Jen Bohon, Ph.D.

Faculty Appointments Center for Proteomics and Bioinformatics: Instructor Center for Synchrotron Biosciences

Academic History

Positions and Employment

Research Interests

My research interests focus on two overall themes: integration of multiple structural biological techniques to develop a comprehensive understanding of functional macromolecular complexes, and development of instrumentation to improve the tools available for such studies. Techniques applied (both direct and through internal and external collaboration) include synchrotron protein footprinting, x-ray absorption spectroscopy, small-angle x-ray scattering, x-ray crystallography, infrared microspectroscopy, biochemical kinetic studies of enzymes and computational modeling.

Some of the biological systems currently under investigation include: the ClpAP protease complex (modeling the action of a molecular machine involved in protein degradation, cellular stress response and recovery, etc.), an HIV MPER-based construct antigen/antibody complex (HIV vaccine design, collaboration: Iowa State University), an Apaf-1/caspase-9 complex (understanding caspase activation and apoptosis, collaboration: University of Texas, Austin) and calcium-dependent conformational changes of endophilin (understanding the calcium-dependent interaction of endophilin with calcium channels, collaboration: Thomas Jefferson University).

A new synchrotron facility, NSLSII, is expected to be completed at Brookhaven National Laboratory in 2014 to replace the current light source. In preparation for this transition, the Center for Sychrotron Biosciences team is working to design and develop new beamlines to extend and expand the scientific programs and services currently provided to take advantage of the new facility.