Steve Sligar, Beckman Institute Professor
Departments of Biochemistry, Chemistry, Physiology and Biophysics
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

E-mail: sligar@aries.scs.uiuc.edu
Phone: 217-244-7395

BS Drexel University, Physics
MS University of Illinois, Physics
PhD University of Illinois, Physics

10/98–Present: President and Chairman of the Board, Myochlor Corporation
9/95–Present: Professor, College of Medicine, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois
9/93–Present: Janet and William Lycan Professor of Biochemistry
5/88–Present: Beckman Institute Professor, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois
1/86–Present: Professor, Departments of Biochemistry, Chemistry, Physiology and Biophysics, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois
4/97–4/99: Advisory Committee, Frontier Research Program, RIKEN, Wako, Saitama, Japan
4/94–12/97: Director, School of Chemical Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois
9/82–1/86: Associate Professor, Department of Biochemistry, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL
7/77–9/82: Assistant Professor, Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University, NewHaven, Connecticut

Research Areas
An important research direction for the Sligar group is the development and execution of methodologies for determining the structure of biomolecular assemblies in the 5 nm–500 nm size range and in the de novo patterning of biomolecules on surfaces. Providing important structural and functional information on specific aggregates of nucleic acids, lipids and proteins which constitute lipoprotein particles, nucleic acid– protein complexes and single membrane protein assemblies are goals of this research.

Among other techniques, they use the latest advances in atomic probe imaging, and have succeeded in directly imaging and manipulating the human lipoprotein structures and utilized these nanoscale supported lipid bilayer systems to directly incorporate multicomponent membrane anchored proteins where it is possible to quantitate activities and interactions at the single molecule level.

Current focus is on molecular signaling with G-protein coupled receptors, high throughput screening of agonists and antagonists and the supramolecular membrane protein architectures involved in electron transfer

Related Publications
Bayburt, T. H., Carlson, J. W., and Sligar, S. G. (2000) Single Molecule Height Measurements on a Membrane Protein in Nanometer-Scale Phospholipid Bilayer Disks. Langmuir, 16, 5993-5997.

Carlson, J. W., Bayburt, T., and Sligar, S. G. (2000) Nanopatterning Phospholipid Bilayers. Langmuir, 16, 3927-3931.

Schlichting, I., Berendzen, J., Chu, K., Stock, A. M., Maves, S. A., Benson, D. E., Sweet, R. M., Ringe, D., Petsko, G. A., and Sligar, S. G. (2000) The Catalytic Pathway of Cytochrome P450cam at Atomic Resolution. Science, 287, 1615-1622.

Yeung, C., Purves, T., Kloss, A. A., Kuhl, T. L., Sligar, S. G., and Leckband, D. (1999) Cytochrome c Recognition of Immobilized, Orientational Variants of Cytochrome b5: Direct Force and Equilibrium Binding Measurements. Langmuir, 15, 6829-6836.

Bayburt, T. H., Carlson, J. W., and Sligar, S. G. (1998) Reconstitution and Imaging of a Membrane Protein in a Nanometer-Sized Phospholipid Bilayer. Journal of Structural Biology, 123, 37-44.