Professor of Biochemistry
HHMI Investigator
Volen 444
Department of Biochemistry, MS 009
Brandeis University
415 South Street
Waltham, MA 02453-2728
tel: 781 736 2354
dkern (at) brandeis.edu
Education
- 1988 - BSc Biochemistry, Martin-Luther University of Halle, Germany
- 1989 - MSc Biochemistry, Martin-Luther University of Halle, Germany
- 1994 - PhD Biochemistry, Martin-Luther University of Halle, Germany
- 1998 - Postdoc Structural Biology, Dept. of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley & Structural Biology Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Motions are the basis for the function of biological macromolecules. Whereas for many enzymes the structures have been solved, very little is known about dynamic processes, which trigger catalysis. Our main goal is to characterize these motions in enzymes to provide a better understanding of the atomic events in enzyme catalysis as a function of time. We use NMR as a primary tool because it is an excellent method to measure dynamic processes ranging from picoseconds to days. We complement our experiments by computational techniques, namely, molecular dynamics simulations, which provide atomistic insight into the dynamics of macromolecules. Our aim is to reveal the physical mechanism of transitions by combining experimental to computational methods. Click here for more details about our current research and/or read our published work.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Joined the lab in: 2015
Volen 443
Department of Biochemistry, MS 009
Brandeis University
415 South Street
Waltham, MA 02453-2728
tel: 781 736 2326
rpadua (at) brandeis.edu
Education
- 2008 - BSc Pharmacy and Biochemistry, Universidade de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil
- 2014 - PhD in Sciences, Faculdade de Ciências Farmacêuticas de Ribeirão Preto Universidade de São Paulo (Brazil) and Queen Mary - University of London (England)
- 2015 - Postdoctoral Fellow at Laboratory of Protein Crystallography of Ribeirão Preto - FCFRP-USP, Brazil
Publications
From the Kern Lab:
Pitsawong W, Pádua RAP, Grant T, Hoemberger M, Otten R, Bradshaw N, Grigorieff N & Kern D. From primordial clocks to circadian oscillators. Nature 2023
Otten R#, Pádua RAP#, Bunzel HA#, Nguyen V, Pitsawong W, Patterson M, Sui S, Perry SL, Cohen AE, Hilvert D & Kern D. How directed evolution reshapes the energy landscape in an enzyme to boost catalysis. Science 2020
Pádua RAP#, Sun Y#, Marko I, Pitsawong W, Stiller JB, Otten R & Kern D. Mechanism of Activating Mutations and Allosteric Drug Inhibition of the Phosphatase SHP2. Nat. Commun. 2018
Pitsawong W#, Buosi V#, Otten R#, Agafonov RV#, Zorba A, Kern N, Kutter S, Kern G, Pádua RAP, Meniche X & Kern D. Dynamics of Human Protein Kinase Aurora A Linked to Drug Selectivity. eLife 2018
Other:
Sartim MA, Pinheiro MP, Pádua RAP, Sampaio SV & Nonato MC. Structural and Binding Studies of a C-type Galactose-Binding Lectin from Bothrops jararacussu Snake Venom. Toxicon 2017
Pádua RAP, Kia AM, Costa-Filho AJ, Wilkinson SR & Nonato MC. Characterisation of the Fumarate Hydratase Repertoire in Trypanosoma cruzi. Int. J. Biol. Macromol. 2017
Pádua RAP, Tomaleri GP, Reis RAG, David JS, Silva V, Pinheiro MP & Nonato MC. ThermoFMN - a Thermofluor Assay Developed for Ligand-Screening as an Alternative Strategy for Drug Discovery. J. Braz. Chem. Soc. 2014
Pádua RAP & Nonato MC. Cloning, Expression, Purification, Crystallization and Preliminary X-ray Diffraction Analysis of Recombinant Human Fumarase. Acta Crystallogr. F. Struct. Biol. Commun. 2014
Postdoctoral Fellow
Joined the lab in: 2020
Volen 443
Department of Biochemistry, MS 009
Brandeis University
415 South Street
Waltham, MA 02453-2728
tel: 781 736 2326
hannesludewig (at) brandeis.edu
Education
- 2012 - B.Sc. Biochemistry, University of Bayreuth, Germany
- 2014 - M.Sc. Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, University of Bayreuth, Germany
- 2020 - Ph.D. Chemistry, Centre for Doctoral Training in Critical Resource Catalysis, School of Chemistry, University of St Andrews, United Kingdom (Scotland)
Publications
From the Kern Lab:
Kim C, Ludewig H, Hadzipasic A, Kutter S, Nguyen V & Kern D. A biophysical framework for double-drugging kinases. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. US 2023
Other:
Ludewig H, Molyneux S, Ferrinho S, Guo K, Lynch R, Gkotsi DS & Goss RJMG. Halogenases: structures and functions. Curr. Opin. Struct. Biol. 2020
Gkotsi DS, Ludewig H, Sharma SV, Connolly JA, Dhaliwal J, Wang Y, Unsworth WP, Taylor RJK, McLachlan MWM, Shanahan S, Naismith JH & Goss RJM. A marine viral halogenase that iodinates divers substrates. Nat. Chem. 2019
Ludewig H, Czekster CM, Oueis E, Munday ES, Arshad M, Synowsky SA, Bent AF & Naismith JH. Characterization of the Fast and Promiscuous Macrocyclase from Plant PCY1 Enables the Use of Simple Substrates. ACS Chem. Biol. 2018
Czekster CM, Ludewig H, McMahon SA & Naismith JH. Characterization of a dual function macrocyclase enables design and use of efficient macrocyclization substrates. Nat. Commun. 2017
Oueis E, Adamson C, Mann G, Ludewig H, Redpath P, Migaud M, Westwood NJ & Naismith JH. Derivatisable Cyanobactin Analogues: A Semisynthetic Approach. ChemBioChem 2015
Koehnke J, Mann G, Bent AF, Ludewig H, Shirran S, Botting C, Lebl T, Houssen WE, Jaspars M & Naismith JH. Structural analysis of leader peptide binding enables leader-free cyanobactin processing. Nat. Chem. Biol. 2015
Postdoctoral Fellow
Joined the lab in: 2022
Volen 443
Department of Biochemistry, MS 009
Brandeis University
415 South Street
Waltham, MA 02453-2728
tel: 781 736 2326
wayment (at) brandeis.edu
Education
- 2015 - B.A. Chemistry & Mathematics, Pomona College, USA
- 2016 - M.Phil. Chemistry, Cambridge University, UK
- 2021 - PhD Chemistry, Stanford, USA
Publications
From the Kern Lab:
Zhang Z, Wayment-Steele HK, Brixi G, Wang H, Dal Peraro M, Kern D & Ovchinnikov S. Protein language models learn evolutionary statistics of interacting sequence motifs. bioRxiv 2024
Wayment-Steele HK,Ojoawo A, Otten R, Apitz JM, Pitsawong W, Hoemberger M, Ovchinnikov S, Colwell L & Kern D. Predicting multiple conformations via sequence clustering and AlphaFold2. Nature 2023
Other:
Wayment-Steele HK, Kladwang W, Strom AI, Becka A, Lee J, Treuille A, Eterna Participants, Das R. RNA secondary structure packages evaluated and improved by high-throughput experiments. bioRxiv 2022
Wayment-Steele HK, Kladwang W, Watkins AM, Kim DS, Tunguz B, … Das R. Deep learning models for predicting RNA degradation via dual crowdsourcing. Arxiv 2022
Leppek K, Byeon GW, Kladwang W, Wayment-Steele HK, Kerr CH, … Barna M & Das R. Combinatorial optimization of mRNA structure, stability, and translation for RNA-based therapeutics. Nature Communications 2021
Wayment-Steele HK, Kim DS, Choe CA, Nicol JJ, Wellington-Oguri R, Sperberg RAP, Huang P, Eterna Participants & Das R. Theoretical basis for stabilizing messenger RNA through secondary structure design. Nucleic Acids Research 2021
Wayment-Steele HK, Wu M, Gotrik M & Das R. Evaluating riboswitch optimality. Methods in Enzymology 2019
Kostrz D, Wayment-Steele HK, Wang JL, Follenfant M, Pande VS, Strick TR & Gosse C. A modular DNA scaffold to study protein–protein interactions at single-molecule resolution. Nature Nanotechnology 2019
Wayment-Steele HK & Pande VS. Variational encoding of protein dynamics benefits from maximizing latent autocorrelation. The Journal of Chemical Physics 2018
Hernandez CX, Wayment-Steele HK, Sultan MM, Husic BE & Pande VS. Variational Encoding of Complex Dynamics. Physical Review E 2018
Sultan MM, Wayment-Steele HK & Pande VS. Transferable neural networks for enhanced sampling of protein dynamics. Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation 2018
Postdoctoral Fellow
Joined the lab in: 2022
Volen 443
Department of Biochemistry, MS 009
Brandeis University
415 South Street
Waltham, MA 02453-2728
tel: 781 736 2326
ojoawoa (at) brandeis.edu
Education
- 2015 - B.Sc. Chemistry, Saint Catherine University, USA
- 2020 - Ph.D. Biochemistry, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, USA
- 2022 - Postdoctoral fellow at Saint Jude Children's Hospital Structural Biology Department, USA
Publications
From the Kern Lab:
Wayment-Steele HK,Ojoawo A, Otten R, Apitz JM, Pitsawong W, Hoemberger M, Ovchinnikov S, Colwell L & Kern D. Predicting multiple conformations via sequence clustering and AlphaFold2. Nature 2023
Other:
Sekar G, Ojoawo A & Moldoveanu T. Protein–protein and protein–lipid interactions of pore-forming BCL-2 family proteins in apoptosis initiation. Biochem Soc Trans 2022
Ojoawo A & Moldoveanu T. A killer metamorphosis: catching BAK in action at the membrane. The EMBO Journal 2021
McClain SM, Ojoawo A, Lin W, Rienstra MC & Murphy CJ. Interaction of Alpha-Synuclein and Its Mutants with Rigid Lipid Vesicle Mimics of Varying Surface Curvature. ACS Nano 2020
Graduate Student
Joined the lab in: 2019
Volen 443
Department of Biochemistry, MS 009
Brandeis University
415 South Street
Waltham, MA 02453-2728
tel: 781 736 2326
andrewglaser (at) brandeis.edu
Education
- 2016 - BSc Biochemistry, Union College, Schenectady, NY, USA
Graduate Student
Joined the lab in: 2019
Volen 443
Department of Biochemistry, MS 009
Brandeis University
415 South Street
Waltham, MA 02453-2728
tel: 781 736 2326
mpatterson (at) brandeis.edu
Education
- 2018 - BSc Biochemistry, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston, MA, USA
Adenylate kinase (ADK) is a phosphotransferase that regulates energy homeostasis by controlling intracellular nucleotide levels. ADK is an essential enzyme that is found across all domains of life, and its stability is correlated to organismal growth. This stability/fitness relationship imposes that ancestral ADK evolved modern sequences that are stable in the same environments occupied by their native organisms. I am interested in studying how ADK evolved by investigating the effects of mutations on the structural and dynamic properties of the enzyme using biophysical techniques such as X-ray crystallography and NMR spectroscopy.
Publications
From the Kern Lab:
Otten R#, Pádua RAP#, Bunzel HA#, Nguyen V, Pitsawong W, Patterson M, Sui S, Perry SL, Cohen AE, Hilvert D & Kern D. How directed evolution reshapes the energy landscape in an enzyme to boost catalysis. Science 2020
Graduate Student
Joined the lab in: 2021
Volen 443
Department of Biochemistry, MS 009
Brandeis University
415 South Street
Waltham, MA 02453-2728
tel: 781 736 2326
cntangka (at) brandeis.edu
Education
- 2020 - BS in Biochemistry, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, USA
Publications
Bowitch A, Sahoo A, Clark AM, Ntangka C, Raut KK, Gollnick I, Yu MC, Pascal SM, Walker SE & Ferkey DM. Methylation of the D2 dopamine receptor affects binding with the human regulatory proteins Par-4 and Calmodulin. MicroPubl Biol. 2021
Graduate Student
Joined the lab in: 2022
Volen 443
Department of Biochemistry, MS 009
Brandeis University
415 South Street
Waltham, MA 02453-2728
tel: 781 736 2326
camillesullivan (at) brandeis.edu
Education
- 2018 - BA Molecular Biology, Princeton University, USA
Graduate Student
Joined the lab in: 2023
Volen 443
Department of Biochemistry, MS 009
Brandeis University
415 South Street
Waltham, MA 02453-2728
tel: 781 736 2326
juliaapitz (at) brandeis.edu
Education
- 2022 - BS Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Saint Anselm College, USA
Publications
From the Kern Lab:
Wayment-Steele HK,Ojoawo A, Otten R, Apitz JM, Pitsawong W, Hoemberger M, Ovchinnikov S, Colwell L & Kern D. Predicting multiple conformations via sequence clustering and AlphaFold2. Nature 2023
Graduate Student
Joined the lab in: 2022
Volen 443
Department of Biochemistry, MS 009
Brandeis University
415 South Street
Waltham, MA 02453-2728
tel: 781 736 2326
lux011 (at) brandeis.edu
Education
- 2021 - BS Biochemistry, University of California San Diego, USA
- 2023 - MS Biochemistry, Brandeis University, USA
Undergraduate Student
Joined the lab in: 2023
Volen 443
Department of Biochemistry, MS 009
Brandeis University
415 South Street
Waltham, MA 02453-2728
tel: 781 736 2326
aedanusing (at) brandeis.edu
Undergraduate Student
Joined the lab in: 2023
Volen 443
Department of Biochemistry, MS 009
Brandeis University
415 South Street
Waltham, MA 02453-2728
tel: 781 736 2326
clarakursinski (at) brandeis.edu