Gregory A. Grant, PhD

Professor of Developmental Biology

Research interests

The main focus of my laboratory deals with the structural basis of allosteric control and its long term application to understanding control processes resulting from protein-ligand and protein-protein interactions. This research focuses on specific structural domains found in a wide variety of metabolic proteins and transcription regulators, the ACT and ASB domains, that interact with small molecules to affect the activity of the protein.

Major techniques utilized Include:

  • Site-directed mutagenesis
  • Transient kinetic analysis
  • Fluorescence techniques
  • X-ray crystallography

These studies are an integral step in the long term goals of this laboratory to determine the relationship between structure and function in conformationally regulated control mechanisms, to eventually relate that to the physiology and pathophysiology mediated by these enzymes and by analogous systems, and to eventually understand allosteric proteins well enough to be able to apply basic principles to more complex systems.

Gregory Grant, Xiao Lan Xu

Education

1971: Iowa State University, Ames, IA. B.S. Biochemistry

1975: University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI. Ph.D. Biochemistry

1975-78: Washington University, St. Louis, MO. Post-Doc. Protein Chemistry

Academic Positions

Sept.’78-June’80: Research Asst. Prof. of Biochemistry in Medicine, Department of Medicine (Dermatology)

July ’80-Aug.’82: Research Asst. Prof. of Biochemistry in Medicine and Biological Chemistry, Department of Medicine (Dermatology) and Department of Biological Chemistry

Sept.’82-Dec.’88: Assistant Professor of Biological Chemistry, and of Biochemistry in Medicine, Department of Biological Chemistry and Department of Medicine (Dermatology)

Sept.’82-Present: Director, Protein Chemistry Laboratory

Jan. ’89-Dec.’91: Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, and Department of Medicine

Jan.’92-June ’95: Associate Professor, Department Developmental Biology and Department of Medicine

July ’95 – Present: Professor, Department of Developmental Biology, and Department of Medicine

Selected publications