Training Grant : Participating Faculty

National Institutes of Health Biomolecular Science and Engineering Training Program

Jonathan S. Dordick (Program Co-Director)
Vice President for Research
Howard P. Isermann Professor, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Department of Biology
Dr. Dordick’s research areas are biocatalysis in nonaqueous media, combinatorial biocatalysis, protein-containing nanostructures, metabolic pathway engineering, and biomaterials.

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it (Program Co-Director)
Distinguished Professor, Dept of Biological Sciences and RNA Institute, University at Albany, SUNY
Dr. Belfort’s research interests are in splicing, mobility and evolution of self-splicing introns, and their application to biotechnology and medicine.

Blanca Barquera
Associate Professor, Biology
Dr. Barquera’s research interests include membrane proteins, mechanistic enzymology, electron transfer and Ion transport, bacterial physiology, pathogenic bacteria and biochemistry and biophysics.

Georges Belfort
Institute Professor of Chemical Engineering
Dr. Belfort was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2003. Dr. Belfort’s research focuses on membrane separations, high throughput surface modification to repel proteins, cell-free bio-fuel production, and protein mis-folding kinetics for understanding amyloid diseases.

Curt Breneman
Professor & Department Head, Chemistry and Chemical Biology
Dr. Breneman’s research focuses on the creation and application of novel cheminformatics techniques for use in drug design and side-effect prediction, and in the development new materials for aerospace and energy storage.

Cynthia Collins
Assistant Professor, Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering, Department of Biology
Dr. Collins’ research interests include synthetic biology, biofilm formation, protein engineering, systems biology, cell-cell communication, microbial communities.

Wilfredo Colón
Associate Professor, Chemistry and Chemical Biology
Dr. Colón’s research focuses on understanding the role of protein stability in protein folding, misfolding, oligomerization, and aggregation, and the implications for normal function and disease.

Steven Cramer
Professor of Chemical & Biological Engineering and William Weightman Walker Professor of Polymer Engineering Dr. Cramer’s research focuses on chromatographic bioprocessing, multimodal and displacement chromatography, multiscale modeling and biosensors.

Joan M. Curcio
Research Scientist, Wadsworth Center, Molecular Genetics Associate Professor and Chair, Biomedical Sciences, SUNY, School of Public Health
Dr. Curcio’s research focuses on retrotransposons and genome organization.

Xinxin Ding
Professor, Molecular Genetics, Neuroscience, and Toxicology, SUNY
Chief, Laboratory of Molecular Toxicology, Wadsworth Center, NYSDOH
Dr. Ding’s research focuses on drug metabolism, molecular toxicology, genomics, and pharmacogenetics.

Angel Garcia
Professor Physics and Senior Constellation Chaired Professor in Biocomputation & Bioinformatics
Dr. Garcia’s research interests include pressure effects in protein and RNA folding, protein-membrane interactions and antimicrobial peptides, protein aggregation, Biomolecular dynamics and thermodynamics.

Shekhar Garde
Elaine and Jack S. Parker Professor & Department Head of Chemical & Biological Engineering
Dr. Garde’s research interests include molecular thermodynamics and simulation of biological systems; statistical mechanics of liquids; salvation phenomena; water structure.

Ravi Kane
P.K. Lashmet Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering
Dr. Kane’s research focuses on nanoscale architectures and therapeutics; patterned cell growth; cell-material interactions; biosurfaces.

David A. Lawrence
Professor, Biomedical Science and Environmental Health Toxicology, SUNY
Dr. Lawrence’s research focuses on immunotox and neuroimmunotox.

Robert Linhardt
Ann and John H. Broadbent, Jr. '59 Senior Constellation Professor of Biocatalysis & Metabolic Engineering, and Dept. of Chemistry & Chemical Biology
Dr. Linhardt’s research focuses on glycobiology, glycomics, chemoenzymatic synthesis, microanalysis and high-throughput screening.

George Makhatadze
Chaired Constellation Professor in Biocomputation & Bioinformatics and Professor of Biology
Dr. Makhatadze’s research interests include rational design of protein for thermostability, protein-protein and protein-ligand interactions, mechanism of adaptations to extreme conditions (thermophiles, psychrophiles, halophiles).

Linda McGown
William Weightman Walker Professor, Chemistry & Chemical Biology
Dr. McGown's research interests include chemical and biological separations, molecular self- assembly, G-quadruplex DNA, chromatin analysis, aptamers, prebiotic chemistry, astrobiology and nanobiotechnology.

George Plopper
Professor, Biology
Dr. Plopper’s research focuses on cell-extracellular matrix interactions, cell signaling, stem cell biology, cancer cell biology, and tissue engineering.

Peter Tessier
Assistant Professor, Chemical & Biological Engineering
Dr. Tessier’s research focuses on protein misfolding in Alzheimer’s disease and thermodynamics of colloidal solutions.

Deanna Thompson
Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Dr. Thompson’s research interests include neuronal guidance by oriented peripheral nervous system glia, Schwann cells, and impact of nanomaterial size regimes on mammalian cell growth.

Deepak Vashishth
Director, Center for Biotechnology & Interdisciplinary Studies
Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Dr. Vashishth’s research interests include orthopaedics, biomechanics and bone biology with emphasis on aging, osteoporosis, and stem cell based skekeletal tissue regeneration.

Joseph Wade
Assistant Professor, Biomedical Sciences, University at Albany, SUNY
Research Scientist, Molecular Genetics, Wadsworth Center

Chunyu Wan
Associate Professor, Biology
Dr. Wang's research efforts focus on the application of NMR spectroscopy to Alzheimer's disease and protein splicing with an interdisciplinary approach.