Cynthia Wolberger, PhD

Johns Hopkins Affiliations:

Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Faculty

Languages

English

Gender

Female

About Cynthia Wolberger

Professional Titles

Director of the Department of Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry
Brown Advisory Colleagues Professor in Scientific Innovation

Primary Academic Title

Professor of Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry

Background

Dr. Cynthia Wolberger holds the Brown Advisory Colleagues Professorship in Scientific Innovation. She is Director and Professor of the Department of Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her research focuses on structural biology, ubiquitin signaling and regulation of transcription.

Dr. Wolberger received her undergraduate degree in physics from Cornell University and earned her Ph.D. in biophysics at Harvard University. She completed postdoctoral work at the University of California, San Francisco, and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Dr. Wolberger joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 1991.

Dr. Wolberger studies how DNA packaging proteins—which coil DNA into neat, compact bundles in the cell—turn genes on or off, or initiate broken DNA repair. These DNA packaging proteins, aka histones, are called to action by the addition of chemical tags, like ubiquitin protein or acetyl chemical groups. To determine the structure of the histones and which chemical tags they use, Dr. Wolberger employs x-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy, techniques that allows researchers to develop three-dimensional models of proteins.

Dr. Wolberger is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the Biophysical Society. She has been recognized with the Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin Award by The Protein Society for her work in determining the structure of proteins involved in transcriptional regulation.

Additional Academic Titles

Professor of Oncology

Contact for Research Inquiries

725 N. Wolfe Street
714 WBSB
Baltimore, MD 21205

Phone: (410) 955-0728
cwolberg@jhmi.edu

Research Interests

cross-talk between histone modifications., Mechanism of ubiquitin signaling in transcription and the DNA damage response, Structural and biochemical studies of enzyme complexes involved in ubiquitin signaling and chromatin modification

Lab Website

Wolberger Lab - Lab Website

The Wolberger Lab is interested in the structural and mechanistic basis for transcriptional regulation and ubiquitin signaling as it relates to the integrity and expression of the genome. We use x-ray crystallography, enzymology, cell-based assays and a variety of biophysical tools to gain insights into the mechanisms underlying these essential cellular processes.

Research Summary

Dr. Wolberger and her lab are interested in the structural and mechanistic basis for transcriptional regulation and ubiquitin signaling. Protein function is dynamically regulated in the cell by the attachment and subsequent removal of covalent posttranslational modifications. Acetylation and ubiquitination both occur in chromatin, the nucleoprotein complex into which eukaryotic DNA is packaged. Acetylation of the histone proteins in chromatin is associated with activation of transcription, whereas ubiquitination can be either an activating or a repressive mark, depending on which histone protein is modified. Ubiquitination of chromatin also plays a role in the response to DNA double-strand breaks, helping to recruit proteins that are required for DNA repair. They are interested in the molecular basis for these events, which ensure the integrity and expression of the genome. They use x-ray crystallography, enzymology, and a variety of biophysical tools to gain insights into the mechanisms underlying these essential cellular processes.

Google Scholar

http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=C4xR5zkAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

PubMed

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Wolberger%20C[Author]&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=25200501

Selected Publications

Morgan M, Haj-Yahya M, Ringel AE, Bandi P, Brik A, Wolberger C. (2016) Structural basis for histone H2B deubiquitination by the SAGA DUB module. Science 351:725-8
Samara NL, Datta AB, Berndsen CE, Zhang X, Yao T, Cohen RE, Wolberger C (2010) Structural insights into the assembly and function of the SAGA deubiquitinating module. Science 328: 1025-1029
Wiener R, Zhang X, Wang T, Wolberger C. (2012) The mechanism of OTUB1-mediated inhibition of ubiquitination. Nature. 483:618-22
Worden EJ, Hoffmann N, Wolberger C. (2019) Mechanism of cross-talk between H2B ubiquitination and H3 methylation by Dot1L. Cell, 176(6):1490-1501
Worden EJ, Zhang X, Wolberger C. (2020) Structural basis for COMPASS recognition of an H2B-ubiquitinated nucleosome. Elife. 2020 Jan 10;9. pii: e53199. doi: 10.7554/eLife.53199

Honors

Award for Outstanding Achievement in Chemistry in Cancer Research, American Association for Cancer Research, 4/10/21
Fellow, Biophysical Society, 2/1/20
Member, National Academy of Sciences, 4/29/19
Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 4/15/19
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin Award, Protein Society, 1/1/13
Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, 1/1/94
Junior Faculty Award, American Cancer Society, 1/1/93
David and Lucile Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering, 1/1/92
Basil O'Connor Starter Scholar Award, March of Dimes, 1/1/92
Damon Runyon - Fund Fellow, Walter Winchell Cancer Research, 1/1/87
Received A.B. cum laude in Physics and With Distinction in all subjects, 1/1/79

Graduate Program Affiliations

Program in Biochemistry, Cellular and Molecular Biology (BCMB)
Program in Molecular Biophysics (PMB)
Chemistry-Biology Interface (CBI)

Memberships

American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Crystallographic Association
American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Biophysical Society
Protein Society

Professional Activities

Annual Reviews in Biophysics, Editorial board, 1/1/04 - 1/1/13
Current Opinions in Structural Biology, Editorial board, 1/1/12
eLife, Senior editor, 1/1/18
National Academy of Sciences, Board on Life Sciences, 1/1/07 - 1/1/13
National Science Foundation, Molecular Biophysics Advisory Panel, 1/1/96 - 1/1/01
Protein Science, Editorial board, 1/1/11
RCSB Protein Data Bank Advisory Committee, Chair, 1/1/12
Transcription and Translation, Faculty of 1000 section head, 1/1/01

Additional Training

University of California, San Francisco, CA, 1989; Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, 1991