Chambers, Jeremy Graduate Faculty

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biography

  • Dr. Chambers is a native of West Virginia and a tenured associate professor. He earned his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Clemson University for his research on hexokinase biochemistry and druggability in Trypanosoma brucei, the causative agent of human African sleeping sickness. During a postdoctoral appointment at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Chambers went on to study how tumor-initiating viruses, like human cytomegalovirus, alter cellular metabolism. In his second postdoctoral position in the laboratory of Philip V. LoGrasso at the Scripps Research Institute, he was instrumental to the development and validation of highly selective, brain-penetrant inhibitors of the c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK) as potential therapies for Parkinson’s disease. It was during this time that Dr. Chambers made the critical discovery that localization of JNK species on mitochondria was crucial for the induction of cell death. He specifically demonstrated that selectively inhibiting the interaction between JNK and the outer mitochondrial scaffold protein Sab was instrumental in protecting cells and tissues from toxic exposures.

    Upon his arrival at Florida International University, Dr. Chambers established the Laboratory of Mitochondrial Communication with the overarching goals of:

    (1) characterizing mechanisms responsible for mitochondria and cellular coordination.

    (2) develop effective therapies against neurological disorders and neurotoxin exposures

    His research uses state-of-the-art methods in biochemistry, drug discovery, neuroscience, and toxicology integrated with systems biology approaches like proteomics and network analysis. By targeting pathological changes in mitochondria (our cellular power plants), new therapeutics that preserve mitochondrial health could be used to treat human diseases such as cancer and Parkinson’s disease and even offset the effects of aging.

research interests

  • Drug discovery, Mitochondria-cell communication, neurotoxins, protein kinases, protein-protein interactions

Patents issued

selected scholarly works & creative activities

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full name

  • Jeremy Chambers

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