Judith Klein-Seetharaman

Professor,

College of Health Solutions

Other ASU affiliations

Applied Structural Discovery Associate Faculty

Biodesign Center for Applied Structural Discovery

School of Molecular Sciences

Wexford Room 310F Phoenix, AZ 85004
Mail code: 1604

Campus: Tempe
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Long Bio

Judith Klein, Professor in the School of Molecular Sciences and College of Health Solutions, obtained her PhD with late Nobel Laureate Har Gobind Khorana at Massachusetts Institute of Technology on conformational changes and folding in the G protein coupled receptor, rhodopsin. She holds dual undergraduate degrees in Biology and Chemistry from the University of Cologne, Germany.

Professor Klein’s research combines computational and experimental studies of protein structure, dynamics and function with particular emphasis on membrane proteins. She has published over 150 papers and has received a number of awards including the FP7 People Funded Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship, the Sofya Kovalevskaya Award of the Humboldt Foundation, a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Award, National Science Foundation CAREER Award and the Margaret Oakley Dayhoff Award of the Biophysical Society for her “remarkable work in computational biology embracing the full spectrum of experimental biophysics.”

Education

PhD Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Curriculum Vitae

Research Website URL

https://sites.google.com/asu.edu/jks-structural-biology

Google Scholar URL

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=_ZRO43QAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

Experts.asu.edu URL

https://asu.pure.elsevier.com/en/persons/judith-klein-seetharaman

Research Interests

Structural biology of proteins

Publications

The >160 peer-reviewed papers I have published are organized in the following areas and one example publication in each area is linked below:

Corals

Kumar et al. (2021) Transfer of Knowledge from Model Organisms to Evolutionarily Distant Non-Model Organisms: The Coral Pocillopora damicornis Membrane Signaling Receptome, Biorxiv: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.10.18.464760v2.full.pdf

Obesity and Biosensing

Kumar et al. (2021) Structure-based survey of ligand binding in the human insulin receptor (2020) British Journal of Pharmaoclogy: https://doi.org/10.22541/au.162245427.70273837/v1

Lipids

Planas-Iglesias, J. et al. (2015) Cardiolipin Interactions with Proteins. Biophys. J.: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006349515007699?via…

G protein coupled receptor structure and dynamics

Mitchell et al. (2019) Comparison of the molecular properties of retinitis pigmentosa P23H and N15S amino acid replacements in rhodopsin, Plos ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.02146…

Non-GPCR protein structure and dynamics

Evans et al. (2021) Similarity of the non-amyloid-β component and C-terminal tail of monomeric and tetrameric alpha-synuclein with 14-3-3 sigma. Computational and Structural BIotechnology Journal: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2001037021003962?via…

Carbon nanotubes and biopolymers

Kagan et al. (2010) Carbon nanotubes degraded by neutrophil myeloperoxidase induce less pulmonary inflammation, Nature Nanotechnology: https://www.nature.com/articles/nnano.2010.44

Sequence analysis and bioinformatics

Kshirsagar et al. (2021) Protein sequence models for prediction and comparative analysis of the SARS-CoV-2 —human interactome. Pacific Symposirum on Biocomputing: https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/9789811232701_0015

Protein-protein interactions and systems biology

Qi et al. (2009) Systematic prediction of human membrane receptor interactions. Proteomics: https://analyticalsciencejournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/p…

Photosynthesis

De Las Rivas et al. (1995) pH sensitivity of the redox state of cytochrome b559 may regulate its function as a protectant against donor and acceptor side photoinhibition. Photosynthesis Research: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00020430

Education

Leuba et al. (2014) Early integration of the individual student in academic activities: a novel classroom concept for graduate education in molecular biophysics and structural biology. BMC Biophysics: https://bmcbiophys.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2046-1682-7-6

Courses

2024 Fall

Course Number	Course Title
BCH 392	Intro to Research Techniques
BCH 341	Physical Chem with Bio Focus
BCH 341	Physical Chem with Bio Focus
BCH 392	Intro to Research Techniques
CHS 494	Special Topics

2024 Summer

Course Number	Course Title
BCH 392	Intro to Research Techniques

2024 Spring

Course Number	Course Title
BCH 341	Physical Chem with Bio Focus
CHS 494	Special Topics

2023 Fall

Course Number	Course Title
CHS 494	Special Topics

2023 Spring

Course Number	Course Title
BCH 341	Physical Chem with Bio Focus
CHS 494	Special Topics

2022 Spring

Course Number	Course Title
BCH 341	Physical Chem with Bio Focus
BCH 341	Physical Chem with Bio Focus
CHS 494	Special Topics

Honors / Awards

Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes (German National Student Foundation) – awarded to the top 1% of the entire German student population

Deutscher Akad. Austauschdienst (DAAD) / German National Exchange Service – supports international student exchange

Howard Hughes Predoctoral Fellowship – supported my PhD studies

Teaching Award, Department of Chemistry, MIT – awarded for my contributions to the Biochemistry undergraduate class

Gordon Research Conference Young Investigator Award – awarded for my work on conformational changes in rhodopsin upon light-activation

Merck Award, Merck Frosst Center for Therapeutic Research – awarded for my work on conformational changes in rhodopsin

Sofya Kovalevskaya Prize, Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation, Germany – awarded for research on membrane receptors

Senior Vice Chancellor Lecture Series

Publication "Long-range interactions within a nonnative protein" found by ISI to be one of most cited recent papers in fields of Biology and Biochemistry.

Publication “Towards a biomedical problem solving environment” selected from 450 published papers of the International Conference on Computational Science for a special issue in Future Generation Computer Systems.

NSF CAREER Award “Evolution of Signaling Mechanisms in Membrane Receptors” for integration of teaching and research

Margaret Oakley Dayhoff Award of the Biophysical Society – for the “most promising young woman in biophysics” awarded for my “remarkable work in computational biology embracing the full spectrum of experimental biophysics”.

Award from the Women Chemists Committee of the Northeastern New York Section of the American Chemical Society for “contributions to encouraging women in chemistry”

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Award in the Grand Challenges Explorations Initiative. My proposal was entitled: “Identification of New Drug Targets by Linking HIV Function to Protein Interaction Pathways”.

Chancellor Distinguished Research Award – University of Pittsburgh. Considered the highest recognition in research award the University of Pittsburgh bestows.

Marie Curie Incoming International Fellowship (IIF) – University of Warwick. Awarded to top-class researchers from third countries to work and undertake research in Europe to develop mutually-beneficial research co-operation.

Hacking Eating Tracking – Project Insulin was awarded 4th prize in Hackathon Competition at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.

Connector Award – College of Applied Science and Engineering, Colorado School of Mines. Awarded for bringing together more than 40 faculty in the Integrative Program of Quantitative Biosciences and Engineering

Thomas R. Nickoloff Entrepreneurship and Innovation Faculty Award – Colorado School of Mines, for entrepreneurship and innovation in the classroom

Academic Management Institute fellowship, participation in events for women in higher education in Colorado

Editorships

2011 – present Editorial Board, BMC Biophysics

2021 – present Editorial Board, Nutrients

Professional Associations

Protein Society, Biophysical Society, International Society for Computational Biology

Graduate Faculties / Mentoring History

Theses completed under my supervision

December 12, 2004 Venkatesh Jitender, Master’s in Bioinformatics Concentration of the Center for Biomedical Informatics, University of Pittsburgh

May 17, 2005 Jiangbo Miao, Master’s in Language Technologies, Language Technologies Institute, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University

Dec. 15, 2006 Ivan Budyak, Ph.D. in Physics, Moscow Institute of Technology, Russia

May 10, 2007 Madhavi Ganapathiraju, Ph.D. in Language Technologies, Language Technologies Institute, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University

April 2008 Hussein Baradia, Master’s in Bioengineering, University of Pittsburgh

May 14, 2008 Yanjun Qi, Ph.D. in Language Technologies, Language Technologies Institute, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University

May 15, 2009 Naveena Yanamala, Ph.D. in Integrative Molecular Biology, University of Pittsburgh

Jan. 8, 2010 Irtisha Singh, Master’s in Computational Biology, Carnegie Mellon University

Dec. 2010 Arpana Dutta, Ph.D. in Integrative Molecular Biology, University of Pittsburgh

April 2011 Kalyan Tirupula, Ph.D. in Molecular Biophysics and Structural Biology, University of Pittsburgh

July 12, 2011 Oznur Tastan, Ph.D. in Language Technologies, Language Technologies Institute, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University

July 5, 2012 Fernanda Balem, Ph.D. in Biologia Celular e Tecidual do Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil.

July 27, 2015 Meghana Kshirshagar, Ph.D. in Language Technologies, Language Technologies Institute, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University

Feb. 17, 2016 Dariush Mohammadyani, Ph.D. in Bioengineering, University of Pittsburgh

May 2018 James Mitchell, Ph.D., University of Warwick Medical School

May 2019 Shilpa Tejpal, PhD., University of Warwick Medical School

May 2021 Whitney Vizgaudis, MS Quantitative Biosciences and Engineering, Colorado School of Mines

May 2021 Sarah Evans, MS Quantitative Biosciences and Engineering, Colorado School of Mines

August 2021 Nathan Brenner, MS Quantitative Biosciences and Engineering, Colorado School of Mines

Work History

A. Primary Appointments

August 2021 – present School of Molecular Sciences & Professor College of Health Solutions Arizona State University

August 2017 – August 2021 Department of Chemistry Associate Professor Colorado School of Mines, USA

March 2013 – August 2017 Warwick Medical School Professor & Institute for Digital Healthcare University of Warwick, UK

Jan. 2006 – Feb 2013 Department of Structural Biology Assistant, since 2009 School of Medicine Associate Professor with University of Pittsburgh, USA Tenure

March 2002 – Dec. 2005 Department of Pharmacology Assistant Professor University of Pittsburgh, USA

December 2001 – Feb. 2002 Language Technologies Institute Research Scientist School of Computer Science Carnegie Mellon University , USA

B. Adjunct Appointments

October 2017 – August 2021 Mines@Catalyst Director Initiative for AI in Bio and Health Catalyst Health Tech Innovation Center

August 2015 – present Tandon School of Engineering Online Professor New York University, USA

July 2002 – Feb 2013 Department of Computational and Adjunct Professor Systems Biology University of Pittsburgh

July 2006 – Feb 2013 Department of Bioengineering Adjunct Professor University of Pittsburgh

Sept. 2008 – May 2009 School of Biological Sciences Professor Royal Holloway Head of Center University of London, UK for Biomedical Sciences

May 2003 – Sept. 2006 Center for Biomedical Informatics Core-Graduate Faculty University of Pittsburgh

July 2002 – August 2013 Institute for Structural Biology Research Scientist Research Institute Jülich, Germany

Service

numerous committees, review panels, ad hoc reviews, outreach activities, women in science

Industry Positions

CEO of Sarkar-Klein-Labs LLC

Co-Owner of Neosensations LLC

Owner of Sense2safeguard (S2S), LLC

Expertise Areas

Behavior

Bioinformatics

Biomarker Discovery for Personalized Diagnosis

Biosensors, Point-of-care Technologies and Sensing Systems

Protein Biochemistry

Structural Biology