Wayne Hendrickson, Ph.D.
University Professor and the Violin Family Professor of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics
Macromolecular structure with an aim toward in-depth understanding of biological activity.
CURRENT RESEARCH
Wayne A. Hendrickson is the Violin Family Professor of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics as well as being a University Professor and a member of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Columbia University. He also holds the positions of Chief Life Scientist for Photon Sciences at Brookhaven National Laboratory and Scientific Director of the New York Structural Biology Center.
Research in Dr. Hendrickson's laboratory focuses on the structure and function of biological molecules. He and his colleagues use x-ray crystallography to study molecular properties in atomic detail. By analyzing x-ray beams diffracted from crystals, they are able to reconstruct images of crystallized molecules. Their advances in diffraction methods (notably, stereochemically restrained refinement, the multiwavelength-anomalous-diffraction (MAD) method, selenomethionyl proteins, and synchrotron instrumentation) have been instrumental in the emergence of structural biology as a major force in modern biology and molecular medicine. They use this technology themselves in investigations on membrane receptors and cellular signaling, on viral proteins and HIV infection, on molecular chaperones and protein folding, and in structural genomics of membrane proteins.
Dr. Hendrickson has published numerous research articles and related reviews. He serves on advisory bodies for various scientific organizations. He is a founding editor of Current Opinion in Structural Biology and of Structure, and he was a founder of SGX Pharmaceuticals. His honors include the Aminoff Prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Gairdner International Award, and the Harvey Prize of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
Selected Publications
2021
C. Fritschi, S. Liang, M. Mohammadi, S. Anang, F. Moraca, J. Chen, N. Madani, J. Sodroski, C. Abrams, W.A. Hendrickson* and A.B. Smith, III*. Identification and Validation of a Novel gp120 Residue as a Target for HIV-1 Neutralization by Small-Molecule CD4-Mimics. ACS Med. Chem. Lett. 12, 1824-1831 (2021).
W. Wang, Qun Liu, Qinglian Liu and W.A. Hendrickson*. Conformational Equilibria in Allosteric Control of Hsp70 Chaperones. Molecular Cell 81, 3919-3933 (2021).
2020
A.P. Owji, Q. Zhao, C. Ji, A. Kittredge, A. Hopiavuori, Z. Fu, N. Ward, O.B. Clarke, Y. Shen, Y. Zhang, W. A. Hendrickson* and T. Yang*. Structural and Functional Characterization of Bestrophin2 Anion Channels. Nat. Struct. Mol. Biol. 27, 382-391 (2020).
2018
W. Qiu, Z. Fu, G. Xu, R.A. Grassucci, Y. Zhang, J. Frank, W.A. Hendrickson* and Y. Guo*. Structure and Activity of Lipid Bilayer within Multidrug Exporter AcrB. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 115, 12985-12990 (2018).
2014
W.A. Hendrickson*, Anomalous Diffraction in Crystallographic Phase Evaluation. Quarterly Reviews of Biophysics 47, 49-93 (2014).