Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Professor, Biological Chemistry and Physiology, UCLA

Tamir Gonen is a membrane biophysicist and an expert in crystallography and cryo-EM. Gonen is a professor of Biological Chemistry and Physiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine of the University of California, Los Angeles, an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and a Member of the Royal Society of New Zealand. He received a Career Development Award from the American Diabetes Association and was an Early Career Scientist of HHMI. Gonen served on several study sections of the National Institutes of Health and acted as ad hoc reviewer for several international funding agencies. In 2011 while leading a lab at the HHMI Janelia Research Campus he began developing microcrystal electron diffraction (MicroED) as a new method for structural biology. In 2017 Dr Gonen moved his laboratory to the David Geffen School of Medicine of the University of California, Los Angeles as an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a Professor of Biological Chemistry and Physiology, where he continues studying membrane protein structure and function using cryo-EM and MicroED. With this method Dr Gonen has pushed the boundaries of cryo-EM and determined several previously unknown structures at resolutions better than 1 Å. Gonen authored more than 120 publications and several of his past trainees are now faculty around the world at top universities.

Honors

1996Dean’s list—Organic Chemistry, University of Auckland, New Zealand
1996Dean’s list—Inorganic Chemistry, University of Auckland, New Zealand
1997Center for Gene Technology Research Scholarship, University of Auckland, New Zealand
1997Dean’s List—Inorganic Chemistry, University of Auckland, New Zealand
1998Senior prize in Biological Sciences, University of Auckland, New Zealand
1998First class honors in Biological Sciences, University of Auckland, New Zealand
1999University of Auckland Doctoral Scholarship, University of Auckland, New Zealand
2000Contestable Travel Fund Award, University of Auckland, New Zealand
2001Contestable Travel Fund Award, University of Auckland, New Zealand
2009American Diabetes Association Career Development Award
2009Howard Hughes Medical Institute Early Career Scientist
2010New investigator, Science in Medicine Lecture
2012Member, The Royal Society of New Zealand
2017Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
2018Chair elect, Biophysical Society cryo-EM subgroup
2023Thermo Fisher MicroED Innovation Award
2023A. L. Patterson award, ACA: The Structural Science Society

Publications in PubMed

Publications

193 entries « 3 of 4 »

2018

Krotee, Pascal; Griner, Sarah L; Sawaya, Michael R; Cascio, Duilio; Rodriguez, Jose A; Shi, Dan; Philipp, Stephan; Murray, Kevin; Saelices, Lorena; Lee, Ji; Seidler, Paul; Glabe, Charles G; Jiang, Lin; Gonen, Tamir; Eisenberg, David S

Common fibrillar spines of amyloid-β and human islet amyloid polypeptide revealed by microelectron diffraction and structure-based inhibitors

In: J. Biol. Chem., vol. 293, no. 8, pp. 2888–2902, 2018.

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Hughes, Michael P; Sawaya, Michael R; Boyer, David R; Goldschmidt, Lukasz; Rodriguez, Jose A; Cascio, Duilio; Chong, Lisa; Gonen, Tamir; Eisenberg, David S

Atomic structures of low-complexity protein segments reveal kinked β sheets that assemble networks

In: Science, vol. 359, no. 6376, pp. 698–701, 2018.

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Nannenga, Brent L; Gonen, Tamir

MicroED: a versatile cryoEM method for structure determination

In: Emerg Top Life Sci, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 1–8, 2018.

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Hattne, Johan; Shi, Dan; Glynn, Calina; Zee, Chih-Te; Gallagher-Jones, Marcus; Martynowycz, Michael W.; Rodriguez, Jose A.; Gonen, Tamir

Analysis of global and site-specific radiation damage in cryo-EM

bioRxiv, 2018.

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Gallagher-Jones, Marcus; Glynn, Calina; Boyer, David R; Martynowycz, Michael W; Hernandez, Evelyn; Miao, Jennifer; Zee, Chih-Te; Novikova, Irina V; Goldschmidt, Lukasz; McFarlane, Heather T; Helguera, Gustavo F; Evans, James E; Sawaya, Michael R; Cascio, Duilio; Eisenberg, David S; Gonen, Tamir; Rodriguez, Jose A

Sub-ångström cryo-EM structure of a prion protofibril reveals a polar clasp

In: Nat. Struct. Mol. Biol., vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 131–134, 2018.

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2017

Purdy, Michael D.; Shi, Dan; Chrustowicz, Jakub; Hattne, Johan; Gonen, Tamir; Yeager, Mark

MicroED Structures of HIV-1 Gag CTD-SP1 Reveal Binding Interactions with the Maturation Inhibitor Bevirimat

bioRxiv, 2017.

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Seidler, P M; Boyer, D R; Rodriguez, J A; Sawaya, M R; Cascio, D; Murray, K; Gonen, T; Eisenberg, D S

Structure-based inhibitors of tau aggregation

In: Nat Chem, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 170–176, 2017.

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Liu, Yuxi; Gonen, Shane; Gonen, Tamir; Yeates, Todd O.

Near-Atomic Cryo-EM Imaging of a Small Protein Displayed on a Designed Scaffolding System

bioRxiv, 2017.

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Vergara, Sandra; Lukes, Dylan A; Martynowycz, Michael W; Santiago, Ulises; Plascencia-Villa, Germán; Weiss, Simon C; de la Cruz, Jason M; Black, David M; Alvarez, Marcos M; López-Lozano, Xochitl; Barnes, Christopher O; Lin, Guowu; Weissker, Hans-Christian; Whetten, Robert L; Gonen, Tamir; Yacaman, Miguel Jose; Calero, Guillermo

MicroED Structure of Au₁₄₆(p-MBA)₅₇ at Subatomic Resolution Reveals a Twinned FCC Cluster

In: J Phys Chem Lett, vol. 8, no. 22, pp. 5523–5530, 2017.

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Gonen, Tamir; Rodriguez, Jose; Schlichting, Ilme (Ed.)

Challenges in Structural Biology

HHMI Janelia Research Campus, Janelia Research Campus, 2017, (Conference held 2017-10-15 to 2015-10-18 at Janelia Research Campus).

Rodriguez, Jose A; Eisenberg, David S; Gonen, Tamir

Taking the measure of MicroED

In: Curr. Opin. Struct. Biol., vol. 46, pp. 79–86, 2017.

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Wright, Zoë V F; McCarthy, Stephen; Dickman, Rachel; Reyes, Francis E; Sanchez-Martinez, Silvia; Cryar, Adam; Kilford, Iian; Hall, Adrian; Takle, Andrew K; Topf, Maya; Gonen, Tamir; Thalassinos, Konstantinos; Tabor, Alethea B

The Role of Disulfide Bond Replacements in Analogues of the Tarantula Toxin ProTx-II and Their Effects on Inhibition of the Voltage-Gated Sodium Ion Channel Naᵥ1.7

In: J. Am. Chem. Soc., vol. 139, no. 37, pp. 13063–13075, 2017.

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Hughes, Michael P.; Sawaya, Michael R.; Goldschmidt, Lukasz; Rodriguez, Jose A.; Cascio, Duilio; Gonen, Tamir; Eisenberg, David S.

Low-complexity domains adhere by reversible amyloid-like interactions between kinked β-sheets

bioRxiv, 2017.

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de la Cruz, M. Jason; Martynowycz, Michael; Hattne, Johan; Shi, Dan; Gonen, Tamir

A method to minimize condenser lens-induced hysteresis effects in a JEOL JEM-3200FSC microscope to enable stable cryoEM low-dose operations

bioRxiv 2017.

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Martynowycz, Michael W.; Glynn, Calina; Miao, Jennifer; de la Cruz, M. Jason; Hattne, Johan; Shi, Dan; Cascio, Duilio; Rodriguez, Jose; Gonen, Tamir

MicroED Structures from Micrometer Thick Protein Crystals

bioRxiv, 2017.

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de la Cruz, M. Jason; Hattne, Johan; Shi, Dan; Rodriguez, Jose A.; Reyes, Francis E.; Gonen, Tamir

Micro- and nanocrystal preparation for MicroED and XFEL serial crystallography by fragmentation of imperfect crystals

Nature Protocol Exchange 2017.

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de la Cruz, Jason M; Hattne, Johan; Shi, Dan; Seidler, Paul; Rodriguez, Jose; Reyes, Francis E; Sawaya, Michael R; Cascio, Duilio; Weiss, Simon C; Kim, Sun Kyung; Hinck, Cynthia S; Hinck, Andrew P; Calero, Guillermo; Eisenberg, David; Gonen, Tamir

Atomic-resolution structures from fragmented protein crystals with the cryoEM method MicroED

In: Nat. Methods, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 399–402, 2017.

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Krotee, Pascal; Rodriguez, Jose A; Sawaya, Michael R; Cascio, Duilio; Reyes, Francis E; Shi, Dan; Hattne, Johan; Nannenga, Brent L; Oskarsson, Marie E; Philipp, Stephan; Griner, Sarah; Jiang, Lin; Glabe, Charles G; Westermark, Gunilla T; Gonen, Tamir; Eisenberg, David S

Atomic structures of fibrillar segments of hIAPP suggest tightly mated β-sheets are important for cytotoxicity

In: Elife, vol. 6, 2017.

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2016

Nannenga, Brent L; Gonen, Tamir

MicroED opens a new era for biological structure determination

In: Curr. Opin. Struct. Biol., vol. 40, pp. 128–135, 2016.

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Sawaya, Michael R; Rodriguez, Jose; Cascio, Duilio; Collazo, Michael J; Shi, Dan; Reyes, Francis E; Hattne, Johan; Gonen, Tamir; Eisenberg, David S

Ab initio structure determination from prion nanocrystals at atomic resolution by MicroED

In: Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., vol. 113, no. 40, pp. 11232–11236, 2016.

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Liu, Shian; Hattne, Johan; Reyes, Francis E; Sanchez-Martinez, Silvia; de la Cruz, Jason M; Shi, Dan; Gonen, Tamir

Atomic resolution structure determination by the cryo-EM method MicroED

In: Protein Sci., vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 8–15, 2016.

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Bale, Jacob B; Gonen, Shane; Liu, Yuxi; Sheffler, William; Ellis, Daniel; Thomas, Chantz; Cascio, Duilio; Yeates, Todd O; Gonen, Tamir; King, Neil P; Baker, David

Accurate design of megadalton-scale two-component icosahedral protein complexes

In: Science, vol. 353, no. 6297, pp. 389–394, 2016.

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Hsia, Yang; Bale, Jacob B; Gonen, Shane; Shi, Dan; Sheffler, William; Fong, Kimberly K; Nattermann, Una; Xu, Chunfu; Huang, Po‐Ssu.; Ravichandran, Rashmi; Yi, Sue; Davis, Trisha N; Gonen, Tamir; King, Neil P; Baker, David

Design of a hyperstable 60-subunit protein icosahedron

In: Nature, vol. 535, no. 7610, pp. 136–139, 2016.

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Hattne, Johan; Shi, Dan; de la Cruz, Jason M; Reyes, Francis E; Gonen, Tamir

Modeling truncated pixel values of faint reflections in MicroED images

In: J Appl Crystallogr, vol. 49, no. Pt 3, pp. 1029–1034, 2016.

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Shi, Dan; Nannenga, Brent L; de la Cruz, Jason M; Liu, Jinyang; Sawtelle, Steven; Calero, Guillermo; Reyes, Francis E; Hattne, Johan; Gonen, Tamir

The collection of MicroED data for macromolecular crystallography

In: Nat Protoc, vol. 11, no. 5, pp. 895–904, 2016.

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Meyer, Peter A; Socias, Stephanie; Key, Jason; Ransey, Elizabeth; Tjon, Emily C; Buschiazzo, Alejandro; Lei, Ming; Botka, Chris; Withrow, James; Neau, David; Rajashankar, Kanagalaghatta; Anderson, Karen S; Baxter, Richard H; Blacklow, Stephen C; Boggon, Titus J; Bonvin, Alexandre M J J; Borek, Dominika; Brett, Tom J; Caflisch, Amedeo; Chang, Chung-I; Chazin, Walter J; Corbett, Kevin D; Cosgrove, Michael S; Crosson, Sean; Dhe‐Paganon, Sirano; Cera, Enrico Di; Drennan, Catherine L; Eck, Michael J; Eichman, Brandt F; Fan, Qing R; Ferré‐D’Ámaré, Adrian R; Fromme, Christopher J; Garcia, Christopher K; Gaudet, Rachelle; Gong, Peng; Harrison, Stephen C; Heldwein, Ekaterina E; Jia, Zongchao; Keenan, Robert J; Kruse, Andrew C; Kvansakul, Marc; McLellan, Jason S; Modis, Yorgo; Nam, Yunsun; Otwinowski, Zbyszek; Pai, Emil F; Pereira, Pedro José Barbosa; Petosa, Carlo; Raman, C S; Rapoport, Tom A; Roll‐Mecak, Antonina; Rosen, Michael K; Rudenko, Gabby; Schlessinger, Joseph; Schwartz, Thomas U; Shamoo, Yousif; Sondermann, Holger; Tao, Yizhi J; Tolia, Niraj H; Tsodikov, Oleg V; Westover, Kenneth D; Wu, Hao; Foster, Ian; Fraser, James S; Maia, Felipe R N C; Gonen, Tamir; Kirchhausen, Tom; Diederichs, Kay; Crosas, Mercè; Sliz, Piotr

Data publication with the structural biology data grid supports live analysis

In: Nat Commun, vol. 7, pp. 10882, 2016.

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Rodriguez, J A; Gonen, T

High-Resolution Macromolecular Structure Determination by MicroED, a cryo-EM Method

In: Methods in Enzymology, vol. 579, Chapter 14, pp. 369–392, 2016.

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2015

Rodriguez, Jose A; Ivanova, Magdalena I; Sawaya, Michael R; Cascio, Duilio; Reyes, Francis E; Shi, Dan; Sangwan, Smriti; Guenther, Elizabeth L; Johnson, Lisa M; Zhang, Meng; Jiang, Lin; Arbing, Mark A; Nannenga, Brent L; Hattne, Johan; Whitelegge, Julian; Brewster, Aaron S; Messerschmidt, Marc; Boutet, Sébastien; Sauter, Nicholas K; Gonen, Tamir; Eisenberg, David S

Structure of the toxic core of α-synuclein from invisible crystals

In: Nature, vol. 525, no. 7570, pp. 486–490, 2015.

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Bale, Jacob B; Park, Rachel U; Liu, Yuxi; Gonen, Shane; Gonen, Tamir; Cascio, Duilio; King, Neil P; Yeates, Todd O; Baker, David

Structure of a designed tetrahedral protein assembly variant engineered to have improved soluble expression

In: Protein Sci., vol. 24, no. 10, pp. 1695–1701, 2015.

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Hattne, Johan; Reyes, Francis E; Nannenga, Brent L; Shi, Dan; de la Cruz, Jason M; Leslie, Andrew G W; Gonen, Tamir

MicroED data collection and processing

In: Acta Crystallogr A Found Adv, vol. 71, no. Pt 4, pp. 353–360, 2015.

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Gonen, Shane; DiMaio, Frank; Gonen, Tamir; Baker, David

Design of ordered two-dimensional arrays mediated by noncovalent protein-protein interfaces

In: Science, vol. 348, no. 6241, pp. 1365–1368, 2015.

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2014

Huang, Po-Ssu; Oberdorfer, Gustav; Xu, Chunfu; Pei, Xue Y; Nannenga, Brent L; Rogers, Joseph M; DiMaio, Frank; Gonen, Tamir; Luisi, Ben; Baker, David

High thermodynamic stability of parametrically designed helical bundles

In: Science, vol. 346, no. 6208, pp. 481–485, 2014.

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Nannenga, Brent L; Shi, Dan; Hattne, Johan; Reyes, Francis E; Gonen, Tamir

Structure of catalase determined by MicroED

In: Elife, vol. 3, pp. e03600, 2014.

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Russell, Alistair B; Wexler, Aaron G; Harding, Brittany N; Whitney, John C; Bohn, Alan J; Goo, Young Ah; Tran, Bao Q; Barry, Natasha A; Zheng, Hongjin; Peterson, Brook S; Chou, Seemay; Gonen, Tamir; Goodlett, David R; Goodman, Andrew L; Mougous, Joseph D

A type VI Secretion-Related Pathway in Bacteroidetes Mediates Interbacterial Antagonism

In: Cell Host Microbe, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 227–236, 2014.

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Wisedchaisri, Goragot; Park, Min-Sun; Iadanza, Matthew G; Zheng, Hongjin; Gonen, Tamir

Proton-coupled sugar transport in the prototypical major facilitator superfamily protein XylE

In: Nat Commun, vol. 5, pp. 4521, 2014.

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Nannenga, Brent L; Shi, Dan; Leslie, Andrew G W; Gonen, Tamir

High-resolution structure determination by continuous-rotation data collection in MicroED

In: Nat. Methods, vol. 11, no. 9, pp. 927–930, 2014.

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Nannenga, Brent L; Gonen, Tamir

Protein structure determination by MicroED

In: Curr. Opin. Struct. Biol., vol. 27, pp. 24–31, 2014.

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Gonen, Tamir; Waksman, Gabriel

Editorial overview: Membranes: recent methods in the study of membrane protein structure

In: Curr. Opin. Struct. Biol., vol. 27, pp. iv-v, 2014.

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Iadanza, Matthew G; Gonen, Tamir

A suite of software for processing MicroED data of extremely small protein crystals

In: J Appl Crystallogr, vol. 47, no. Pt 3, pp. 1140–1145, 2014.

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King, Neil P; Bale, Jacob B; Sheffler, William; McNamara, Dan E; Gonen, Shane; Gonen, Tamir; Yeates, Todd O; Baker, David

Accurate design of co-assembling multi-component protein nanomaterials

In: Nature, vol. 510, no. 7503, pp. 103–108, 2014.

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Anderson, Thomas M.; Clay, Mary C.; Cioffi, Alexander G.; Diaz, Katrina A.; Hisao, Grant S.; Tuttle, Marcus D.; Nieuwkoop, Andrew J.; Comellas, Gemma; Maryum, Nashrah; Wang, Shu; Uno, Brice E.; Wildeman, Erin L.; Gonen, Tamir; Rienstra, Chad M.; Burke, Martin D.

Amphotericin forms an extramembranous and fungicidal sterol sponge

In: Nat. Chem. Biol., vol. 10, no. 5, pp. 400–406, 2014.

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2013

Shi, Dan; Nannenga, Brent L; Iadanza, Matthew G; Gonen, Tamir

Three-dimensional electron crystallography of protein microcrystals

In: Elife, vol. 2, pp. e01345, 2013.

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Smith, Donelson F; Reichow, Steve L; Esseltine, Jessica L; Shi, Dan; Langeberg, Lorene K; Scott, John D; Gonen, Tamir

Intrinsic disorder within an AKAP-protein kinase A complex guides local substrate phosphorylation

In: Elife, vol. 2, pp. e01319, 2013.

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Gold, Matthew G; Gonen, Tamir; Scott, John D

Local cAMP signaling in disease at a glance

In: J. Cell. Sci., vol. 126, no. Pt 20, pp. 4537–4543, 2013.

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Reichow, Stephen; Gonen, Tamir

Dynamic Modulation of Water Permeability in the Lens Aquaporin-0

In: Proceedings of Microscopy & Microanalysis, pp. 50–51, 2013.

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Silverman, Julie M; Agnello, Danielle M; Zheng, Hongjin; Andrews, Benjamin T; Li, Mo; Catalano, Carlos E; Gonen, Tamir; Mougous, Joseph D

Haemolysin Coregulated Protein Is an Exported Receptor and Chaperone of Type VI Secretion Substrates

In: Mol. Cell, vol. 51, no. 5, pp. 584–593, 2013.

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Reichow, Steve L; Clemens, Daniel M; Freites, Alfredo J; Nemeth-Cahalan, Karin L; Heyden, Matthias; Tobias, Douglas J; Hall, James E; Gonen, Tamir

Allosteric mechanism of water-channel gating by Ca²⁺-calmodulin

In: Nat. Struct. Mol. Biol., vol. 20, no. 9, pp. 1085–1092, 2013.

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Zheng, Hongjin; Wisedchaisri, Goragot; Gonen, Tamir

Crystal structure of a nitrate/nitrite exchanger

In: Nature, vol. 497, no. 7451, pp. 647–651, 2013.

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Nannenga, Brent L; Iadanza, Matthew G; Vollmar, Breanna S; Gonen, Tamir

Overview of Electron Crystallography of Membrane Proteins: Crystallization and Screening Strategies Using Negative Stain Electron Microscopy

In: Curr Protoc Protein Sci, vol. 72, no. 1, pp. 17.15.1–17.15.11, 2013.

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Shi, Liang; Zheng, Hongjin; Zheng, Hui; Borkowski, Brian A; Shi, Dan; Gonen, Tamir; Jiang, Qiu-Xing

Voltage sensor ring in a native structure of a membrane-embedded potassium channel

In: Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., vol. 110, no. 9, pp. 3369–3374, 2013, (Retracted).

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193 entries « 3 of 4 »