Good Protein NMR research labs/schools

[samman1994]

Hello everyone,

I have been looking for protein NMR research labs the past month, and have compiled, what I think is a semi-decent list, that I thought I would share for anyone looking into the same field. There will be many schools I have missed of course, but I think this is at least a decent starting point.

NOTE: There are many good international schools for protein NMR as well, this is only for US schools.

Criteria:

1) The focus of the lab must be primarily NMR (solid-state or liquid), other biophysical/computational methods may be used as well, but the focus is NMR. 

2) This is not about developing NMR methods, but its application. The lab may have some development as well, but from my readings, it appears they have a major application component as well. 

3) The lab must focus on proteins, now this could be protein-DNA, protein-RNA, or protein-protein, but the focus is on either structure,dynamics, or folding (for the most part).

4) Each lab must have at least 3 members minimum that pass the above guidelines

With that being said, these are the schools with the following faculty members that pass the above criteria:

John Hoppkins (Joel Schildbach, David R. Shortle, Vincent J. Hilser, Juliette Lecomte, Karen Fleming, Tolman lab)

Scripps Institute (Jane Dyson, Peter Wright, Kurt Wuthrich, Takanori Otomo)

Brown University (Nicolas Fawzi, Wolfgang Peti, Rebecca Page,)

Harvard (Victoria D'souza, Haribabu Arthanari, James Jeiwen Chou, Gerhard Wagner)

Yale (Karen S Anderson, George Petter Beardsley, Andrew D. Miranker, Patrick Loria, maybe Elias Lolis)

Stanford (Lynette Cegelski, Elisabetta Viani Puglisi, Joseph Puglisi)

Cornell (Linda Nicholson, maybe Jack Freed, Robert E. Oswald)

Duke (Leonard D. Spicer, Terrence Gilbert Oas, Pei Zhou,  Al-Hashimi)

State College of New York (Kevin Dardner, Zimei Bu, Ranajeet ghose)

University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (Sharon Campbell, David Williams, maybe Gary Pielak, Andrew L Lee, Qi Zhang)

University of Conneticut (Cole, Dmitry Korzhnev, Michael Gryk, Irina Bezsnova, Alexandrescu, Teschke)

University of Washington (Rachel Klevit, Gabriele Varani, Michael Massiah)

University of Minnesota (Kevin H. Mayo, Gianluigi Veglia, Hiroshi Matsuo [NIH], Ian M. Armitage, maybe Ferguson, Kalodimos )

University of Georgia (Jeffery Urbauer, Art Edison, maybe James Prestegard, Arthur Roberts)

University of Wisconsin (Cavagnero, Katherin wildman, Markley)

University of Michigan ( Rams Ramamoorthy, Randy Stockbridge, Tomasz Cierpicki, Erik Zuiderweg, Jeffrey W. Peng)

University of Alabama (N. Rama Krishna, Jun Zhang, Margret Johnson, Russel Timkovish)

University of Virginia (John Bushweller, Linda Columbus,David S. Cafiso, Charles M. Grisham,)

University of Pennsylvania ( Joshua Wand, Heinrich Roder, Walter Englander)

Oregon State University (Afua Nyarko, Victor Hsu, Elisar Barbar)

Iowa State University (Julien Roche, Amy Andreotti, Vincenzo Venditti)

Case Western Reserve University (Matthias Buck, Zagorski, Blanton S. Tolber, Jun Qin)

Brandeis University (Dorothee Kern, Thomas Pochapsky, Judith Herzfeld, Klaus Schmidt-Rohr)

University of Montanta (Valerie Copie, Klara Briknarova [this only has 2 but I really liked their research])

University of Utah (Jack J. Skalicky, Peter Flynn, Bethany Buck-Koehntop, Gholdenberg)

University of Colorado (Arthur Pardi, Loren Hough, David Jones,Tatiana Kutateladze, Beat Vogeli) 

University of Arizona (Wolfgang Peti, Matthew Cordes, Michael F. Brown)

NOTE: USC also had 3, however due to the personality of one of the faculty members (Tobias Ulmer), I crossed them off, and thus, crossed off USC from my list (left me with only 2 faculty)

Again there are many schools that I may have missed, but I think this is a good list to start with. I am done looking at schools personally, I think this is a big enough range of researchers for me to work with, but if anyone else has more suggestions, feel free to post them below. I've tried to be as comprehensive as possible with the schools listed above, so the names there I believe should be the only faculty members that fit the criteria stated above. Again, if I missed any schools, or any people, please feel free to add them below. Hope this helps. Happy Searching!

EDIT: Forgot the mention, the NIH also has a lot of great protein NMR labs that you can do your PhD under as well. Didn't really look too into that in detail, but I know they have a lot of good labs as well.

Edited August 31, 2017 by samman1994

[samman1994]

Can't edit anymore, but a few things I should add. Both Rebecca Page and Wolfgang Peti are no longer at Brown and are now at Arizona University. Also, I stated Micheal Massaih at University of Washington, he is actually at George Washington University (completely different). Sorry for the confusion. 

[samman1994]

Hello everyone!

So I am finished with my searches for schools, and thought I'd share them here in case anyone else was looking into doing protein NMR. I made a list of every single professor, and a general gist of their research. I found many professors interests on their web/lab page was outdated, or straight up misleading (professor says they do NMR, but you can only find one NMR paper among 30 crystallography papers). Other times its unclear how much of it is application vs. development of methods, so this i think is a decent list to clear things up. So I will just post some general techniques of how I searched and a little bit of how to navigate my notes. 

1) I looked at every professors publications from 2015-2017 (present day). A total of 3 years if you count our year as almost over. 

2) All NMR is liquid NMR unless stated otherwise (i.e. if I state protein structure and dynamics using NMR, I am referring to liquid NMR)

3) Many professors have not actually had many publications within this time frame, thus my analysis of what they do might be a little weak (if there are only 3 papers within this time frame, can't really sum up the lab very well). 

The general format is: what kind of macromolecule do they focus on, what biophysical methods do they use, and is it application or developmental. If so, how much. 

By the way, it's a long list, so you may want to just word search the school or professor. 

That being said, here is the list: 

Joel Schildbach (John Hopkins)- Focus mostly on DNA/RNA and gene expression. Does occasional structure determination, usually uses crystal or SAS, very little NMR.
David Shortle (John Hopkins) - Focus mostly on Protein structure/folding. However appears primarily focused with computational/theoretical rather than application.
Vincent Hilser (John Hopkins) - Focus mostly on Protein structure. Very little NMR, more use other biophysical methods
Juliette Lecomte (John Hopkins)- Focus mostly on Heme and small molecule interactions. Uses NMR, but primarily 1D and sometimes 2D looking at developmental/theoretical small molecule effects. 
Karen Fleming (John Hopkins)- Found very little on actual use of NMR, mostly does SANS
Joel Tolman (John Hopkins)- Developmental, but also plenty of application as well. Focuses on NMR primarily but does X-ray crystallography occasionally as well. Focus on proteins only.
Jane Dyson (Scripps Institute)- Focus mostly on Protein-Protein and some RNA-Protein interaction. Almost entirely NMR, structural and dynamic interactions. 
Peter Wright (Scripps Institue)- Exactly like Jane Dyson. In fact, almost every paper J. Dyson is in, so is Peter Wright, but they appear to be two different labs. (Super Collaborators?)
Kurt Wuthrich (Scripps Institute)- Focus on RNA/DNA protein interactions. Uses primarily NMR. Does 1D 19F probes, but also 2D,3D work.
Takanori Otomo (Scripps Institute)- Focus on protein-protein, does a mixture of both NMR and X-ray (usually both). Primarily focused on structure (no publications after 2015).
Nicolas Fawzi (Brown University)- Focus on protein-protein/protein-RNA structure, dynamics, and binding. Mostly NMR and microscopy. Structure, dynamics, and binding. 
Wolfgang Peti (Arizona University)- Focus on protein-protein interactions. Uses both NMR and X-ray (leans more on Xray than NMR). Mostly structure/binding, sometimes dynamics. 
Rebecca Page (Arizona University)- Exactly like Wolfgang Peti. In fact, almost every paper Peti is in, Rebecca is in as well. But again, they appear to be 2 different labs. (I'm starting to see a trend)
Victoria D'Souze (Harvard)-Focus mostly on RNA-protein structure, dynamics, and binding. Uses almost entirely NMR. 
Haribabu Arthanari (Harvard)- Focus mostly on protein-protein/protein-RNA structure and binding. Uses almost entirely NMR. 
James Chou (Harvard)- Focus mostly on protein (transmembrane) structure and binding. Uses almost entirely NMR. 
Gerhard Wagner (Harvard)- Focus mostly on protein structure, binding, and sometimes dynamics. Uses mostly NMR. Developts NMR methods as well, but is mostly application. Collaborates with other Harvard members stated above often (his own papers appear to be more developmental though)
Karen Anderson (Yale)- Mostly focuses on immunoassays and genes. Very little structural work, mostly X-ray crystallography. Found almost no NMR. 
George Beardsley (Yale)- Focuses on DNA-protein interactions. However has not published since 2014, and work prior is from 2007 or before. Most of his publications are form the 80s-90s. Do  not know if he is active in research anymore
Andrew Miranker (Yale)- Focuses on protein-protein interactions, structure, and dynamics. However, uses very little NMR, primarily CD and MS. 
Patrick Loria (Yale)- Focuses on protein structure and dynamics. Uses primarily NMR in conjunction with some computational methods as well.
Elias Lolis (Yale)- Focuses mostly on protein-protein structure/binding. Uses primarily X-ray crystallography, but also does NMR sometimes.  
Lynette Cegelski (Stanford)- Focuses on in-cell solid state NMR to observe biofilms and small molecule effects on E. Coli strains. 
Elisabetta Viani Puglisi (Stanford)- Focuses on RNA-protein interactions and structure. Uses NMR and X-ray (however most of her NMR papers are from 2007, her more recent papers are all X-ray)
Joseph Puglisi (Stanford)- Focuses on RNA-Protein interactions and structure. However does not focus on any one method (uses NMR, fluor, Cryo, xray, etc.)
Leonard D. Spicer (Duke)- Focuses on DNA-Protein interactions. Primarily Crystallography but also does In-Cell and Solution state NMR. (Most publications are old however, only 1 in 2016, 1 2014, then 2013, the rest are in 2010).
Terrence Oas (Duke)- Focuses on protein structure and dynamics. Uses primarily NMR.  
Pei Zhou (Duke) - Focus on protein structure. Uses primarily X-ray crystallography, and occasionally NMR. 
Hashim Al-Hashimi (Duke)- Focuses on Protein-RNA structure, dynamics. Uses primarily NMR. 
Kevin Gardner (State Collge of New York)- Focus on protein structure, binding, and dynamics. Uses primarily NMR and some computational. 
Ranajeet Ghose (State College of New York)- Focus on protein-RNA/DNA structure, binding, and dynamics. Uses Primarily NMR and some computational. 
Sharon Campbell (UNC Chapel Hill)- Protein Structure and dynamics using primarily NMR and some computational methods. 
David Williams (UNC Chapel Hill)- Focus on Protein-DNA structure, binding, and dynamics using primarily NMR, but also fluorescence and computational methods. 
Gary Peliek (UNC Chapel Hill)- Focus on protein structure in-cell. Uses a variety of NMR methods including 1D 19F methods. Appears to be more focused on developmental side however. 
Andrew Lee (UNC Chapel Hill)- Focus on protein structure and dynamics using primarily NMR. 
Qi Zhang (UNC Chapel Hill)- Focus on RNA-protein structure, dynamics, and binding using primarily NMR. 
James Cole (UN Conneticut)- Focus on RNA-protein and protein-protein binding and structure. Does not use NMR, uses Crystallography. 
Dmitry Korzhnev (UN Conneticut)- Focus on protein-protein binding, structure, and dynamics using primarily NMR and computational methods. Interesting to note, did not observe NMR dynamic experiments, just computational dynamic simulations. 
Michael Gryk (UN Conneticut)- NMR but focus more on computational than application. (Very good for anyone looking into computational)
Irina Bezsnova (UN Conneticut)- Exactly like Dmitry Korzhnev, except appears to do more experimental dynamics using NMR. Also, on same papers as Dmitry. Again, 2 different labs. (Starting to believe these types of people are probably married or something)
Andrei Alexandrescu (UN Conneticut)- Protein-Protein binding, structure, and dynamics using NMR. 
Carolyn Teschke (UN Conneticut)- In-cell protein-protein structure and binding. However uses a variety of biophysical techniques (mass-spec, CD, fluor), does do NMR, but very little of it. 
Rachel Klevit (UN Washington)- Protein-protein structure and binding. Uses primarily liquid NMR, however appears to have done solid-state in the past. 
Gabriele Varani (UN Washington)- Protein-RNA and protein-protein structure and binding. Uses primarily liquid NMR, but does solid-state occasionally as well. 
Kevin H. Mayo (UN Minessota)- Protein-protein and protein-small molecule binding and structure. Uses primarily NMR. 
Gianluigi Veglia (UN Minessota)- Protein-protein binding, structure, and dynamics. NOTE: This lab appears to be more focused on developmental/theoretical than application. They do mostly liquid NMR, but also solid-state. Again, focus on all papers is both development and application. 
Ian M. Armitage (UN Minessota)- Cannot find any publication after 2015, and even those before it have very little to no NMR. 
David Ferguson (UN Minessota)- Cannot find any publication after 2015. Publications before that are primarily synthesis, some small molecule-protein binding and structure using primarily 1D and 2D NMR. 
Jeffery Urbauer (UN Georgia)- Focus on protein-protein binding and structure. Uses primarily NMR. 
Art Edison (UN Georgia)- Appears to be almost entirely development of NMR methods. Found very little application. 
James Prestegard (UN Georgia)- Focus on protein structure, binding, and dynamics. Is about 50/50 development and application. 
Arthur Roberts (UN Georgia)- Focus on protein-protein binding and structure. However, recent papers (2012+) use very little NMR. 
Okuno Cavagnero (UN Wisconsin)- Focus on protein-protein structure and binding. Uses primarily NMR. Lab appears to be 50/50 developmental and application. However very few papers within the past 4 years (2012+) so hard to say how much it is now a days. 
Katherin wildman (UN Wisconsin)- Focus on protein-protein structure, dynamics, and binding using NMR. 
John Markley (UN Wisconsin)- Focus on protein-protein structure and binding. Uses primarily NMR, but does a little developmental/computational as well. 
Rams Ramamoorthy (UN Michigan)- Focus on protein (transmembrane) structure and binding. Uses a combination of solid-state and liquid NMR. Does developmental as well, but mostly application. 
Randy Stockbridge (UN Michigan)- Could not find any NMR publications from the past 4 years. Focus on RNA structure using mostly X-ray crystallography. 
Tomasz Cierpicki (UN Michigan)- Focus on proteins and small molecule-protein binding and structure. Uses a combination of x-ray and NMR. 
Erik Zuiderweg (UN Michigan)- Focus on protein-protein binding and structure. Uses primarily NMR but x-ray crystallography as well. Did not see any experimental NMR dynamic experiments, but does computational dynamic modeling. 
Jeffrey W. Peng (UN Michigan)- Focus on protein-protein and protein-small molecule binding, structure, and dynamics using NMR. 
Rama Krishna (UN Alabama)- Focus on protein-protein structure, binding, dynamics using primarily NMR and x-ray crystallography. They also do develop on the side. However, publications are few (only 4 from 2011+)
Jun Zhang (UN Alabama)- Focus on protein-protein and protein-RNA structure, binding, and dynamics using NMR. 
Margret Johnson (UN Alabama)- Focus on protein-protein structure, binding, and dynamics using NMR. However, publications are few from the past 4 years (only 4). 
Russel Timkovish (UN Alabama)- Focus on protein-protein binding and structure using primarily NMR. However, publication are few from the past 4 years (only 3).
John Bushweller (UN Virginia)- Focus on protein-small molecule and protein-protein structure, dynamics, and binding using NMR. 
Linda Columbus (UN Virginia)- Focus on protein-protein structure and dynamics. However most recent stuff does not use NMR (2014+), and the older stuff uses NMR sparingly. 
David S. Cafiso (UN Virginia)- Focus on protein-protein structure and binding. Uses a combination of NMR and EPR (about 50/50)
Charles M. Grisham (UN Virginia)- Does not have any publications past 2001
Joshua Wand (UN Pennsylvania)- Focus on protein-protein structure, dynamics, and binding using NMR. Also does a little bit developmental on the side. 
Heinrich Roder (UN Pennsylvania)- Focus on protein-protein structure and binding using primarily NMR. Not many publications however in the past 3 years (only 4)
Walter Englander (UN Pennsylvania)- Focus on protein-protein structure and dynamics. However, uses primarily Mass-spec, occasionally NMR. Few publications in the past 4 years (only 4)
Afua Nyarko (Oregon State)- Focus on protein-protein structure and binding using NMR. However, few publications in the past 4 years (only 5).
Victor Hsu (Oregon State)- Focus on protein-protein interactions. Uses primarily MS. However, only 2 publications the last 4 years. 
Julien Roche (Iowa State)- Focus on protein structure and dynamics. Uses primarily NMR, and sometimes X-ray crystallography. However lab is also developmental. Appears to be 50/50 development and application. 
Amy Andreotti (Iowa State)- Focus on protein-protein structure, binding, and dynamics using NMR.
Vincenzo Venditti (Iowa State)- Focus on protein structure and dynamimcs. However, only 3 publications the past 3 years (joined the school in 2015). Uses primarily NMR and xray scattering. 
Matthias Buck (Case Western Reserve)- Almost entirely computational
Michael Zagorski (Case Western Reserve)- Has not published since 2008
Blanton S. Tolber (Case Western Reserve)- Focus on protein-rna structure and binding using primarily NMR. 
Dorothee Kern (Brandeis)- Focus on protein-protein binding, structure, and dynamics using primarily NMR and occasionally SAXS. 
Thomas Pochapsky (Brandeis)- Focus on small molecule-protein structure and binding using NMR. However only 4 publications the past 3 years. 
Judith Herzfeld (Brandeis)- Is almost 90% developmental. 10% Focus on protein structure and dynamics using primarily solid state NMR. 
Jack J. Skalicky (UN Utah)- Focus on protein-protein structure,binding, and dynamics. Uses 50/50 NMR and xray crystallography
Peter Flynn (UN Utah)- Only 1 publication after 2008
Bethany Buck-Koehntop (UN Utah)- Focus on DNA-protein structure, binding, and dynamics. However does not use NMR often. Has only published 4 in the past 4 papers 5 years. 
Arthur Pardi (UN Colorado)- Focus on protein-protein structure, binding, and dynamics using NMR. 
Loren Hough (UN Colorado)- Focus on protein-protein structure, binding, and dynamics using NMR. However mostly focuses on in-cell function or developmental, NMR is not the focus of the lab. 
David Jones (UN Colorado)- Focus on protein-protein and protein-small molecule binding and structure. Uses primarily X-ray crystallography, and occasionally NMR.
Tatiana Kutateladze (UN Colorado)- Focus on protein-protein binding and structure using primarily NMR. Does x-ray crystallography as well. 
Beat Vogeli (UN Colorado)- Focus on protein structure and dynamics using NMR. 90% developmental, 10% appliaction.
Matthew Cordes (UN Arizona)- Focus on protein-protein structure and binding using NMR. However 3 publications in the past 4 years. 

If you have any questions please let me know! I hope this was useful!

 

[samman1994]

Also, if you don't want to go through them all. This is my personal list for schools I will be looking into/applying to. I want a lab that does protein structure, dynamics, and binding using primarily NMR. Not interested in developmental methods. I also want a school that has a minimum of 3 people that fit that criteria. These schools fit what I am looking for. Stars basically are ideal picks, the eh means well, I'm eh about the school, but they are my back ups if the first 4 don't work out. Those are the names of the professors I'd be willing to work with that fit my criteria. 

*Scripps institute (Jane Dyson, Peter Wright, Kurt Wuthrich, Takanori Otomo)
*Harvard (Victoria D'souza, Haribabu Arthanari, James Jeiwen Chou, Gerhard Wagner)
*University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (Sharon Campbell, David Williams, Andrew L Lee, Qi Zhang)
*University of Conneticut (Dmitry Korzhnev, Irina Bezsnova, Andrei Alexandrescu)
Iowa State University (Julien Roche, Amy Andreotti, Vincenzo Venditti)[eh]

[Eigen]

Just putting in a plug for Andreotti. She's got some amazing research, and I think would make a fantastic PI from my interactions with her. 

[samman1994]

30 minutes ago, Eigen said:

Just putting in a plug for Andreotti. She's got some amazing research, and I think would make a fantastic PI from my interactions with her. 

Thank you! Btw I don't know any of these people, so if anyone does, I'd greatly appreciate if you could just say a little about them. I'm in the process now of asking around my campus and seeing if any of the faculty know any of these people (whether I should avoid them or whether they recommend them), before I email them. 

[samman1994]

Now that I've been to Iowa States BBMB (and the other programs), just wanted to say for protein NMR (structure and dynamics), it really is the best school from that entire list. Out of all those schools that I looked at, I have not seen one that has so many faculty members doing structural biology and dynamics (of proteins) using NMR (they of course use other methods, but that is their primary method). Where some schools have protein NMR but do a general jack of all trades (lots of in vivo, cell bio, immuno, stem cell, etc.). Iowa State focuses almost entirely on structural biology. 

Just a few more names outside of the ones on that list for anyone looking:

Dr. Barb, Dr. Underbakke, Dr. Chen

No personalities of any of these people really came off as negatively. (Dr. Venditti doesn't pay his students entirely, having them basically TA every semester/summer to make their stipends, but other than that, no other problems). Also, one last thing about Iowa State, lots of schools say they have a pretty campus, but this school really does have an amazing campus.