Enzymology and Molecular Biology

Dr. Berdis is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Cleveland State University. In addition, he is the Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of AB Biosciences, LLC, an emerging biotech company that develops novel anti-cancer and anti-viral agents. Dr. Berdis is an internationally recognized expert in the field of the synthesis and biological testing of novel nucleoside and nucleotide analogs as both therapeutic and diagnostic agents target DNA polymerase activity, publishing over 90 research papers and book chapters. His research has been funded by several federal agencies including the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, and the American Cancer Society.

Creating non-natural nucleosides and their corresponding nucleotides that function as novel chemotherapeutic agents to treat cancer. Developing metal-containing nucleoside analogs as chemical agents that possess imaging capabilities.

Ronald JA Wanders studied Chemistry with a specialization in Biochemistry at the University of Amsterdam. Subsequently, he did his Ph.D. on mitochondrial Metabolism at the E.C. Slater Institute for Biochemical Research, University of Amsterdam. Thereafter he accepted a postdoc position at the Departments of Clinical Chemistry and Paediatrics, at the Medical Faculty, Amsterdam University Medical Center with the specific task to set up an Enzyme Unit for Inborn Errors of Metabolism and to perform research on Peroxisomes and Peroxisomal Diseases. He became Full Professor in 1996 and has been Head of the Laboratory Genetic Metabolic Diseases since 2003. He has published > 1000 peer-reviewed papers, received a number of awards, and supervised >40 Ph.D. students.

Hereditary Metabolic Diseases Tumor Diagnosis

Stella Valenzuela’s PhD studies led to identification of novel genes encoding the proteins CLIC1 and MIC-1, from activated macrophage cells. She was awarded her PhD from the University of NSW in 1998. Prior to this she had worked in the commercial sector, in the first biotechnology company in Australia, Australian Monoclonal Development P/L, that pioneered monoclonal antibody technologies for research and diagnostic purposes. She has worked as a post-doc at the Centre for Immunology, St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney and the University of NSW as an NH&MRC Research Fellow. She joined the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) in mid-2001, where she has been instrumental in establishing Bionanotechnology research, developing tethered membrane technologies for use as biosensors in conjunction with long-term industry partner, Surgical Diagnostics P/L. Her group continue to lead research into the CLIC family of proteins and also the use of gold nanoparticles for therapeutic purposes. She is currently the Associate Head of School (Research) for the School of Life Sciences, in the Faculty of Science, UTS.

Bionanotechnology

In 1990, she graduated medical analysis at the Medical Academy in Białystok, where she started her work immediately after graduation. In 1995 under the supervision of dr hab. Jerzy A. Pałka from the Department of Biochemistry, AMB, defended her doctoral thesis " Glycosaminoglycans of rat skin in the course of experimental diabetes ", obtaining the academic degree of doctor of medical sciences. Then she completed a scientific internship at Novartis Oncology in Switzerland. In 2012, based on scientific achievements and a complex dissertation " Regulatory role of ORP150 protein in the metabolism of selected extracellular matrix components in vitro cell cultures" she obtained a post-doctoral degree in pharmaceutical sciences. Earlier, she worked at the Medical Biochemistry Department of the Medical University of Bialystok. Currently, she is the head of the Department of Pharmaceutical Biochemistry UMB. Member of the editorial board of the Mathews Journal of Pharmaceutical Science and Edorium Journal of Biomolecules.

Pharmaceutical Biochemistry

y laboratory studies processes that are important in energy and the global carbon cycle and in regulation of metabolism by metals and gas signaling molecules. Our work is at the interfaces among chemistry, biology, and physics in using a variety of molecular, chemical and biophysical approaches to understand these processes. Our research is funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy. Microbial CO2, CO and Methane Metabolism: We are trying to understand how microbes make methane, the key component of natural gas. We use kinetics, spectroscopy, structural methods and molecular genetics to elucidate the steps and capture the intermediates involved in methanogenesis and in the anaerobic oxidation of methane. Much of our attention focuses on methyl coenzyme M reductase (MCR), which contains a nickel tetrapyrrolic cofactor and is responsible for all biologically generated methane. Based on recent studies in which we trapped intermediates in the MCR reaction mechanism and characterized them by spectroscopic and crystallographic methods, we proposed a novel mechanism for methane synthesis involving novel metal-based and radical intermediates. Microbial CO2, CO and Mercury Metabolism: One of the key processes that underlies all life on earth is the global carbon cycle. We are characterizing the key enzymes involved in an unusual pathway of CO2 fixation. This work is uncovering novel types of metal centers that rapidly and efficiently catalyze challenging reactions (like reduction of CO2), new ways that substrates are directed to enzyme active sites (CODH/ACS contains a 70 Ã… tunnel between active sites), and intriguing ways that enzymes interact and move during catalysis. We also are studying the enzymatic system involved in microbial methyl-mercury production. Oxygen Sensing and Thiol-Disulfide Regulation: We have discovered a mode of metabolic regulation in which thiol/disulfide redox switches control the function of diverse proteins through regulating their affinity for heme. We identified and characterized a redox switch in human heme oxygenase-2 (HO2), which plays an important role in heme homeostasis and in generating CO, a signal molecule that regulates many physiological processess. We also have recently uncovered a thiol/disulfide redox switch that regulates heme binding to regulate heme oxygenase and a transcriptional regulator that regulates a variety of metabolic processes (lipid and glucose metabolism, inflammation and the circadian rhythm).

Biological Chemistry