Protein Data Bank and is on the external scientific advisory boards of the Advanced Photon Source and the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Martinsried, Germany. She is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Protein Science, the Editorial Boards of Structure and Current Opinion in Structural Biology, and is a Faculty of 1000 section head in Transcription and Translation. Wolberger is also a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Thermo Fisher Scientific.

Reviewing editors

James Berger

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, United States

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

Research focus
x-ray crystallography
electron microscopy
biochemistry
biophysics
DNA replication
ATPase mechanism
DNA topology
topoisomerases
helicases

Experimental organism
B. subtilis
D. melanogaster
E. coli
human
S. cerevisiae
Douglas L Black

University of California, Los Angeles, United States

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Chromosomes and Gene Expression

Research focus
RNA splicing
alternative splicing
RNA binding proteins
post-transcriptional gene regulation
neuronal gene expression
neuronal development
polypyrimidine tract binding proteins
Rbfox proteins

Experimental organism
mammalian cells
mouse
ES cell models
Michael R Botchan

University of California, Berkeley, United States

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Chromosomes and Gene Expression

Research focus
DNA replication
DNA repair

Experimental organism
D. melanogaster
Agnieszka Chacinska

University of Warsaw, Poland

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Cell Biology

Research focus
biogenesis
organelles
mitochondria
protein transport
proteasome
protein degradation
protein synthesis

Experimental organism
S. cerevisiae
mammalian cells
nematode
Pimchai Chaiyen

Vidyasirimedhi Institute of Science and Technology (VISTEC), Thailand

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology

Research focus
enzyme catalysis
enzyme engineering
systems biocatalysis
metabolic engineering
synthetic biology
Jon Clardy

Harvard Medical School, United States

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Ecology
Microbiology and Infectious Disease

Research focus
microbial secondary metabolism
chemical communications
biosynthesis
chemical biology
microbial chemical ecology
Ben Cravatt

Scripps Research Institute, United States

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology

Research focus
chemical biology
proteomics
neurochemistry
pharmacology

Experimental organism
human
mouse
Irwin Davidson

Institut de Genetique et de Biologie Moleculaire et Cellulaire, CNRS/INSERM/UDS, France

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Cancer Biology
Chromosomes and Gene Expression

Research focus
transcription
chromatin
genomics
cancer

Experimental organism
human
mouse
Ivan Dikic

Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Cell Biology

Research focus
ubiquitination
autophagy
endocytosis
inflammation
cancer biology
Jose Faraldo-Gomez

National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, United States

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

Research focus
Computational biophysics
molecular computation
membrane proteins
Matthew Freeman

University of Oxford, United Kingdom

Expertise
Cell Biology
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology

Research focus
cell signalling
trafficking
quality control

Experimental organism
D. melanogaster
Adam Frost

University of California, San Francisco, United States

Expertise
Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Cell Biology

Research focus
cryo-EM
electron cryo-microscopy
membranes
membrane remodeling
proteostasis
stress responses
translation
mitochondria
nuclear envelope
intracellular trafficking
Rachel Green

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, United States

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Chromosomes and Gene Expression

Research focus
mechanism of translation (bacterial and eukaryotic)
ribosome profiling
mRNA decay
translational control
ribosomes
Nikolaus Grigorieff

Janelia Research Campus, United States

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

Research focus
structural biology
image processing
biophysics
electron microscopy
cryo-EM
Franz-Ulrich Hartl

Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Germany

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

Research focus
protein folding
molecular chaperones
neurodegenerative disorders
Brandon Harvey

NIDA/NIH, Intramural Research Program, United States

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Cell Biology
Chromosomes and Gene Expression
Immunology and Inflammation
Neuroscience

Research focus
ER stress
ER calcium
neuroinflammation
viral vector
AAV
CNS
biomarkers
primary neurons and glia

Experimental organism
rat
mouse
human cells
Manajit Hayer-Hartl

Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Germany

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

Research focus
molecular chaperones
protein folding and assembly
protein misfolding and aggregation
molecular machines
Ramanujan S Hegde

MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, United Kingdom

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Cell Biology

Research focus
protein translocation
endoplasmic reticulum
quality control
protein degradation
membrane protein insertion
protein aggregation
in vitro reconstitution
David James

University of Sydney, Australia

Expertise
Cell Biology
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology

Research focus
diabetes
metabolism
insulin action
protein phosphorylation
signal transduction

Experimental organism
D. melanogaster
human
mouse
Mary B Kennedy

California Institute of Technology, United States

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Computational and Systems Biology
Neuroscience

Research focus
synaptic plasticity
synaptic regulation
biochemical signal transduction networks
systems biology

Experimental organism
mouse
rat
Yamuna Krishnan

University of Chicago, United States

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology

Research focus
nucleic acid-based molecular devices
DNA machines
chemical biology
synthetic biology
bioengineering

Experimental organism
C. elegans
Werner Kühlbrandt

Max Planck Institute for Biophysics, Germany

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics
Cell Biology

Research focus
membrane protein structure and function
membrane transporters
macromolecular complexes
molecular bioenergetics
membrane proteins
cryo-EM

Experimental organism
E. coli
S. cerevisiae
Ashish Lal

National Institutes of Health, United States

Expertise
Cancer Biology
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Chromosomes and Gene Expression
Genetics and Genomics

Research focus
RNA biology
lncRNAs
microRNAs
gene regulation
cancer biology
p53
DNA damage

Experimental organism
human
Andrei Lupas

Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Germany

Expertise
Computational and Systems Biology
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

Research focus
bacterial surface proteins
bioinformatics
coiled coils
protein design
protein evolution
protein structure
transmembrane signal tranduction
Andreas Martin

University of California, Berkeley, United States

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

Research focus
AAA+ ATPases
protein degradation
proteostasis
ATPase mechanism
protein folding
Elizabeth A Miller

MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, United Kingdom

Expertise
Cell Biology
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology

Research focus
membrane traffic
endoplasmic reticulum
protein quality control
COPII vesicles

Experimental organism
S. cerevisiae
Noboru Mizushima

University of Tokyo, Japan

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Cell Biology

Research focus
protein degradation
lysosome
autophagy
protein/organelle degradation
autophagosome

Experimental organism
mouse
yeast
Hitoshi Nakatogawa

Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan

Expertise
Cell Biology
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology

Research focus
molecular mechanisms of autophagy
protein/organelle degradation
membrane dynamics

Experimental organism
S. cerevisiae
Geeta Narlikar

University of California, San Francisco, United States

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

Research focus
chromatin
heterochromatin spread
chromatin remodeling machines
Hannes Neuweiler

University of Würzburg, Germany

Expertise
Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology

Research focus
protein dynamics
protein folding
protein engineering
fluorescence spectroscopy
fluorescence probe development
single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy
kinetics

Experimental organism
E. coli
Timothy Nilsen

Case Western Reserve University, United States

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Chromosomes and Gene Expression

Research focus
mRNA processing
mechanism of miRNA function
RNA protein interactions
mRNP composition and function
RNA biology

Experimental organism
D. melanogaster
Kim Orth

University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, United States

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Microbiology and Infectious Disease

Research focus
bacterial pathogenesis
Type III secretion
host-pathogen interactions
signaling
AMPylation

Experimental organism
Vibrio spp
E. coli
human
S. cerevisiae
Jon Pines

Institute of Cancer Research, University College London, United Kingdom

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Cell Biology

Research focus
cyclins and anaphase promoting complex/cycosome (APC/C)
cell cycle
mitosis
spindle assembly checkpoint

Experimental organism
human
Arun Radhakrishnan

University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, United States

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Cell Biology
Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

Research focus
lipid sensors
cholesterol
sphingomyelin
cholesterol transport
SREBP
Scap
cholesterol homeostasis
endoplasmic reticulum

Experimental organism
E. coli
human
mouse
Michael Rape

University of California, Berkeley, United States

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Cell Biology

Research focus
stem cells
ubiquitin
ubiquitylation
degradation
proteasome
E3 ligase
p97/VCP
differentiation
quality control

Experimental organism
human
mouse
Xenopus
Tricia Serio

The University of Massachusetts, Amherst, United States

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Cell Biology

Research focus
prion
protein misfolding
chaperones
amyloid

Experimental organism
S. cerevisiae
Nima Sharifi

Cleveland Clinic, United States

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Cancer Biology

Research focus
steroid biochemistry
steroid metabolism
prostate cancer
nuclear receptors
hormone therapy resistance
androgens
oncology

Experimental organism
mouse
Wesley Sundquist

University of Utah School of Medicine, United States

Expertise
Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics
Microbiology and Infectious Disease
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology

Research focus
virus assembly
HIV
ESCRT
abscission
innate immunity
Wilfred van der Donk

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology

Research focus
antibiotics
enzymology
biosynthesis
phosphonates
peptides
bacteria

Experimental organism
E. coli
Oliver Weichenrieder

Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Germany

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics
Genetics and Genomics

Research focus
retrotransposition
regulatory mRNA
x-ray crystallography
structural biology
William I Weis

Stanford University, United States

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

Research focus
cell adhesion
wnt signaling
x-ray crystallography
structural biology

Experimental organism
C. elegans
Dictyostelium
human
mouse
Mingjie Zhang

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong SAR China

Expertise
Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics

Research focus
postsynaptic density
synaptic signaling
scaffold proteins
liquid-liquid phase separation
biological condensates