Primary Job Title Chemistry and Chair of the Department of Biochemistry Primary Organization Brandeis University
Gender Male
Dr. Petsko, a leader in field of protein engineering and structural biology, is the Gyula and Katica Tauber Professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry and chair of the Department of Biochemistry at Brandeis University, Adjunct Professor of Neurology at Harvard and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and a member of National Academy of Science.
His
research is concerned with the three-dimensional structures of proteins and their biochemical functions using X-ray crystallography, molecular biology (especially site-directed mutagenesis), yeast genetics, organic synthesis, enzyme kinetics and molecular dynamics calculations to elucidate the structural basis for efficient enzymic catalysis of proton and hydride transfer; the role of the metal ions in bridged bimetalloenzyme active sites; direct visualization of proteins in action by time-resolved protein crystallography; the evolution of new enzyme activities from old ones; and the biology of the quiescent state in eukaryotic cells. More recently he has also been focused on applying the tools of structural biology to the problem of neurodegenerative disease.
Protein crystallography is normally a static tool, but Dr. Petsko’s research has been involved in the development of new diffraction techniques, including Laue diffraction, that are capable of recording entire protein crystal data sets in a millisecond which, when combined with low-temperature techniques, can be used to determine the structures of catalytic intermediates. Dr. Petsko’s undergraduate education was at Princeton University, and he was awarded DPhil at Oxford University where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar.
