Faculty

Elizabeth Getzoff 
Professor
Department of Molecular Biology
TSRI - 1983

Joint Appointments 
IMMUNOLOGY

Education 
Ph.D., Duke University, 1982

Research Focus 
We study functionally important protein conformational changes pertinent to protein recognition, interaction and catalysis to provide a detailed understanding of how proteins work. Major research areas include protein photosensing, enzymatic control of reactive oxygen species, the coupling of metal-site chemistry and electron transfer for catalysis, and metalloprotein design. We use multi-wavelength anomalous diffraction; time resolved Laue crystallography; ultra high-resolution protein crystallography; free trapping; femtosecond and nanosecond laser initiation; rapid single-crystal spectroscopy’ computational and computer graphics analysis; and protein design cycles to test and integrate results from x-ray crystallography, molecular biology, biochemistry, and spectroscopy.

Selected References 
Barondeau, D.P., Kassmann, C.J., Tainer, J.A., Getzoff, E.D. (2002). Structural chemistry of a green fluorescent protein Zn biosensor, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 124, 3522-3524.

Forest, K.T., Langford, P.R., Kroll, J.S., and Getzoff, E.D. (2000) Cu,Zn superoxide dismutase structure from a microbial pathogen establishes a class with a conserved dimer interface, J. Mol. Biol., 296, 145-153.

Brudler, R., Rammelsberg, R. Woo, T.T., Getzoff, E.D., and Gerwert, K. (2001) Stucture of the I1 early intermediate of photoactive yellow protein by FTIR spectroscopy. Nature Structural Biology, 8, 265-270.

Aoyagi, M., Arvai, A.S., Ghosh, S., Stuehr, D.J., Tainer, J.A. & Getzoff, E.D. (2001) Structures of tetrahydrobiopterin binding-site mutants of inducible nitric oxide synthase oxygenase dimer and implicated roles of Trp457, Biochemistry, 40, 12826-12832.