Laura L. Kiessling

Laura L. Kiessling
Born Lake Mills, Wisconsin
Nationality USA
Fields Chemical Biology
Alma mater

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Yale University
Known for Research on multivalent protein-carbohydrate interactions; carbohydrate polymers

Laura L. Kiessling is an American chemist, Steenbock Professor of Chemistry and Laurens Anderson Professor of Biochemistry, at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Her interdisciplinary research interests focus on elucidating and exploiting the mechanisms of cell surface recognition processes, especially those involving protein-glycan interactions. Another major interest of her group is multivalency and its role in recognition and signal transduction. Her research combines tools from organic synthesis, polymer chemistry, structural biology, and molecular and cell biology.[1][2]

Education

After earning a B.S. in chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1983) and a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Yale University (1989), Kiessling spent two years at the California Institute of Technology as an American Cancer Society postdoctoral Fellow before joining the faculty of the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1991.

Career

In addition to her current positions in the Departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UW-Madison, she is the director of both the Keck Center for Chemical Genomics and the NIH Chemistry-Biology Interface Training Program as well as the Editor-in-Chief of ACS Chemical Biology.[3][4][5]

In the first ten years of her career, Kiessling garnered a NSF National Young Investigator Award, Zeneca Excellence in Chemistry Award, a Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, American Chemical Society (ACS) Arthur C. Cope Award, a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and was selected as one of the fifty top research and development “stars to watch” by Industry Week.[6][7][8][9][10][11][12] Kiessling is also the cofounder of Quintessence Biosciences, a company that is working to translate her technological advances into cures for various diseases.[13]

Laura Kiessling is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Member of the American Academy of Microbiology, National Academy of Sciences, and Wisconsin Academy of the Arts and Sciences. In addition since 2005 she has served as editor–in-chief of ACS Chemical Biology.[14][15][16][17] She is also a member of the Board of Scientific Governors of The Scripps Research Institute.[18] During her Guggenheim Fellowship term, Kiessling worked at Caltech, in the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Laboratories of Chemical Synthesis, studying chemoselective reactions for biology.[19]

Selected honors and awards

Selected works

Showed that the multivalent ligands (compounds that possess multiple binding groups) can act by different mechanisms to create different types of macromolecular assemblies.

Demonstration that multivalent ligands can be used to cluster proteins and activate signaling. Found that the bacterial chemoreceptors work together like a nose to sense and respond to compounds in their environment.

Found that multifunctional multivalent ligands can be used to elicit a specific cell response. Polymers that co-cluster a receptor on B cells (the B cell receptor) with a carbohydrate-binding protein (CD22) dampen immune responses.

Polysaccharides are the most abundant organic molecules on Earth but how their length is controlled is not known. This publication puts forth a general mechanism for controlling the length of a polysaccharide.

Carbohydrate polymerases mediate the assembly of polysaccharides composed of different sequences and structures. Are the polymerases highly selective for generating specific sequences? This publication examines carbohydrate polymerase fidelity and shows that these enzymes can be faithful not promiscuous.

A rare example of a small molecule that is a potent monovalent blocker of a lectin (IC50 value ~ 1 μM).

A new and unexpected role for glycosaminoglycans interactions in maintaining the pluripotency of human embryonic stem cells. Draws on insights learned from investigating multivalent protein–carbohydrate interactions.

[43]

References

  1. https://biochem.wisc.edu/faculty/kiessling
  2. http://www.chem.wisc.edu/users/kiesslin
  3. http://www.uwalumni.com/home/alumniandfriends/onwisconsin/archives/2001spring/keck.aspx
  4. http://publications.nigms.nih.gov/multimedia/map/cbi/
  5. http://pubs.acs.org/journal/acbcct
  6. http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=100382&org=OMA
  7. http://www.eurekalert.org/staticrel.php?view=acsKeissling
  8. http://www.dreyfus.org/news/symposium_gallery.shtml
  9. http://www.sloan.org/assets/files/annual_reports/2008_annual_report_vf.pdf
  10. http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_ARTICLEMAIN&node_id=1319&content_id=CTP_004496&use_sec=true&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=21a2ef2e-02ed-4095-9fa2-be61996fb778
  11. http://www.macfound.org/fellows/class/july-1999/
  12. http://www.industryweek.com/articles/50_rd_stars_to_watch_519.aspx
  13. http://www.quintbio.com/science.asp
  14. http://php.aaas.org/about/aaas_fellows/list.php
  15. http://archives.microbeworld.org/scientists/interviews/LauraKiessling.aspx
  16. http://www.news.wisc.edu/13738
  17. http://www.wisconsinacademy.org/node/116
  18. http://www.scripps.edu/about/leadership/governors.html The Scripps Research Institute Board of Scientific Governors
  19. http://ecals.cals.wisc.edu/awards-honors/2008/04/09/laura-kiessling-receives-2008-guggenheim-fellowship/
  20. http://www.news.wisc.edu/19339
  21. http://pubs.acs.org/cen/fellows/
  22. http://www.grad.wisc.edu/research/researchfunding/vilas/vilaswinners.html
  23. http://news.yale.edu/2008/09/30/yale-awards-wilbur-cross-medals-five-alumni
  24. http://www.gf.org/fellows
  25. http://nas.nasonline.org/site/Dir/960368144?pg=vprof&mbr=1010590&returl=http%3A%2F%2Fnas.nasonline.org%2Fsite%2FDir%2F960368144%3Fpg%3Dsrch%26view%3Dbasic&retmk=search_again_link
  26. http://academy.asm.org/index.php/fellows/fellows-directory
  27. http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_ARTICLEMAIN&node_id=1319&content_id=CTP_004521&use_sec=true&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=5524d8c0-e7f3-4b1c-a5c3-82822f8da66a
  28. http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/P04_116.cws_home/tet_awards
  29. http://www.chem.rochester.edu/howe/past.php
  30. http://www.amacad.org/members/alphaList.pdf
  31. http://php.aaas.org/about/aaas_fellows/list.php
  32. http://www.internationalcarbohydrateorganisation.org/content/carbohydrate-research-award-creativity-carbohydrate-chemistry
  33. http://www.grad.wisc.edu/research/researchfunding/nkr/romneswinners.html
  34. http://carb.sites.acs.org/isbellawardees.htm
  35. http://www.macfound.org/fellows/search/?name=kiessling
  36. http://www.industryweek.com/articles/50_rd_stars_to_watch_519.aspx
  37. http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_ARTICLEMAIN&node_id=1319&content_id=CTP_004496&use_sec=true&sec_url_var=region1&__uuid=71a53757-bbea-4b48-b242-ec67d7f1a1ff
  38. http://www.chem.wisc.edu/content/awards
  39. http://www.sloan.org/sloan-research-fellowships/past-fellows/?tx_sloangrants_sloanfellows%5Baction%5D=list&tx_sloangrants_sloanfellows%5Bcontroller%5D=Fellows&cHash=8f53adde7b4458aff6de5c2679773fee
  40. http://www.chem.wisc.edu/content/awards
  41. http://www.dreyfus.org/news/news.shtml
  42. http://www.beckman-foundation.com/recipients_1994.html
  43. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=laura%20l.%20kiessling

External links