Kevin Gardner: Environmentally-switched proteins: Biochemical and structural studies of nature’s switches and scientists’ tools

Kevin Gardner

Einstein Professor of Chemistry, Director of the Structural Biology Initiative of the CUNY Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC)

The City College of New York

Hosted by John Christie

Kevin’s research is focussed on how environmental cues regulate biological processes, particularly on the function and application of sensory protein domains that use internally-bound ligands to convert environmentally-triggered changes into altered protein/protein interactions. Kevin’s a structural biologist by trade but combines biophysics, biochemistry and cell biology to understand how sensory domains have evolved to control diverse biological outputs e.g. revealing how a cancer-related transcription factor in human cells senses natural metabolites similarly to a photosensory protein looking for blue light within marine bacteria. These studies laid the foundation for both understanding the natural regulation of these systems and artificially controlling them. (Text by: by John Christie)

More about Kevin's research: URL: https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/profiles/kevin-gardner