Synopsis
Research in the Callahan lab blends chemistry and biology. We pursue challenging scientific problems that are relevant to human health and disease yet understudied. Projects can be hypothesis driven or more technology focused. Our current work concentrates on the unusual biogenesis of hedgehog proteins, a family of cholesterol-modified hormones that function physiologically during embryo development and patho-physiologically during a variety of cancers.
In general, our research projects follow three phases: (1) understand the chemistry of a biomolecular transformation; (2) apply that understanding to devise novel means to control the transformation with small molecules and/or mutagenesis; (3) Integrate this synthetically controlled transformation into living cells and eventually into multicellular organisms to address significant questions in biomedicine.
Students in the Callahan lab work directly with the PI on designing experiments, interpreting results, and writing up their findings. Research projects are most often led by a graduate student, however undergraduate students in the group continue to make key contributions to our program. Accordingly, undergraduate students have been co-authors on several publications from the lab.
We are committed to sharing the results of our research through presentations at scientific meetings and peer-reviewed publications. Representative publications from the group are provided below. To date, three of our papers have been selected as cover features by the respective journal editors. “Getting a cover” is a gratifying accomplishment and it allows us to mix science and art in the cover design. See an example below.
Since establishing the lab in 2012, we have received generous financial support from the Department of Defense, the National Cancer Institute (NIH), the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIH), NYS-DOH, the Research Foundation of SUNY, along with internal grants from Binghamton University. We are grateful to all these agencies and institutions for their commitment to scientific research and science education.
Research Techniques:
Recombinant protein expression; analytical chromatography; enzyme kinetic assays; protein engineering; synthetic chemistry; small molecule screening; bioconjugation; mammalian cell culture; flow cytometry; fluorescence microscopy; photoaffinity labeling.
Scientific Collaborations:
Between the Callahan lab, the Department of Chemistry and the Health Science Core Facility at Binghamton University, there is a wide diversity of contemporary instrumentation and scientific expertise available to support our research. To further expand our capabilities, we have established external collaborations with leaders in the fields of drug discovery at the NIH, structural biology at RPI, and natural product chemistry at SUNY-ESF. We greatly enjoy these partnerships and are always looking to expand our scientific network.
Representative Publications:
A cell-based bioluminescence reporter assay of human Sonic Hedgehog protein autoprocessing to identify inhibitors and activators. Ciulla DA, Dranchak P, Pezzullo JL, *Mancusi RA, Psaras AM, Rai G, Giner JL, Inglese J, Callahan BP. J Biol Chem. 2022 Dec;298(12):102705.
Specificity Distorted: Chemical Induction of Biological Paracatalysis. Callahan BP, Ciulla DA, Wagner AG, Xu Z, Zhang X. Biochemistry. 2020 Sep 29;59(38):3517-3522.
Protein-Nucleic Acid Conjugation with Sterol Linkers Using Hedgehog Autoprocessing. Zhang X, Xu Z, *Moumin DS, Ciulla DA, Owen TS, *Mancusi RA, Giner JL, Wang C, Callahan BP. Bioconjug Chem. 2019 Nov 20;30(11):2799-2804. (selected for journal cover)
Chemical Bypass of General Base Catalysis in Hedgehog Protein Cholesterolysis Using a Hyper-Nucleophilic Substrate. Ciulla DA, *Jorgensen MT, Giner JL, Callahan BP.
J Am Chem Soc. 2018 Jan 24;140(3):916-918. (selected for journal cover)
*undergraduate co-author
Full List of Peer-Reviewed Publications:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=callahan+bp&filter=datesearch.y_5&sort=date
