Faculty in the Center for Molecular Biology and Biotechnology

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Shailaja K.Allani, Ph.D.
Director, Center for Molecular Biology and Biotechnology
Research Assistant Professor
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Research: Oxidative damage, cell death, mitochondrial metabolism, aging and cancer.

Gregg Fields, Ph.D.
Interim Vice President for Research
Professor
Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry
Research: Use of chemical approaches to better understand how protein three-dimensional structures influence cellular and enzymatic behaviors.

Herbert Weissbach, Ph.D.
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Professor Emeritus
Center for Molecular Biology and Biotechnology
Research: Role of the methionine sulfoxide reductase system in protecting cells against oxidative damage, aging and age related diseases including cancer.

Elan Barenholtz, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Psychology
Research: Perception and Learning; Deep Learning; Embedded computational neural models

David M. Binninger, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Associate Chair, Department of Biological Sciences
Research: Role of oxidative damage to proteins in the aging process.

Randy Blakely, Ph.D.
Executive Director, Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute
Professor
Department of Biomedical Science
Research: Analysis of the genetics, structure and regulation of brain synaptic transporter proteins in relation to neuropsychiatric disorder risk and opportunities for drug development.

Massimo Caputi, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Biomedical Science
Research: mRNA processing, mRNA splicing regulation, HIV-1 replication, Bcl apoptotic gene family regulation.

Lucia Carvelli, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Neuroscience
Wilkes Honors College
Research: Molecular mechanisms of amphetamine action in the dopaminergic synapses; long-term effects of embryonal exposure to amphetamine and cocaine and the effects these drugs have in offspring.

Mare Cudic, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Research: Synthesis glycopeptides and glycopeptide libraries as tools for probing glycan biology, elucidation of mechanism of low affinity glycan-lectin interactions, development of new chemotherapeutic agents and/or cancer vaccines, and drug delivery.

Predrag Cudic, Ph.D.
Professor and Associate Director of Research
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Research: My research interests are in the broadly defined fields of chemical biology and medicinal chemistry. My research team uses rational synthetic and combinatorial chemistry approaches to synthesize and elucidate structure-activity relationship of novel cyclic peptides as biological probes or lead compounds for drug discovery. Our research has implications for treatment of multi-drug resistant bacterial infections and treatment of central nervous system diseases.

Daniel de Lill , Ph.D.
Instructor of Chemistry
Wilkes Honors College
Research: A large variety of areas including inorganic chemistry, materials chemistry, nanochemistry, lanthanide compounds, luminescence, chemosensors, and heterogeneous catalysis

Kate Detwiler, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Anthropology
Research: Primate hybridization and speciation, molecular primatology, primate behavioral ecology, conservation of African monkeys and their rainforest habitats

Deguo Du, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Research: Protein structure and dynamics. Protein folding, misfolding and aggregation. Optical biosensor. Biomaterials.

Diuto Esiobu, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Research: Human Microbiomes - Oral, Skin, and Gut; Plant rhizobiomes in plant invasion and disease resistance; Synthetic biology for creation of diagnostic surrogate models; Beach quality and health risk assessment and other applied microbiology research.

Laura Fontenas, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Research: Developmental neurobiology, Glia-from neural precursors to myelinating cells, nervous system transition zones

Tanja Godenschwege, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Research:Neurological disorders and diseases, nervous system development, axonal guidance and synaptogenesis.

Kathleen M. Guthrie, Ph.D.
Assistant Director and Director of Graduate Education, Neuroscience Graduate Program, Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute
Associate Professor
Department of Biomedical Science
Research: Olfactory neurobiology and behavior. Developmental neurobiology, axon growth and targeting. Neurotrophic interactions during development and neuronal regeneration. Regulation of neuronal gene expression. Sensory systems.

William E. Hahn, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Mathematical Sciences
Research: Compressed sensing; Sparse Modeling; Deep Learning and Machine Learning; Computer Vision; Computational Neuroscience

James Hartmann, Ph.D.
Professor, Biological Sciences
Department of Biological Sciences
Research: Immunotherapy of cancer; Regulation of the immune system; Inflammatory and autoimmune diseases

Xupei Huang, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Biomedical Science
Research: Biochemistry. Signal transduction in cardiac myocytes; Cardiac cell physiology and molecular cardiology; Functional genomics and myofibril protein gene regulation; Transgenic and gene knockout animal models

Ceylan Isgor, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Biomedical Science
Research: Animal Models of Seizure Susceptibility; Neuromorphological, behavioral and molecular consequences of chronic, variable stress during peripubertal-juvenile period in rats; Animal models for individual differences in the novelty-seeking or risk-taking behavior; Gonadal and adrenal steroid regulation of the novel estrogen receptor beta in stress relevant brain nuclei

Kailiang Jia, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Research: Molecular regulation of aging. Multiple longevity pathways, such as insulin-like growth factor signaling, TOR signaling, dietary restriction, and mitochondrial activity, control aging in C. elegans and other organisms.

Salvatore Lepore, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry
Research: Total synthesis of therapeutically important complex natural products and development of expedited synthesis techniques to facilitate small-molecule library production.

Michael Lu, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Biomedical Science
Research: Molecular and cellular biology. Hormone-regulated signal transduction. Tumor metastasis. Cell growth regulation.

Gregory Macleod, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Research: The ways in which mitochondria support neurotransmission and influence synaptic plasticity, the mechanisms responsible for pH homeostasis at synapses and their influence on synaptic plasticity, the mechanisms supporting neurotransmission most vulnerable to aging

Sarah Milton, Ph.D.
Chair, Department of Biological Sciences
Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Research: Vertebrate anoxia tolerance, sea turtle physiology. Molecular adaptations of neuronal anoxia tolerance in freshwater turtles, examination of stress adaptations at the molecular and physiological level in Everglades fish, and several different aspects of sea turtle biology including hatchling energetics, immunology, and molecular responses to disease.

Rodney Murphey, Ph.D.
Professor
Research: Development, degeneration and death in the nervous system. Molecular genetics, cellular neurophysiology and numerous imaging techniques to study these issues in model genetic systems

Gary W. Perry, Ph.D.
Professor
Director, Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences.
Research: Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience. Molecular and cellular mechanisms involved in neural damage, neural development, neural growth and regeneration. Axonal transport and axonally transported proteins. Physiological mechanisms of the sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).

Howard M. Prentice, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Biomedical Science
Research: Ischemic adaptations, neurodegenerative disease, brain anoxia, mitochondrial dysfunction and aging processes.

Mahsa Ranji, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and I-SENSE Fellow
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Research: Biomedical Optics; Bio-instrumentation; Optics and Photonics

Stephane Roche, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Research: C hallenge modern synthetic chemistry: developing catalytic, enantioselective and more chemoselective methodologies by considering biomimetic inspirations. Establishing new methodologies using organocatalysis, which will be directly applied in total synthesis of complex targets, development of innovative methodologies on chirality and peptide chemistry as tools for the preparation of complex non-proteinogenic amino acids, peptides and alkaloids

Wen Shen, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Biomedical Science
Research: Electrophysiology of channels and receptors. Transporters in neurodevelopment and adult system. Signal transduction in retinal circuit.

Robert W. Stackman, Ph.D.
Associate Vice President for the Jupiter Campus, Dean of the Graduate College, and Professor
Department of Psychology
Research: Cellular and circuit mechanisms of long-term memory; Spatial navigation and limbic system networks; Behavioral (in-vivo) neurophysiology; Hippocampal and cortical interactions and coding of object memory

Maciej Stawikowski, Ph.D.
Research Professor
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Research: Synthesis and characterization of novel fluorescent probes and substrates for bioimaging and activity assessment, peptide engineering, drug design and synthesis (peptides & peptidomimetics), structural biochemistry, & enzymology of serine proteases.

Andrew Terentis, Ph.D.
Professor and Department Chair
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Research: Understanding of the structure and function of biomolecules, living cells, and biological tissues through the application of Raman spectroscopy and microscopy as well as other optical spectroscopic techniques.

Jianning Wei, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Biomedical Science
Research: To investigate protein-protein interaction using a combination of biochemical methods and mass spectrometry. Molecular mechanisms of age-related neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's disease.

Jang-Yen Wu, Ph.D.
Professor
Schmidt Senior Fellow
Department of Biomedical Science
Research: Neuroscience, neurotransmitters and neurological disorders.

Ilyas Yildirim, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Research: Theoretical and computational biophysical chemistry; developing new computational methods and models to study nucleic acids; drug design targeting RNA molecules causing genetic disease (such as Huntington Disease, Myotonic Dystrophy, and Fragile X-Syndrome); investigating properties of microRNA/AGO complex; force field development for modified RNA residues; interactions of transcription factors with DNA; DNA based nanomaterials

Xing-Hai Zhang, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Biological Sciences
Research: Plant molecular biology and biotechnology, improvement of CO2

CMBB Staff

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Jessica Hibberd, M.Ed.
Development Coordinator, John D. MacArthur Campus
Program Coordinator, Biotech Bridge Program

Marjorie Cazeau
Academic Services Administrator
Senior Coordinator, Center for Molecular Biology and Biotechnology