24th Annual Biophysics Retreat

Speaker Biographies

Dr. Sua Myong

Sua Myong obtained both B.S and Ph.D at the University of California, Berkeley. Her thesis work was studying one-carbon metabolism measured by mass spectrometry gas chromatography. She received her postdoctorate training at University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign where she used single molecule fluorescence microscope to study DNA and RNA motor protein mechanisms. She started her independent position in the bioengineering department at University of Illinois in 2009, then moved to the Biophysics Department at Johns Hopkins University in 2015. She recently moved to Boston Children's Hospital at Harvard Medical School. Her research interest involves developing and applying single molecule approaches to acquire quantitative understanding of biology and to find ways to improve human medicine. The current directions include investigations of G-quadruplex mediated gene expression, telomere regulation with focus on oxidative damage and molecular mechanism underlying phase separation implicated in neurodegenerative diseases, ALS/FTLD. Her lab employs biochemical, biophysical, cellular and genetic tools in conjunction with single molecule detection platforms to gain comprehensive understanding of the biological pathways with the emphasis on elucidating molecular mechanisms.

Dr. Kylie Walters

Kylie Walters began her research career at Wesleyan University, where she worked as an undergraduate researcher for Dr. Irina Russu using NMR to study DNA dynamics. She then obtained a Ph.D. in Biophysics from Harvard University for developing and implementing methods to study protein structure, dynamics, and interaction mechanisms. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School where she began to work on ubiquitin signaling, she then joined the faculty of the University of Minnesota, where she was named an American Cancer Society Research Scholar. She is currently a Senior Investigator and Section Chief in the Center for Structural Biology of the National Cancer Institute where she has been awarded NCI Director Awards for leading diversity and for programmatic vision. Her lab focuses on ubiquitin signaling pathways and the proteasome, merging structural, chemical and cell biology approaches to define mechanisms of targeted protein degradation, ubiquitin signaling and quality control.