Kevin H. Gardner

Kevin Gardner was trained in biochemistry and biophysics with undergraduate work at UC Davis, Ph.D. studies at Yale, and postdoctoral research at the University of Toronto with Prof. Lewis Kay.  After starting his lab at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas in 1998, he moved to New York in 2014 to found and direct the Structural Biology Initiative of CUNY’s new interdisciplinary Advanced Science Research Center and serve as the Einstein Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry at the City College of New York.  Combining techniques from different areas of science, ranging from biochemistry to drug discovery, his group has solved atomic-level pictures and mechanisms of proteins used by cells to sense and respond to changes in the environment around them.  These studies have established how such proteins share common ways to turn on & off cellular processes, despite coming from very different organisms and responding to different triggers.  This information not only leads to better understanding of fundamental biology, but also establishes novel routes to artificially control protein activity.  This has led to the foundation of two biotech companies, Peloton Therapeutics, Inc. and Optologix, Inc., building on these findings to successfully develop new cancer treatments and light-controlled “optogenetic” tools.

Publications

Available on http://kglab.org

Awards and Grants

• "2018-2023 NSF MCB 1818148 “Protein structural defects: Sites for small molecule binding and regulation”
• "2019-2024  NIH R01 GM106239 ’Structural and mechanistic studies of PAS signaling’”
• “2022-2025  Mathers Foundation ’Targeting HIF-associated factors: Essential and linked signal transducers in solid tumors”

Professional Affiliations and Memberships

• 2020-2024: Scientific Advisory Board – iNEXT Connect, European Union
• 2019-2022: Steering Committee, Chemical Biology Discussion Group, NY Academy of Sciences
• 2018-present External Advisory Board, Molecular Education, Technology and Research Innovation Center (METRIC), NC State University
• 2017-present LifeSciNYC – Mayor’s Life Sciences Advisory Council, City of New York 2017-2022 Editorial Board, Journal of Biological Chemistry
• 2014-present International Council of Magnetic Resonance of Biological Systems – Member (2014-present); Treasurer (2020-present)
• 2014-present Board of Directors, New York Structural Biology Center

Memberships

Biophysical Society, American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, American Chemical Society, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, New York Academy of Sciences.