Jonathan Weissman

Last updated
Jonathan S. Weissman
Nationality American
Alma mater Harvard University, MIT, Yale University
Known for Ribosome profiling Protein folding
Awards
Scientific career
Fields Biochemistry Biophysics
Institutions MIT

UCSF

HHMI
Doctoral advisor Peter Kim
Other academic advisors Arthur Horwich

Jonathan S. Weissman is the Landon T. Clay Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a member of the Whitehead Institute, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. From 1996 to 2020, he was a faculty member in the department of cellular molecular pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco.

Contents

Education

He earned his B.A. in physics from Harvard College (1988) and his Ph.D. in physics (1993) from MIT working with Peter Kim. There, he started his studies on protein folding examining Bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor (BPTI). [1]

He was a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University (1993–1996), where he worked with Arthur Horwich studying the mechanism of GroEL. [2] [3]

Career

Weissman's research team studies how cells ensure that proteins fold into their correct shape, as well as the role of protein misfolding in disease and normal physiology. The team also develops experimental and analytical approaches for exploring the organizational principles of biological systems and globally monitoring protein translation through ribosome profiling. A broad goal of his work is to bridge large-scale approaches and in depth mechanistic investigations to reveal the information encoded within genomes. [4] [5] [6]

Weissman has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences since 2009. in 2015, he co-founded the Innovative Genomics Institute with Jennifer Doudna.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Endoplasmic reticulum</span> Cell organelle that synthesizes, folds and processes proteins

The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is, in essence, the transportation system of the eukaryotic cell, and has many other important functions such as protein folding. It is a type of organelle made up of two subunits – rough endoplasmic reticulum (RER), and smooth endoplasmic reticulum (SER). The endoplasmic reticulum is found in most eukaryotic cells and forms an interconnected network of flattened, membrane-enclosed sacs known as cisternae, and tubular structures in the SER. The membranes of the ER are continuous with the outer nuclear membrane. The endoplasmic reticulum is not found in red blood cells, or spermatozoa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ribosome</span> Intracellular organelle consisting of RNA and protein functioning to synthesize proteins

Ribosomes are macromolecular machines, found within all cells, that perform biological protein synthesis. Ribosomes link amino acids together in the order specified by the codons of messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules to form polypeptide chains. Ribosomes consist of two major components: the small and large ribosomal subunits. Each subunit consists of one or more ribosomal RNA (rRNA) molecules and many ribosomal proteins. The ribosomes and associated molecules are also known as the translational apparatus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susan Lindquist</span> American geneticist

Susan Lee Lindquist, ForMemRS was an American professor of biology at MIT specializing in molecular biology, particularly the protein folding problem within a family of molecules known as heat-shock proteins, and prions. Lindquist was a member and former director of the Whitehead Institute and was awarded the National Medal of Science in 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chaperonin</span> InterPro Family

HSP60, also known as chaperonins (Cpn), is a family of heat shock proteins originally sorted by their 60kDa molecular mass. They prevent misfolding of proteins during stressful situations such as high heat, by assisting protein folding. HSP60 belong to a large class of molecules that assist protein folding, called molecular chaperones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arthur L. Horwich</span> American biologist (born 1951)

Arthur L. Horwich is an American biologist and Sterling Professor of Genetics and Pediatrics at the Yale School of Medicine. Horwich has also been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator since 1990. His research into protein folding uncovered the action of chaperonins, protein complexes that assist the folding of other proteins; Horwich first published this work in 1989.

Pietro De Camilli NAS, AAA&S, NAM is an Italian-American biologist and John Klingenstein Professor of Neuroscience and Cell Biology at Yale University School of Medicine. He is also an Investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute. De Camilli completed his M.D. degree from the University of Milan in Italy in 1972. He then went to the United States and did his postdoctoral studies at Yale University with Paul Greengard.

Franz-Ulrich Hartl is a German biochemist and the current Executive Director of the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry. He is known for his pioneering work in chaperone-mediated protein folding.

Xiaowei Zhuang is a Chinese-American biophysicist who is the David B. Arnold Jr. Professor of Science, Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, and Professor of Physics at Harvard University, and an Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She is best known for her work in the development of Stochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy (STORM), a super-resolution fluorescence microscopy method, and the discoveries of novel cellular structures using STORM. She received a 2019 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for developing super-resolution imaging techniques that get past the diffraction limits of traditional light microscopes, allowing scientists to visualize small structures within living cells. She was elected a Member of the American Philosophical Society in 2019 and was awarded a Vilcek Foundation Prize in Biomedical Science in 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Rapoport</span> German-American cell biologist (born 1947)

Tom Abraham Rapoport is a German-American cell biologist who studies protein transport in cells. Currently, he is a professor at Harvard Medical School and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, he grew up in East Germany. In 1995 he accepted an offer to become a professor at Harvard Medical School. In 1997 he became an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is a member of the American and German National Academies of Science.

Ribosome profiling, or Ribo-Seq, is an adaptation of a technique developed by Joan Steitz and Marilyn Kozak almost 50 years ago that Nicholas Ingolia and Jonathan Weissman adapted to work with next generation sequencing that uses specialized messenger RNA (mRNA) sequencing to determine which mRNAs are being actively translated. A related technique that can also be used to determine which mRNAs are being actively translated is the Translating Ribosome Affinity Purification (TRAP) methodology, which was developed by Nathaniel Heintz at Rockefeller University. TRAP does not involve ribosome footprinting but provides cell type-specific information.

Tania A. Baker is an American biochemist who is a Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and formally the head of the Department of Biology. She earned her B.S. in Biochemistry from University of Wisconsin–Madison and her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Stanford University under the guidance of Arthur Kornberg. She joined the MIT faculty in 1992 and her research is focused on the mechanisms and regulation of DNA transposition and protein chaperones. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator since 1994.

Wendell Lim is an American biochemist who is the Byer's Distinguished Professor of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco. He is the director of the UCSF Cell Design Institute. He earned his A.B. in chemistry from Harvard University working with Jeremy Knowles on enzyme evolutionary optimization. He obtained his Ph.D in biochemistry and biophysics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the guidance of Bob Sauer using genetic and biophysical approaches to understand the role of hydrophobic core interactions in protein folding. He then did his postdoctoral work with Frederic Richards at Yale University on the structure of protein interaction domains. Lim's work has focused on cell signaling, synthetic biology, and cell engineering, particularly in immune cells.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erin K. O'Shea</span> American biologist

Erin K. O'Shea is an American biologist who is president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). In 2013, she was named HHMI's vice president and chief scientific officer. Prior to that, she was a professor of molecular and cellular biology and chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard University. In 2016, her appointment as future, and first woman, president of HHMI was announced. She has been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator since 2000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David M. Sabatini</span> American scientist who co-discovered mTOR

David M. Sabatini is an American scientist and a former professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 2002 to 2021, he was a member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. He was also an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute from 2008 to 2021 and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2016. He is known for his contributions in the areas of cell signaling and cancer metabolism, most notably the co-discovery of mTOR.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ribosomal pause</span> Queueing or stacking of ribosomes during translation of the nucleotide sequence of mRNA transcripts

Ribosomal pause refers to the queueing or stacking of ribosomes during translation of the nucleotide sequence of mRNA transcripts. These transcripts are decoded and converted into an amino acid sequence during protein synthesis by ribosomes. Due to the pause sites of some mRNA's, there is a disturbance caused in translation. Ribosomal pausing occurs in both eukaryotes and prokaryotes. A more severe pause is known as a ribosomal stall.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dana Pe'er</span> Bioinformatician

Dana Pe'er, Chair and Professor in Computational and Systems Biology Program at Sloan Kettering Institute is a researcher in computational systems biology. A Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator since 2021, she was previously a professor at Columbia Department of Biological Sciences. Pe'er's research focuses on understanding the organization, function and evolution of molecular networks, particularly how genetic variations alter the regulatory network and how these genetic variations can cause cancer.

SEA-PHAGES stands for Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science; it was formerly called the National Genomics Research Initiative. This was the first initiative launched by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Science Education Alliance (SEA) by their director Tuajuanda C. Jordan in 2008 to improve the retention of Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students. SEA-PHAGES is a two-semester undergraduate research program administered by the University of Pittsburgh's Graham Hatfull's group and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science Education Division. Students from over 100 universities nationwide engage in authentic individual research that includes a wet-bench laboratory and a bioinformatics component.

Edwin R. Chapman is an American biochemist known for his work on Ca2+-triggered exocytosis. He currently serves as the Ricardo Miledi Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he is also an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).

Rachel Green is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of molecular biology and genetics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her research focuses on ribosomes and their function in translation. Green has also been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator since 2000.

Jesse D. Bloom is an American computational virologist and Professor in the Basic Sciences Division, the Public Health Sciences Division, and the Herbold Computational Biology Program, at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. He is also an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and an Affiliate Professor in the University of Washington departments of Genome Sciences and Microbiology.

References

  1. Hoffman, M (Sep 20, 1991). "Straightening out the protein folding puzzle". Science. 253 (5026): 1357–8. Bibcode:1991Sci...253.1357H. doi:10.1126/science.1896845. PMID   1896845. S2CID   38632703.
  2. Weissman, JS; Hohl, CM; Kovalenko, O; Kashi, Y; Chen, S; Braig, K; Saibil, HR; Fenton, WA; Horwich, AL (Nov 17, 1995). "Mechanism of GroEL action: productive release of polypeptide from a sequestered position under GroES". Cell. 83 (4): 577–87. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(95)90098-5 . PMID   7585961. S2CID   17839893.
  3. Weissman, Jonathan S.; O'Shea, Erin K. (1 January 2009). "2004 Irving Sigal Young Investigator Award". Protein Science. 13 (12): 3333–3335. doi:10.1110/ps.041134604. PMC   2287319 . PMID   15557272.
  4. "New Technique Focuses on Transcription". HHMI. 20 January 2011. Retrieved 14 February 2013.
  5. Ingolia, Nicholas T.; Lareau, Liana F.; Weissman, Jonathan S. (1 November 2011). "Ribosome Profiling of Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells Reveals the Complexity and Dynamics of Mammalian Proteomes". Cell. 147 (4): 789–802. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2011.10.002. PMC   3225288 . PMID   22056041.
  6. "Jonathan S. Weissman". HHMI. Retrieved 14 February 2013.