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Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Faculty & Staff

  • Karen Berkowitz, MD*

    Associate Professor; Associate Dean for Medical Student Research
    Department: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Obstetrics & Gynecology
    Research Interests: Mammalian germ cell development, Molecular mechanisms governing gametogenesis

  • Irwin Chaiken, PhD

    Professor
    Department: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
    Research Interests: Protein interactions in health and disease, structure-based antagonism of HIV-1 Env, recombinant protein/peptidomimetic/small molecule inhibitor design and mechanism of action

  • Jessica Chen, PhD

    Assistant Professor
    Department: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
    Research Interests: Graduate student education & on-line programs; previous research focused on beta-adrenergic signaling in cardiovascular disease

  • Ridhdhi Desai, PhD

    Assistant Professor
    Department: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
    Research Interests: cancer and cell biology; disease modeling; exocrine/endocrine crosstalk

  • Alexej Dick, PhD

    Assistant Professor
    Department: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
    Research Interests: Computational-aided drug design, biophysics of protein interactions, protein design, structural biology.

  • Vivek Joshi, MD*

    Associate Professor
    Department: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
    Research Interests: Endocrine disorders, thyroid disorders, diabetes, polycystic ovarian syndrome, active learning in medical education, curriculum enhancement and development.

  • Patrick Loll, PhD

    Professor
    Department: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
    Research Interests: X-ray crystallography and protein biophysics; integral membrane protein structure; antibiotic resistance; mechanism of drug action; protein homeostasis

  • Eishi Noguchi, PhD

    Professor; Director, Graduate Program in Molecular & Cellular Biology & Genetics
    Department: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
    Research Interests: Genome maintenance mechanisms relevant to the biology of cancer and aging, including DNA replication, DNA repair, DNA damage response and cell cycle checkpoints; investigating the mechanisms required for preservation of genomic integrity in response to environmental factors and toxins, including alcohol and aldehydes

  • Shae Padrick, PhD

    Assistant Professor
    Department: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
    Research Interests: Kinetic mechanism of signal integration; X-ray crystallography and protein biophysics; cell biology; cytoskeleton dynamics; protein complexes

  • Mauricio Reginato, PhD

    Professor and Chair; Director, Graduate Program in Cancer Biology
    Department: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
    Research Interests: Molecular mechanisms regulating breast cancer growth and metastasis and understanding interplay between signaling and metabolic pathways to identify novel cancer therapies.

  • Noreen Robertson, DMD

    Associate Vice Dean for Research
    Research Interests: Cancer and inflammatory disease

  • Christian Sell, PhD

    Professor
    Department: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
    Research Interests: Biology of aging; neuroendocrine networks.

  • Srinivas Somarowthu, PhD

    Associate Professor; Director, Biochemistry of Health and Disease Program
    Department: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
    Research Interests: Long non-coding RNAs; non-coding RNAs in viral genomes; RNA-protein complexes; molecular modeling and bioinformatics

  • Todd Strochlic, PhD, VMD

    Associate Professor; Assistant Dean of Curricular Integration
    Department: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
    Research Interests: Protein kinases, oncogenic signaling, breast cancer, and Drosophila oogenesis

 
Retired Faculty
 

Jane Azizkhan-Clifford, PhD

Jane Azizkhan-Clifford, PhD

Professor Emerita
Department: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Research Interests: Cellular response to DNA damage, regulation of gene expression, cellular proliferation and the cell cycle


Denise Ferrier, PhD

Denise Ferrier, PhD

Professor Emerita
Department: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology


Bradford Jameson, PhD

Bradford Jameson, PhD

Professor
Department: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Research Interests: Medical and graduate student education; previous research focused on structure-based drug design studies for development of immune-regulatory compounds


Marilyn Jorns, PhD

Marilyn Jorns, PhD

Professor Emerita
Department: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Research Interests: Use of structure-based drug design to develop a new class of drugs to treat heart failure, based on modulation of the gasotransmitter hydrogen sulfide; structure and mechanism of membrane-bound oxidoreductases


Gerald Soslau, PhD

Gerald Soslau, PhD

Professor Emeritus
Department: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Research Interests: Platelet biochemistry/molecular biology and hemostasis


John Swaney, PhD

John Swaney, PhD

Professor (Retired)


 
Joint Faculty Appointments
 

Cameron Abrams, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Secondary Faculty

Cameron Abrams, PhD

Department: Chemical and Biological Engineering
Research Interests: Molecular simulations in biophysics and materials, HIV-1 envelope structure and function, protein-ligand binding thermodynamics and kinetics


Luis Cruz Cruz, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Secondary Faculty

Luis Cruz Cruz, PhD

Department: Physics
Research Interests: Computational studies of confinement effects on the folding of amyloidogenic proteins, spatial correlations of neurons in the brain, firing dynamics of neuronal networks, fluid flow through porous media


Frank Ferrone, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Secondary Faculty

Frank Ferrone, PhD

Department: Physics
Research Interests: Experimental and theoretical protein dynamics, kinetics of biological self-assembly, including sickle cell and Alzheimer's disease, sickle cell testing and diagnostic devices


Aleister Saunders, PhD

Aleister Saunders, PhD

Department: Biology
Research Interests: Identifying and characterizing genes involved in pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD), aiming to identify novel therapeutic strategies to delay or prevent onset of AD


Brigita Urbanc, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Secondary Faculty

Brigita Urbanc, PhD

Department: Physics
Research Interests: Computational and experimental biophysics of protein folding and assembly, relevant to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease; discrete molecular dynamics of coarse-grained protein and lipid models


Akhil Vaidya, PhD

Akhil Vaidya, PhD

Research Interests: We investigate mitochondrial physiology, metabolism, and signaling in malaria parasites with a view to discover new drugs and to understand drug resistance.


Michael White, PhD

Michael White, PhD

Research Interests: Ligand-gated ion channels; structure-function relationships; molecular modeling; ligand-receptor interactions


 
Adjunct Biochemistry Faculty
 

Gordon J. Lutz, PhD

Research Interests: Our major research focus is to develop novel splice modulating oligomers (SMOs) as drugs to treat various serious neurological diseases, neuromuscular/muscular disorders and cancer.
Email: glutz@drexelmed.edu


Joseph Nickels, PhD

Associate Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
PhD (1993) Microbiology & Immunogenetics, University of Medicine and Dentistry, New Jersey (UMDNJ)
Research Interests: Our laboratory has a basic research focus in two different areas. The first area is aimed at understanding the signals that are used in controlling the cell cycle. Under normal circumstances, the cell cycle is carefully controlled to ensure that cells replicate at the "right time." A loss of appropriate cell cycle signaling can result in uncontrolled growth, which often manifests itself as a form of cancer. The other focus of our laboratory is directed at an understanding of the checks and balances governing sterol synthesis. Sterol synthesis is one of the major therapeutic targets in the control of heart disease. Both of these research projects involve extremely complicated regulatory signals. To aid in our basic understanding, we have adopted the yeast system as a means of addressing our experimental questions.
Phone: 609.570.1046
Email: jnickels@mdlab.com


 
Adjunct Biochemistry Faculty at Fox Chase Cancer Center
 

Visit Fox Chase Cancer Center

Sanjeevani Arora, PhD

Research Interests: Genetic studies to improve screening, early detection and treatment of cancers; mechanisms underlying genetically undefined hereditary cancers; predictive biomarkers for response to chemoradiation therapy; novel strategies to screen for individuals at high risk for cancer


Alfonso Bellacosa, MD*

Research Interests: DNA repair of mismatched bases and the cellular response to DNA damage. Identification of early genetic alterations in tumorigenesis.


Lu Chen, PhD


Jonathan Chernoff, MD, PhD*

Research Interests: Signal transduction by small G proteins and their effectors and the role of these proteins in regulating cytoskeletal structure, tumor invasion, and metastasis; regulation of insulin signaling.


Denise Connolly, PhD

Research Interests: Goal of our research is to discover ways to improve the treatment of epithelial ovarian cancer.


Edna Cukierman, PhD

Research Interests: Tumor microenvironment and tumor-stroma interactions; a primary fibroblast-derived and in vivo-like 3D system that mimics stroma progression is used to investigate both the mechanisms of matrix induced myofibroblastic differentiation (e.g., desmoplastic activation) and the tumor-associated matrix induced permissiveness that promotes tumorigenesis and cell invasion.  The stroma progressive 3D system also serves as basis for a platform investigating tumor-associated matrix induced drug responsiveness.


Roland Dunbrack, PhD

Research Interests: Computational structural biology, including homology modeling, fold recognition, molecular dynamics simulations, statistical analysis of the PDB and bioinformatics.


Cihangir Duy, PhD

Research Interests: Identifying drug survival mechanisms for novel therapeutic strategies to benefit patients. Developing organoid models for precision medicine. Determining pathways and mechanisms regulating chromatin modifiers and enhancer-promoter interactions in hematopoietic cells. Systems biology approaches to determine epigenetic plasticity and epigenome regulation.


Erica Golemis, PhD

Research Interests: Understanding points of communication between the cell cycle machinery and cell shape controls, with particular reference to how these processes are simultaneously disrupted in cancer; the HEF1, HEI10, and HEI-C proteins, which function in cell cycle-cell attachment control pathways.


Neil Johnson, PhD

Research Interests: The Johnson laboratory studies mechanisms of DNA damage detection, repair, and signaling that occur in BRCA1 mutation-containing organisms and cancers. We use a range of approaches, including cell biology, mouse genetics, and therapy resistance modeling, to understand basic biological processes and their implications for tumorigenesis and chemotherapy sensitivity.


Warren D. Kruger, PhD

Research Interests: The role of dysregulated methionine metabolism and human diseases; correction of mutant protein function by chaperone therapy; mouse models of human disease.


Lori Rink, PhD

Research Interests: Understanding mechanisms of drug resistance in gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST); preclinical testing of novel agents/combinations in GIST patient derived xenografts (PDX); identification of biomarkers of response to targeted agents in soft tissue sarcomas


Jonathan Whetstine, PhD

Research Interests: Epigenetic Mechanisms Driving Copy Gain, Amplifications and Drug Resistance


Amy Whitaker, PhD


Yibin Yang, PhD

Research Interests: Immune regulatory pathways in human lymphoid malignancies. We are interested in the immune signaling pathways, particularly key transcriptional factors and ubiquitin-mediated signaling, required for lymphoma pathogenesis and immunotherapy. We have established an unbiased high-throughput CRISPR library screening technology to rapidly and accurately identify key pathways that are suitable for targeted therapy and immunotherapy.


 
Adjunct Biochemistry Faculty at the Wistar Institute
 

Alessandro Gardini, PhD

Research Interests: The lab is interested in how genomic regulatory sequences, termed enhancers, work to determine cell identity and specify blood lineages, such as monocytes/macrophages and granulocytes, from hematopoietic stem cells.


Zachary Schug, PhD

Research Interests: Dr. Schug is interested in investigating metabolic adaptation in cancer cells through the use of cell biology, biochemistry, and metabolomics.


* Physician's practice is independent of Drexel University.

 
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Abstract biochemistry and molecular biology research graphic.