Albert M. Berghuis
Professor and Chair
Biochemistry
McGill University
Canada
Biography
1993 - PhD, University of British Columbia
Research Interest
Various research programs are being pursued in the Berghuis lab. However, all programs share a common theme in that they use structural biological approaches to examine interactions between enzymes and small molecules (e.g. substrates, cofactors, inhibitors). The principal technique used for these studies is X-ray crystallography, complemented with small-angle X-ray scattering, electron microscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, enzymology and computational chemistry tools. Furthermore, for many of these programs, efforts are ongoing to exploit the three-dimensional structural information for drug development using structure-based drug design approaches. Below two programs are highlighted.
Publications
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Mirza IA, Nazi I, Korczynska M, Wright GD, Berghuis AM (2005) Crystal Structure of Homoserine Transacetylase from Haemophilus influenzae Reveals a New Family of alpha/beta-Hydrolases. Biochem. J. 44:15768-15773.
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Korczynska M, Mukhtar TA, Wright GD, Berghuis AM Structural basis for streptogramin B resistance in Staphylococcus aureus by virginiamycin B lyase. (2007) Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 104:10388-10393.
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Mirza IA, Yachnin BJ, Wang S, Grosse S, Bergeron H, Imura A, Iwaki H, Hasegawa Y, Lau PC, Berghuis AM. Crystal structures of cyclohexanone monooxygenase reveal complex domain movements and a sliding cofactor. (2009) Am Chem Soc. 131: 8848-8854.
