Journal of Biochemistry and Biophysics

Dr. An earned his Ph.D. in 2005 from the Chemistry Department at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities. After a period as a postdoctoral scholar at the Pennsylvania State University, he joined the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC). Currently he is an Assistant Professor at UMBC and also a member of graduate faculty for the Graduate Program in Life Sciences, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland.

The broad objective of the S. An laboratory is to contribute to our understanding of how sequential metabolic enzymes are organized in living cells and how such metabolic organizations are
spatiotemporally regulated in response to cellular signals relevant to human diseases. Since the concept of metabolic complexes was conceived in 1970s, the discovery of the “purinosome”, a reversible metabolic complex for de novo purine biosynthesis stands as the first example of this cellular phenomenon in live cells. Real-time detection of the reversible purinosomes in live cells sets the stage for an extraordinary opportunity to explore the spatial and temporal advantages to the cell in assembling and disassembling this cluster of proteins. Indeed, the S. An lab is highly motivated to explore the purinosome further with strong emphasis on signaling pathways and, in parallel, search for another metabolic complex as the heart of human disease mechanisms.