Prof. Deborah Fass

Our lab studies the disulfide-mediated assembly of complex biomaterials such as mucus and the extracellular matrix. Our experiments range from the Angstrom to the organism-- we discover the fundamental biochemical and structural mechanisms by which the secretory pathway produces glycoprotein matrices, and then we determine how failures in these mechanisms lead to disease. We also design enzyme inhibitors for applications in medicine and tissue engineering.