Faculty

Geoffrey Chang 
Associate Professor
Department of Molecular Biology
TSRI - 1999

Joint Appointments 
The Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology

Education 
Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1996

Awards & Activities 
Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, Office of Science and Technology Policy of the White House.

Research Focus 
Structural Biology Of Integral Membrane Proteins

The high-resolution structure determination of integral membrane proteins is one of the most exciting research frontiers in structural biology. Our laboratory is interested in the structural basis for the transport of substrate across the cell membrane by ion channels and transporters. We accomplish this goal by using several techniques, which include detergent/lipid protein biochemistry, membrane protein crystallization, and x-ray crystallography. Our structure determination procedures involve the over-expression, large-scale purification, and three-dimensional crystallization of full-length integral membrane proteins for x-ray structural analysis.

Recent studies in our laboratory have focused on transporters that confer the multi-drug resistance (mdr) phenotype that is a growing problem in the treatment of infectious diseases and cancer. These efflux pumps cause a reduction in the drug concentration within the cell and prevent effective chemotherapy. Our objective is to understand the molecular components involved in drug transport through the cell membrane and also the structural basis for multiple drug/lipid specificities. By using the information derived from this work, we hope to circumvent the problem of mdr and thereby enhance the potency of existing drug compounds.

Selected References 
Chang, G. (2003). Multidrug Resistance ABC Transporters. FEBS letter 555, 102-105.