Research Interests:

Our laboratory studies macromolecular structure with an aim toward in-depth understanding of structure-function relationships. X-ray diffraction analysis is our primary research tool, but we also employ other physical and biochemical methods of analysis. The program emphasizes two broad themes; crystallographic studies on molecules of immediate interest, and methodology development. Most of the macromolecules that we have under study relate to one or more of a few broad biological areas: cellular signal transduction and metalloproteins. The same systems have been chosen as subjects for methodology development. The methodology development includes the development of various crystallographic tools that create the HKL Package.

Another research area is high-throughput crystallography and structural genomics. Our lab is involved in a number of large, biomedically oriented projects that will revolutionize biomedical research in this decade. We are a member of the Midwest Center for Structural Genomics and the New York Structural Genomics Research Consortium (both centers of the NIH Protein Structure Initiative), and the Center for Structural Genomics of Infectious Disease (a project of the NIAID). We are also a part of the Enzyme Function Initiative (an NIH Glue Grant). We develop widely used methodology that is used in thousands of structural biology laboratories around the world. We collaborate with many synchrotron beamlines, in particular, with the Structural Biology Center at the Advanced Photon Source, and with many individual laboraries.

These collaborations have been exceptionally fruitful, resulting in joint publications with researchers from 79 different institutions from around the world. See a map of the geographical distribution of these institutions.

Lab Members

	David Cooper, Instructor, dcoop@iwonka.med.virginia.edu
	Marcin Cymborowski, Research Assistant, marcel@iwonka.med.virginia.edu
	Marcin Domagalski, Visiting Graduate Student, marcin_d@iwonka.med.virginia.edu
	Jose Font, Visiting Faculty, font@iwonka.med.virginia.edu
	Marek Grabowski, Postdoctoral Research Associate, marek@iwonka.med.virginia.edu
	Jing Hou, Postdoctoral Research Associate, houjing@iwonka.med.virginia.edu
	Krzysztof Konina, Research Assistant, krzysztof@iwonka.med.virginia.edu
	Karol Langner, Research Associate, kml@iwonka.med.virginia.edu
	Elizabeth MacLean, Research Assistant, beth_m@iwonka.med.virginia.edu
	Karolina Majorek, Visiting Graduate Student, karolina_m@iwonka.med.virginia.edu
	Katarzyna Mikolajczak, Visiting Graduate Student, kasia_m@iwonka.med.virginia.edu
	Ewa Niedzialkowska, Visiting Graduate Student, ewa_n@iwonka.med.virginia.edu
	Tomasz Osinski, Visiting Graduate Student, tomek_o@iwonka.med.virginia.edu
	Przemek Porebski, Visiting Graduate Student, przemek@iwonka.med.virginia.edu
	Ivan Shabalin, Research Associate, ivan_s@iwonka.med.virginia.edu
	Igor Shumilin, Instructor, igor@iwonka.med.virginia.edu
	Karolina Tkaczuk, Postdoctoral Research Associate, karolina@iwonka.med.virginia.edu
	Heping Zheng, Research Scientist, dust@iwonka.med.virginia.edu
	Matthew Zimmerman, Instructor, matt@iwonka.med.virginia.edu

Former Lab Members

	Maks Chruszcz, Associate Professor, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC
	Krzystof Lewinski, Professor, Jagellonian University, Krakow, Poland
	Hai Bin Luo (original page), Professor, Research Center for Drug Discovery, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China
	Diana Tomchick, Professor, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX
	James Spencer, Lecturer, Bristol University, Bristol, UK
	Ekaterina Filippova, Research Associate, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL
	Katarzyna Koclega, Wroclaw Research Centre EIT+, Wroclaw, Poland
	Janusz Petkowski, Research Associate, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
	Aleksandra Knapik, Graduate Student, Department of Cytobiochemistry, University of Lodz
	Robert Nicholls, Graduate Student, University of York, York, UK
	Haijun Qiu, Database Administrator, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA
	John Raynor, Structural Genomics Consortium, Oxford University, Oxford, UK
	Pawel Sledz, Gates Scholar, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
	Shuren Wang, Technical Data Manager, OpenQ Inc., Charlottesville, VA
	Arjun Dayal, Co-founder, Monte Carlo Software LLC