Christopher Weitzel has joined the Department of Chemistry as an assistant professor of biochemistry.
Weitzel holds a Ph.D. in biological chemistry from Indiana University. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Brandeis University, where he investigated mechanisms of cell cycle control and chromosome organization in Escherichia coli (E. coli) using genetic, biochemical, imaging, and cell-based assays. In addition, he has also served as a research scientist, lecturer, and course coordinator at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
At this time, he has two manuscripts in progress, one on the topic of E. coli genome organization and its co-dependence on transcription and a DNA binding protein, and the other on the duplication of an aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase (aaRS), LeuRS, in Archaea. Currently, research in the Weitzel lab focuses on understanding adaptations of the aaRS scaffold to facilitate the acquisition of new, and potentially essential, functions.
