Josh Wand

Biography

Josh Wand was born and raised in Ottawa, Canada. He received his B.Sc. (Hons) in biochemistry from Carleton University in Ottawa. Working under the direction of Stan Tsai, he also received a M.Sc. in bioorganic chemistry from Carleton University. He received his Ph.D. in biophysics from the University of Pennsylvania under the guidance of Walter Englander. After a short postdoctoral stint in solid state NMR at the National Research Council of Canada with I.C.P. Smith, he joined the faculty of the Institute for Cancer Research. He subsequently spent time on the faculties of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the State University of New York at Buffalo. He is currently the Benjamin Rush Professor of Biochemistry & Biophysics at the University of Pennsylvania where he continues to apply solution NMR to questions in protein biophysics with a particular emphasis on entropy in protein function. He also developed the reverse micelle encapsulation strategy for solution NMR spectroscopy of macromolecules, originally to overcome the slow tumbling problem presented by large proteins. More recently this approach as been extended to provide site-resolved hydration dynamics, to explore a variety of confined space phenomena and to provide a novel route to drug discovery.

Research Interest

 microbiology