Our Mission

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Massive macromolecular complexes are essential in virtually all cellular processes, including synthesizing new proteins and degrading old ones, the transporting molecules throughout the cell, and converting nutrients to usable energy through cellular metabolism.

We are actively working to uncover how these complexes are assembled, disassembled, and degraded, and to learn how environmental stress, mutations, disease, and aging alter the fidelity of these processes. To achieve these goals, we develop and apply new computational and experimental methods – specifically those utilizing cryo-electron microscopy, cryo-electron tomography, and mass spectrometry.

The lab currently focuses on two systems to study macromolecular complex assembly – the bacterial ribosome, and the eukaryotic autophagosome. These complimentary models allow us to uncover fundamental principles shared between these disparate complexes, and to uncover the unique ways that eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells work to assemble RNA-protein (ribosome) and membrane-protein (autophagosome) molecular machines.

Long-term, we hope that our work to uncover the assembly principles of natural macromolecular complexes will guide work aimed to engineer synthetic molecular machines with applications in bioremediation, metabolic engineering, drug delivery, and materials science.

“The construction of an airplane is simple compared with the evolutionary achievement of a bird. If I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes.”

— Charles Lindbergh