Tamir Gonen

Tamir Gonen (born 1975) is an American structural biochemist and membrane biophysicist best known for his contributions to structural biology of membrane proteins, membrane biochemistry and electron cryo-microscopy (cryoEM) particularly in electron crystallography of 2D crystals and for the development of 3D electron crystallography from microscopic crystals known as MicroED. Gonen is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, the founding director of the MicroED Imaging Center at UCLA and a Member of the Royal Society of New Zealand.

Tamir Gonen
Born	1975 (age 48–49)
Alma mater	University of Auckland (BS, PhD)
Awards	American Diabetes Association Career Development Award Howard Hughes Medical Institute Early Career Scientist A.L. Patterson Award of the American Crystallographic Association
Scientific career
Fields	Membrane protein Structural biology cryoEM MicroED
Institutions	Howard Hughes Medical Institute University of California, Los Angeles Janelia Research Campus University of Washington Harvard Medical School
Thesis	Novel protein-protein interactions in the lens: a solution to the Mp20 enigma
Doctoral advisor	Edward N. Baker Joerg Kistler
Other academic advisors	Thomas Walz
Website	https://cryoem.ucla.edu/

Education

Gonen attended the University of Auckland in New Zealand and graduated with a Bachelor of Science double major in Inorganic Chemistry and Biological Sciences, followed by First Class Honors in Biological Sciences in 1998. He then obtained a Doctor of Philosophy in Biological Science in 2002 from the University of Auckland for research with by Edward N. Baker and Joerg Kistler.^[1] Postdoctoral education was conducted at Harvard Medical School at the laboratory of Thomas Walz.

Research

Gonen's current research focuses on the structures and functions of medically important membrane proteins that are involved in homeostasis and method development in cryoEM, namely microcrystal electron diffraction (microED). He published the first atomic resolution structure determined by cryoEM detailing the structure of aquaporin-0 at 1.9Å resolution.^[2]

Development of microcrystal electron diffraction

Main article: Microcrystal electron diffraction

The Gonen laboratory spearheaded the use of electron diffraction for the determination of protein structure from 3D nano crystals in a frozen hydrated state.^[3][4][5] The method termed microED was established in 2013 with a proof of principle paper published in eLife.^[6] In 2014 continuous rotation MicroED was established and demonstrated.^[7] In 2015 the first novel structure was determined by MicroED for the protein alpha-synuclein at 1.4Å resolution^[8] in collaboration with David Eisenberg and in 2016 microED yielded 1Å resolution data from protein nanocrystals where the phase could be solved ab initio.^[9] MicroED has been used for drug discovery,^[10] determination of membrane proteins such as ion channels^[11] materials^[12] and small organic molecules studied in a frozen hydrated state^[13][14] and extended to sub atomic resolution better than 0.8Å.^[15]

Career

• Postdoctoral fellow, Harvard medical School (2002–2005)
• Assistant professor, University of Washington, Seattle (2005–2010)
• Early career scientist, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (2009–2011)
• Associate professor with tenure, University of Washington, Seattle (2011)
• Group leader, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Janelia Research Campus (2011–2017)
• Professor of biological chemistry and physiology, University of California Los Angeles, David Geffen School of Medicine (2017–Present)
• Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (2017–Present)

Honors

• First Class Honors in Biological Sciences (University of Auckland, 1998)
• Career Development Award, American Diabetes Association (2009)
• Member, Royal Society of New Zealand (2014)
• Chair, Biophysical Society CryoEM subgroup (2018)
• A.L. Patterson Award from the American Crystallographic Association (2023)

Memberships

2014 Royal Society of New Zealand

References

1. Gonen, Tamir (2002). Novel protein-protein interactions in the lens: a solution to the Mp20 enigma (Doctoral thesis). ResearchSpace@Auckland, University of Auckland. hdl:2292/1094.
2. Gonen, Tamir; Cheng, Yifan; Sliz, Piotr; Hiroaki, Yoko; Fujiyoshi, Yoshinori; Harrison, Stephen C.; Walz, Thomas (2005-12-01). "Lipid-protein interactions in double-layered two-dimensional AQP0 crystals". Nature. 438 (7068): 633–638. Bibcode:2005Natur.438..633G. doi:10.1038/nature04321. ISSN 1476-4687. PMC 1350984. PMID 16319884.
3. Doerr, Allison (2014). "Electron crystallography goes 3D with MicroED". Nature Methods. 11 (1): 6–7. doi:10.1038/nmeth.2797. ISSN 1548-7091. PMID 24524127. S2CID 38786632.
4. Curry, Stephen (2013-11-19). "The Goldilocks Protocol: electrons sent in to put microcrystals to work for structural biology | Stephen Curry". the Guardian. Retrieved 2018-07-31.
5. Doerr, Allison (2015). "Structures from tiny crystals". Nature Methods. 12 (1): 37. doi:10.1038/nmeth.3238. ISSN 1548-7091. S2CID 29710840.
6. Shi, Dan; Nannenga, Brent L.; Iadanza, Matthew G.; Gonen, Tamir (2013-11-19). "Three-dimensional electron crystallography of protein microcrystals". eLife. 2: e01345. doi:10.7554/eLife.01345. ISSN 2050-084X. PMC 3831942. PMID 24252878.
7. Nannenga, Brent L.; Shi, Dan; Leslie, Andrew G. W.; Gonen, Tamir (2014). "High-resolution structure determination by continuous-rotation data collection in MicroED". Nature Methods. 11 (9): 927–930. doi:10.1038/nmeth.3043. ISSN 1548-7105. PMC 4149488. PMID 25086503.
8. Rodriguez, Jose A.; Ivanova, Magdalena I.; Sawaya, Michael R.; Cascio, Duilio; Reyes, Francis E.; Shi, Dan; Sangwan, Smriti; Guenther, Elizabeth L.; Johnson, Lisa M. (2015-09-24). "Structure of the toxic core of α-synuclein from invisible crystals". Nature. 525 (7570): 486–490. Bibcode:2015Natur.525..486R. doi:10.1038/nature15368. ISSN 1476-4687. PMC 4791177. PMID 26352473.
9. Sawaya, Michael R.; Rodriguez, Jose; Cascio, Duilio; Collazo, Michael J.; Shi, Dan; Reyes, Francis E.; Hattne, Johan; Gonen, Tamir; Eisenberg, David S. (2016). "Ab initio structure determination from prion nanocrystals at atomic resolution by MicroED". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 113 (40): 11232–11236. Bibcode:2016PNAS..11311232S. doi:10.1073/pnas.1606287113. ISSN 1091-6490. PMC 5056061. PMID 27647903.
10. Purdy, Michael D.; Shi, Dan; Chrustowicz, Jakub; Hattne, Johan; Gonen, Tamir; Yeager, Mark (2017-12-30). "MicroED Structures of HIV-1 Gag CTD-SP1 Reveal Binding Interactions with the Maturation Inhibitor Bevirimat". bioRxiv 10.1101/241182.
11. Liu, Shian; Gonen, Tamir (2018-05-03). "MicroED structure of the NaK ion channel reveals a Na+ partition process into the selectivity filter". Communications Biology. 1 (1): 38. doi:10.1038/s42003-018-0040-8. ISSN 2399-3642. PMC 6112790. PMID 30167468.
12. Vergara, Sandra; Lukes, Dylan A.; Martynowycz, Michael W.; Santiago, Ulises; Plascencia-Villa, Germán; Weiss, Simon C.; de la Cruz, M. Jason; Black, David M.; Alvarez, Marcos M. (2017-11-16). "MicroED Structure of Au146(p-MBA)57 at Subatomic Resolution Reveals a Twinned FCC Cluster". The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters. 8 (22): 5523–5530. arXiv:1706.07902. doi:10.1021/acs.jpclett.7b02621. ISSN 1948-7185. PMC 5769702. PMID 29072840.
13. Gallagher-Jones, Marcus; Glynn, Calina; Boyer, David R.; Martynowycz, Michael W.; Hernandez, Evelyn; Miao, Jennifer; Zee, Chih-Te; Novikova, Irina V.; Goldschmidt, Lukasz (2018-01-15). "Sub-ångström cryo-EM structure of a prion protofibril reveals a polar clasp". Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. 25 (2): 131–134. doi:10.1038/s41594-017-0018-0. ISSN 1545-9993. PMC 6170007. PMID 29335561.
14. Jones, GC; Martynowycz, MW; Hattne, J; Fulton, TJ; Stoltz, BM; Rodriguez, JA; Nelson, H; Gonen, T (2018). "The CryoEM Method MicroED as a Powerful Tool for Small Molecule Structure Determination" (PDF). ACS Central Science. 4 (11): 1587–1592. doi:10.26434/chemrxiv.7215332. PMC 6276044. PMID 30555912.
15. Hughes, Michael P.; Sawaya, Michael R.; Boyer, David R.; Goldschmidt, Lukasz; Rodriguez, Jose A.; Cascio, Duilio; Chong, Lisa; Gonen, Tamir; Eisenberg, David S. (2018). "Atomic structures of low-complexity protein segments reveal kinked β sheets that assemble networks". Science. 359 (6376): 698–701. Bibcode:2018Sci...359..698H. doi:10.1126/science.aan6398. ISSN 1095-9203. PMC 6192703. PMID 29439243.

External links

• Gonen laboratory web site
• HHMI Investigator Tamir Gonen