Shaw Lab at UNL Chemistry

     The Shaw Lab focuses on the development of new technologies and experimental approaches to understand the role of compositional heterogeneity in the function of proteins and molecular machines, such as the ribosome. Our tools of choice are top-down and native mass spectrometry.

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     Specifically, the Shaw research group is actively developing novel instrumentation and methods for tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS), ion mobility spectrometry (IMS), and data acquisition strategies to expand the capabilities of top-down proteomics and native mass spectrometry and enable integration with traditional structure determination methods, like cryo-EM. With these developments, we will enable more comprehensive characterization of protein sequence, posttranslational modifications (PTMs), ligand binding, and assembly to form functional cellular machinery.

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     We aim to use these new technologies and approaches to address intractable biological questions and streamlined discovery of biotherapeutics. Two current areas of interest are understanding how heterogeneity in ribosome composition yields specialized function and de novo discovery of therapeutic antibodies.