Faculty

Jennifer Harris

Assistant Professor of Biochemistry
Department of Molecular Biology
TSRI - 2003

Education

Ph.D. Pharmaceutical Chemistry, UCSF, 1999

B.S. Chemistry, SDSU, 1993

Research Focus

Profiling of Protein Function Using Small Molecule Probes
Post-translational modification, local environment, and protein-protein interaction are all critical to the regulation of cellular function. Progress in our current understanding of such processes is in part limited by the available tools that can probe function at the post-translational level. The focus of my lab is to develop and apply technologies based on small molecule protein modifiers to profile the active state of enzymes in complex biological samples. These tools, which include PNA-encoded small molecule inhibitors and substrates, are used to profile enzymatic function in complex biological samples to deconvolute cellular pathways and identify enzymes of therapeutic interest.

Selected References

Winssinger, N.; Damoiseaux, R.; Tully, D. C.; Geierstanger, B. H.; Burdick, K. W.; Harris, J. L. PNA-encoded protease substrate microarrays. Chemistry & Biology 2004, 11, (10), 1351-1360.

Harris, J.; Mason, D. E.; Li, J.; Burdick, K. W.; Backes, B. J.; Chen, T.; Shipway, A.; Van Heeke, G.; Gough, L.; Ghaemmaghami, A.; Shakib, F.; Debaene, F.; Winssinger, N. Activity profile of dust mite allergen extract using substrate libraries and functional proteomic microarrays. Chemistry & Biology 2004, 11, (10), 1361-1372.

Winssinger, N.; Ficarro, S.; Schultz, P., G.; Harris, J., L. Profiling protein function with small molecule microarrays. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 2002, 99, (17), 11139-44.

Mason, D. E.; Ek, J.; Peters, E. C.; Harris, J. L. Substrate profiling of deubiquitin hydrolases with a positional scanning library and mass spectrometry. Biochemistry 2004, 43, (21), 6535-6544.