Faculty

The chemical biology community at UC Davis includes a large group of productive, well funded and collaborative faculty members with a strong history of mentoring pre-doctoral students. Our faculty comprises 29 trainers with primary appointments in six different departments across five different colleges.


Alphabetical Listing

  • James Ames | Biophysical chemistry and structural biology
  • Shota Atsumi | Synthetic biology and metabolic engineering
  • Peter Beal | Nucleic acids chemical biology
  • R. David Britt | Biological and synthetic energy catalysis, metalloenzymes, EPR spectroscopy
  • Randy Carney Nanoplasmonics, Raman spectroscopy/SERS, exosomes, cancer diagnostics
  • 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
  • Annaliese Franz | Organic synthesis, catalysis, and biofuels
  • Christopher Fraser | Cellular and viral mRNA translation in humans
  • Jacquelyn Gervay-Hague | Natural products synthesis, tea chemistry, and phytoceuticals
  • Bruce Hammock | Biological chemistry of regulatory lipids, medicinal chemistry
  • Marie Heffern | Bioinorganic chemistry in nutrition and diseases, chemical biology and imaging
  • Christina Kim | Functional and biochemical mapping of neural circuits using in vivo imaging, single-cell RNA sequencing, and proteomics
  • Kit Lam | Lymphoma, targeted therapy for cancer, molecular imaging, drug development and combinatorial chemistry
  • Carlito Lebrilla | Bioanalytical mass spectrometry
  • James Letts | Membrane protein electron transport complexes in bioenergetics and immunity
  • Angelique Louie (Biomedical Engineering) | Molecular imaging and novel imaging probes
  • Elizabeth Neumann | Understanding the molecular and cellular architecture behind neurological diseases
  • David Olson | Organic synthesis and chemical neuroscience
  • David Segal | Genome engineering tools and therapeutics
  • Nitzan Shabek | Molecular mechanisms of signaling pathways and their regulation by proteolytic systems
  • Jared Shaw | Synthetic methods, natural products, chemical biology
  • Justin Siegel | Computational enzyme design
  • Alexei Stuchebrukhov | Electron and proton transfer dynamics in condensed phases
  • Cheemeng Tan Synthetic biology, artificial cellular systems, gene regulation, cellular heterogeneity, antibiotic treatment 
  • Dean Tantillo | Theoretical organic chemistry, natural products biosynthesis
  • Igor Vorobyov | Molecular modeling and simulations of molecular systems
  • Aijun Wang | Stem cells, biomaterials, tissue regeneration, vascular disease, birth defects
  • David Wilson | Structural biochemistry
  • Heike Wulff | Design of potassium channel modulators
  • Philipp Zerbe | Unveiling the diversity of plant metabolism for plant and human health

 

By Graduate Group Affiliation

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.

  • 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
    Annaliese Franz | Organic synthesis, catalysis, and biofuels
    Christopher Fraser | Cellular and viral mRNA translation in humans
    Bruce Hammock | Biological chemistry of regulatory lipids, medicinal chemistry
    James Letts | Membrane protein electron transport complexes in bioenergetics and immunity
    Jamal LewisBiomaterials, drug delivery, immuno-engineering 
    Dylan Murray | Physical chemistry of low sequence complexity protein domains
    David Segal | Genome engineering tools and therapeutics
    Nitzan Shabek | Molecular mechanisms of signaling pathways and their regulation by proteolytic systems
    Jared Shaw | Synthetic methods, natural products, chemical biology
    Justin Siegel | Computational enzyme design
    Patrick Shih | Engineering and investigating the evolution of metabolic pathways using  synthetic biology
    Cheemeng Tan Synthetic biology, artificial cellular systems, gene regulation, cellular heterogeneity, antibiotic treatment 
    David Wilson | Structural biochemistry
    Philipp Zerbe | Unveiling the diversity of plant metabolism for plant and human health
  • Biomedical Engineering
  • Randy Carney Nanoplasmonics, Raman spectroscopy/SERS, exosomes, cancer diagnostics
    Christina Kim | Functional and biochemical mapping of neural circuits using in vivo imaging, single-cell RNA sequencing, and proteomics
    Kit Lam | Lymphoma, targeted therapy for cancer, molecular imaging, drug development and combinatorial chemistry
    Angelique Louie | Molecular imaging and novel imaging probes
    Jamal LewisBiomaterials, drug delivery, immuno-engineering 
    Cheemeng Tan Synthetic biology, artificial cellular systems, gene regulation, cellular heterogeneity, antibiotic treatment 
    Igor Vorobyov | Molecular modeling and simulations of molecular systems
    Aijun Wang | Stem cells, biomaterials, tissue regeneration, vascular disease, birth defects
  • Biophysics
  • James Ames | Biophysical chemistry and structural biology
    R. David Britt | Biological and synthetic energy catalysis, metalloenzymes, EPR spectroscopy
    Andrew Fisher | Protein structure-function and X-ray crystallography
    James Letts | Membrane protein electron transport complexes in bioenergetics and immunity
    Dylan Murray | Physical chemistry of low sequence complexity protein domains
    Justin Siegel | Computational enzyme design
    Alexei Stuchebrukhov | Electron and proton transfer dynamics in condensed phases
    Cheemeng Tan Synthetic biology, artificial cellular systems, gene regulation, cellular heterogeneity, antibiotic treatment 
    Igor Vorobyov | Molecular modeling and simulations of molecular systems
    David Wilson | Structural biochemistry
  • Chemistry
  • James Ames | Biophysical chemistry and structural biology
    Shota Atsumi | Synthetic biology and metabolic engineering
    Peter Beal | Nucleic acids chemical biology
    R. David Britt | Biological and synthetic energy catalysis, metalloenzymes, EPR spectroscopy
    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
    Annaliese Franz | Organic synthesis, catalysis, and biofuels
    Jacquelyn Gervay-Hague | Natural products synthesis, tea chemistry, and phytoceuticals
    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 
    Dylan Murray | Physical chemistry of low sequence complexity protein domains
    David Olson | Organic synthesis and chemical neuroscience
    Jared Shaw | Synthetic methods, natural products, chemical biology
    Justin Siegel | Computational enzyme design
    Alexei Stuchebrukhov | Electron and proton transfer dynamics in condensed phases
    Dean Tantillo  | Theoretical organic chemistry, natural products biosynthesis
    Igor Vorobyov | Molecular modeling and simulations of molecular systems
    Heike Wulff | Design of potassium channel modulators
  • 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
    Justin Siegel | Computational enzyme design
    Heike Wulff | Design of potassium channel modulators