John Gross, PhD

Professor

Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry

[email protected]

Phone: +1 415 502-1897

Fax: +1 415 502-8298

600 16th St, Rm S512E

UCSF Box 2280

San Francisco, CA 94158

United States

Links

Gross Lab

UCSF Profiles

Educational programs

Biophysics Graduate Program (BP)

Chemistry and Chemical Biology Graduate Program (CCB)

PharmD Degree Program

UCSF Tetrad Graduate Program

UCSF centers, institutes, and research programs

Quantitative Biosciences Institute (QBI)

Director, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Laboratory (NMR Lab)

What I do

I am interested in protein structure and dynamics related to gene expression. We study changes in protein structure that occur on time scales ranging from millions of years to a millionth of a second, with a focus on basic questions of how viruses cross-species and give rise to modern pandemics or how enzyme function is fine-tuned by cellular cues. Research in this area guides development of therapeutics for infectious disease and cancer.

Departmental research area

physical biology

My research expertise

NMR spectroscopy, structural biology, enzymology

Degrees

PhD, Physical Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 1998

BS, Chemistry, Sewanee: The University of the South, 1992

Biography

We investigate molecular machines that coordinate gene expression or antiviral immunity. Research areas include : i- RNA decay enzymes that act in mRNA quality control and gene regulatory pathways, and ii- nucleic acid based immune systems that protect animals from viruses and neutralization of these systems by viral accessory proteins. We use tools from molecular biophysics to understand the structure and regulatory conformational dynamics in these systems with the ultimate goal of defining molecular mechanisms and avenues for structure based drug design.

Research keywords

RNA Caps, vif Gene Products, Human Immunodeficiency Virus, Schizosaccharomyces, Schizosaccharomyces pombe Proteins, Endoribonucleases

Publications

DR Paquette, JS Mugridge, DE Weinberg, and JD Gross. Application of a Schizosaccharomyces pombe Edc1-fused Dcp1-Dcp2 decapping enzyme for transcription start site mapping. RNA. 2018; 24(2):251-257.

JL Battiste, JD Gross, and G Wagner. Global Fold Determination of large proteins using site-directed spin labeling. Protein NMR for the Millenium. 2002; 79-101.

DE Warschawski, JD Gross, and RG Griffin. Effects of membrane peptide dynamics on high-resolution magic-angle spinning NMR. Journal de Chimie Physique et de Physico-Chimie Biologique. 1998; 95(2):460-466.

JD Gross, PR Costa, and RG Griffin. Tilted n-fold symmetric radio frequency pulse sequences: Applications to CSA and heteronuclear dipolar recoupling in homonuclear dipolar coupled spin networks. The Journal of Chemical Physics. 1998; 108(17):7286-7293.

JD Gross, DE Warschawski, and RG Griffin. Dipolar recoupling in MAS NMR: a probe for segmental order in lipid bilayers. Journal of the American Chemical Society. 1997; 119(4):796-802.

M Hong, JD Gross, and RG Griffin. Site-Resolved Determination of Peptide Torsion Angle phi from the relative orientation of backbone NH and CH bonds by solid-state NMR. The Journal of Physical Chemistry B. 1997; 101(30):5869-5874.

PR Costa, JD Gross, M Hong, and RG Griffin. Solid-state NMR measurement of psi in peptides: a NCCN 2Q-heteronuclear local field experiment. Chemical Physics Letters. 1997; 280(1-2):95-103.

JD Gross, PR Costa, JP Dubacq, DE Warschawski, PN Lirsac, PF Devaux, and RG Griffin. Multidimensional NMR in lipid systems. Coherence transfer through J couplings under MAS. Journal of Magnetic Resonance Series B. 1995; 106:190.

AC Bach, CJ Eyermann, JD Gross, MJ Bower, RL Harlow, PC Weber, WF DeGrado. Structural studies of a family of high affinity ligands for GPIIb/IIIa. Journal of the American Chemical Society. 1994; 116(8):3207-3219.