Program Information

The Chemical Biology Program (CBP) is supported by a NIH T32 Training Grant (July 1, 2021 - June 30, 2026), with matching funds from UC Davis, providing fellowships for 6-7 highly qualified predoctoral candidates annually. Our goal is to engage students in effective cross training at the interface of chemistry and biology. Through the CBP, trainees will develop an understanding for the value of the synthesis and analysis tools traditionally associated with chemistry in addressing biological questions relating to human health.

A trainee from this program will be equipped to move comfortably into a scientific career that requires them to communicate with both chemists and biologists (e.g. leading teams of investigators comprising both chemists and biologists or executing research projects with significant chemical and biological components). This will be achieved by a combination of coursework, laboratory rotations, individual development plans (IDP), research-in-progress presentations, career development activities and annual retreats.

 

Training Activities

 

Financial Support

The NIH T32 Training Grant and University Matching Funds provides funding for up to two years of your graduate education (years two and three), including a stipend and all tuition and fees. This funding is contingent upon satisfactory progress in your graduate Ph.D. training. This includes, but is not limited to, maintaining a minimum 3.0 GPA in all required coursework, making satisfactory progress in all research-related activities and participating in Program activities.

 

Participating Graduate Groups

If you are a prospective UC Davis graduate student, before applying for the CBP fellowship, you must first apply and be accepted to one of our participating graduate groups. Specific application requirements and deadlines vary and may be found on their respective websites and from the Office of Graduate Studies.

 

Participating Faculty

The faculty listings below are sorted by graduate group affiliations. Graduate groups embody the collaborative spirit of discovery at UC Davis by bringing together scholars from different areas of study who share common research interests, which means many of our faculty belong to more than one graduate program. You may also refer to our faculty directory for an alphabetical listing.

  • Biochemistry, Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology
  • Shota Atsumi | Synthetic biology and metabolic engineering 
    Peter Beal | Nucleic acids chemical biology
    Sheila David | Chemical biology of DNA repair
    Oliver Fiehn | Mass spectrometry and computation chemistry for metabolomics
    Andrew Fisher | Protein structure-function and X-ray crystallography
    Christopher Fraser | Cellular and viral mRNA translation in humans
    Bruce Hammock | Biological chemistry of regulatory lipids, medicinal chemistry
    David Segal | Genome engineering tools and therapeutics
  • Biomedical Engineering
  • Randy Carney | Nanoplasmonics, Raman spectroscopy/SERS, exosomes, cancer diagnostics
    Kit Lam | Lymphoma, targeted therapy for cancer, molecular imaging, drug development and combinatorial chemistry
    Angelique Louie | Molecular imaging and novel imaging probes
    Matthew Paszek | Investigating how signaling patterns emerge from spatial arrangements outside of thermodynamic equilibrium and what role mechanical forces and biophysical interactions play in organizing biomolecules at molecular length scales
    Cheemeng Tan Synthetic biology, artificial cellular systems, gene regulation, cellular heterogeneity, antibiotic treatment
    Aijun Wang | Stem cells, biomaterials, tissue regeneration, vascular disease, birth defects
     
  • Biophysics
  • James Ames | Biophysical chemistry and structural biology
    James Letts | Membrane protein electron transport complexes in bioenergetics and immunity
    Justin Siegel | Computational enzyme design
    Cheemeng Tan Synthetic biology, artificial cellular systems, gene regulation, cellular heterogeneity, antibiotic treatment
    Igor Vorobyov | Molecular modeling and simulations of molecular systems
  • Chemistry
  • James Ames | Biophysical chemistry and structural biology
    Shota Atsumi | Synthetic biology and metabolic engineering
    Peter Beal | Nucleic acids chemical biology
    Xi Chen | Chemical biology/glycoscience
    Sheila David | Chemical biology of DNA repair
    Oliver Fiehn | Mass spectrometry and computation chemistry for metabolomics
    Andrew Fisher | Protein structure-function and X-ray crystallography
    Alec H. FollmerAdvancing the frontiers of metalloenzymology by designing innovative approaches to understand the non-equilibrium dynamics that drive the catalytic processes of metal-containing enzymes
    Annaliese Franz | Organic synthesis, catalysis, and biofuels
    Marie Heffern | Bioinorganic chemistry in nutrition and diseases, chemical biology and imaging
    Kit Lam | Lymphoma, targeted therapy for cancer, molecular imaging, drug development and combinatorial chemistry
    Carlito Lebrilla | Bioanalytical mass spectrometry
    Angelique Louie | Molecular imaging and novel imaging probes
    Elizabeth Neumann | Understanding the molecular and cellular architecture behind neurological diseases
    David Olson | Organic synthesis and chemical neuroscience
    Jared Shaw | Synthetic methods, natural products, chemical biology
    Justin Siegel | Computational enzyme design
    Dean Tantillo  | Theoretical organic chemistry, natural products biosynthesis
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology
  • Sheila David | Chemical biology of DNA repair
    Oliver Fiehn | Mass spectrometry and computation chemistry for metabolomics
    Bruce Hammock | Biological chemistry of regulatory lipids, medicinal chemistry
    Kit Lam | Lymphoma, targeted therapy for cancer, molecular imaging, drug development and combinatorial chemistry
    David Segal | Genome engineering tools and therapeutics
    Aijun Wang | Stem cells, biomaterials, tissue regeneration, vascular disease, birth defects
    Heike Wulff | Design of potassium channel modulators
  • Integrative Genetics and Genomics
  • Randy Carney | Nanoplasmonics, Raman spectroscopy/SERS, exosomes, cancer diagnostics
    David Segal | Genome engineering tools and therapeutics
    Nitzan Shabek | Molecular mechanisms of signaling pathways and their regulation by proteolytic systems
    Cheemeng Tan Synthetic biology, artificial cellular systems, gene regulation, cellular heterogeneity, antibiotic treatment