Dr. Nicholas Polizzi

Biography

Nicholas Polizzi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He earned his PhD from the Department of Biochemistry at Duke University in 2016, where he conducted research on time-resolved spectroscopic measurements of both biological and abiological electron-transfer reactions. His academic journey led him to a postdoctoral position in the laboratory of Bill DeGrado at the University of California, San Francisco, where he focused on developing innovative approaches for the accurate design of proteins that can bind small molecules. In the summer of 2022, he started his role as an Assistant Professor in Cancer Biology at Dana-Farber. Polizzi's laboratory is dedicated to understanding protein functionality through binding interactions, and aims to elucidate the rules of protein-ligand binding via de novo protein design. His work seeks to address the challenges associated with creating proteins that can effectively bind specific ligands, which involves navigating the complexities of ligand energetics. The lab also focuses on designing proteins capable of performing various biological functions, including metabolite sensing and genetic-code expansion in mammalian cells.

Research Interests