Walter Chazin

This past academic year, seven graduate students and one undergraduate student participated in the 2025 Merck Compound Challenge. Created in 2018, the competition gives teams from around the world 48 hours to create a proposed route of chemical steps from a commercial chemical they believe will make the final compound. Read More

Brandt Eichman and Walter Chazin, professors of biochemistry, have worked together to provide a better understanding of how exactly DNA replication is initiated in eukaryotes. Using Vanderbilt’s state-of-the-art instrumentation in the Center for Structural Biology’s Cryo-Electron Microscopy Facility, Eichman, Chazin and their colleagues provided detailed visualizations of a multi-functional protein in action, which sheds light on how DNA replication is initiated in humans. Read More

Vanderbilt research shows that commensal gut microbes impact the host-pathogen competition for iron and have implications for therapeutic strategies aimed at preventing pathogens from acquiring essential nutrients. Read More

Walter Chazin and colleagues have identified how a chemical "switch" in DNA primase, an enzyme essential to the replication of our genomes, works in order to hand off genetic information to the next enzyme. Read More

Recent advances in imaging technology are enabling Vanderbilt scientists to gain unprecedented views of how molecules, cells and tissues work together, yielding radical new insights into the causes, treatment and prevention of disease. Read More

Structural views of the proteins that regulate the heartbeat may help improve existing treatments for cardiac arrhythmias. Read More

Structural details about a protein involved in the repair of damaged DNA provide insight into xeroderma pigmentosum disorders, which are characterized by increased risk for skin cancer. Read More

New findings shed light on how enzymes that replicate DNA skip over mutations that might cause cancer and restart DNA synthesis further away. Read More

DNA replication is an extraordinarily complex multi-step process that makes copies of the body’s genetic blueprint. It is necessary for growth and essential to life. Now researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and Vanderbilt University have found evidence that one of those steps may involve the telephone-like transmission of electrical signals regulated by a chemical “switch.” Read More

Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus — two pathogens that frequently co-infect the lungs of patients with cystic fibrosis — appear to cooperate with each other, Vanderbilt investigators have discovered. When pseudomonas is starved for metal by the host, it shuts down the production of factors that would normally kill staph, promoting a co-infection. Read More

Walter Chazin, Ph.D., director of the Vanderbilt Center for Structural Biology, is a recipient of a 2016 Fellow of the Biophysical Society award. Read More

Researchers at Vanderbilt University have established the molecular basis for the function of Replication Protein A (RPA), a DNA binding protein that is a crucial “scaffold” for genome replication, response to damage and repair. Read More

The Vanderbilt University Department of Biochemistry will host a two-day symposium March 6-7 to honor the 60th birthday of Walter Chazin, Ph.D., director of the Center for Structural Biology. Read More

Insights into the workings of DNA damage response proteins such as SMARCAL1 could suggest new ways to improve genome integrity and prevent cancer. Read More

Vanderbilt investigators report new insights to the workings of calprotectin, an immune system protein that “starves” bacterial pathogens of the metal nutrients they require. Read More

A team led by Vanderbilt University investigators has discovered two new genes — both coding for the signaling protein calmodulin — associated with severe early-onset disorders of heart rhythm. Read More

Structural studies reveal a new framework for understanding a central player in DNA processing. Read More

It may be possible to fight hospital-acquired pathogens like Acinetobacter baumannii by targeting the bacterium’s need for the nutrient metal zinc. Read More

The antibiotics of the future could take a page from the immune system’s playbook – and “starve” bacteria of the nutrients they need. Read More

Vanderbilt University’s acquisition of a 900 megahertz nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer will accelerate studies on cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. Read More