Hey Everyone! I hope you're having a great week and are being unapologetically black this Black History Month. As per usual, our posts this week is about someone in our field that is killing it so I decided to talk about Dr. Lisa Jones from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in the School of Pharmacy.
I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Jones and a few of her students and she is extremely smart and so down to earth! Here's a little bit about the research she does. I'll try to make as easy to follow as possible.
About the Jones Lab:
The Jones Lab studies protein structures using various biochemical, analytical, and of biophysical techniques with the goal of understanding how protein interactions influence biological processes. They focus on "protein footprinting" with mass spectrometry using a technique called fast photochemical oxidation of proteins (FPOP) to gain insights on these interactions.
FPOP uses a laser to oxidize certain amino acid side chains in a protein, products that can be analyze with mass spectrometry. They study this oxidation reaction for proteins with and without modifications to provide information about binding sites, conformational changes, and sites where the protein can interact with other macromolecules. Her lab looks at systems specific to viruses and antibodies with a future goal to look at these interactions in their native, cellular environment.
What I love about Black women in chemistry is that even though we may be few in number, our impact is huge. There are a lot of professors that are doing really interesting and important science. This was just me highlighting one and I barely scratched the surface with the amazing work her lab is doing. Proteins are an important piece to the puzzle so finding ways to study and understand them is vital - it's the perfect merge of chemistry and biology. I'm also pretty biased with highlighting other mass spectrometrists, since that's what my lab uses, because it's so versatile and can be used in a wide range of applications. Hopefully this snippet helps you appreciate it too!
Who is someone in your field that's killing the game? Tweet us or leave a comment on IG.
See you soon!
The Chemist
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