Donita C Brady
University of Pennsylvania, PA·Biochemistry
Cancer cells and healthy cells depend on more than their genes. What a cell actually does is set by its proteins and by the small molecules and metals that switch those proteins on and off.
- Fields
Biochemistry
Chemistry
Pharmacology
- Topics
chemical biology
chemical probes
proteomics
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- Develop Probe Enabled Activity Reporting (PEAR), using chemical biology probes that tag reactive proteins, to visualize and identify protein targets in patient-derived cancer models.
- Identify protein targets whose probe reactivity changes after cancer treatment, and establish their functional roles in how tumor cells adapt to therapy.
- Establish a method that profiles probe-reactive proteins in separate compartments of the cell, to uncover distinct features of tumor cell biology.
- Determine how copper controls autophagy, the cell's recycling process, and the formation and function of lysosomes, its recycling compartments.
- Determine how copper directly controls glycolytic flux, the rate of sugar breakdown, so cells can adapt metabolically under nutrient and oxygen stress.
- Define how copper transport into mitochondria connects to nutrient-sensing signaling pathways in the cytosol that are needed for metabolism.
More about the research
Two projects study this protein-level control. One builds chemical tools that read changing protein activity inside tumors and track how it shifts with therapy. The other asks how copper, a metal we get from our diet, acts as a signal that tunes cell growth, nutrient recycling and metabolism.
Why it matters
Genetic tests alone often fail to predict how a tumor will respond to treatment. Tools that read protein activity directly could reveal hidden weak points in solid tumors, predict therapeutic responses and guide new targeted drugs and diagnostics. Understanding how copper controls signaling and energy balance could point to treatments that exploit copper-dependent vulnerabilities in disease.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Qingfei Zheng
Purdue University, IN·Biochemistry
Develop chemical probes that selectively label and enrich different histone monoaminylations, such as serotonylation and dopaminylation of histone H3 at glutamine 5 (H3Q5).
Amy Barrios
University of Utah, UT·Biochemistry
Develop fluorogenic peptide substrates, molecules that fluoresce when cut by an enzyme, that are selective for LAR receptor tyrosine phosphatases, using sequences of their known biological targets, and validate them for use in cells.
Brittany Allen-Petersen
Purdue University, IN·Biochemistry
Identify how PP2A-B56α, a subunit of a phosphate-removing enzyme, controls the fusion of macropinosomes with lysosomes, focusing on chemical changes made to proteins after they are built.
The school
University of Pennsylvania: 90 labs on PI Pages, $2.2B a year on research, 750 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.