Christian B. Macdonald, Ph.D.
Evolutionary biophysicist
Christian Macdonald, Ph.D.
he/him/his
Postdoctoral Scholar (F32 NRSA)
christian.macdonald (at) ucsf.edu
I graduated from Arizona State University with degrees in Mathematics and Biochemistry, where I conducted research in the total synthesis of marine natural products with Dr. George Pettit. Afterwards, I attended the University of Michigan for my Ph.D. in Biophysics. In the Stockbridge lab, I studied the evolution and function of bacterial membrane proteins involved in xenobiotic resistance, whether as fluoride channels or efflux transporters.
I am currently a member of the Fraser and Coyote-Maestas labs at UCSF, where I am using high-throughput functional genomics and structural approaches to understand the biophysics of protein evolution in contexts including antibiotic resistance, membrane protein folding and biogenesis, and kinase signalling. I love to tinker: with ideas as well as tools. I am currently spending some time in the Raman lab at UW-Madison as a visitor.
Outside of lab, I enjoy books, music, being outdoors and/or on a bike, and drinking normal amounts of coffee.
I am supported by a Kirschstein NRSA (F32) fellowship from NIH/NIGMS.
news
| Jul 19, 2024 | Gabby’s followup preprint performing inhibitor screens against MET kinase libraries is now on biorXiv. Priyanka and I also published a review of an interesting recent preprint by Vincoff et al. which fine-tuned ESM-2 on fusion oncoproteins. Read it on PREreview: https://prereview.org/reviews/12658078 Finally, I just joined the organizing committee of the Atlas of Variant Effects seminar series. |
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| May 24, 2024 | We had a few papers published recently: our paper on the drug transporter OCT1 was published in Molecular Cell, and our Rosace paper was just published in Genome Biology. Also, Matt’s preprint on a proton-sensing GPCR is up on bioRxiv, as well as Gabby’s preprint on MET kinase fusions and activating mutations. |
| Nov 11, 2023 | I was awarded an F32 through NIGMS for my proposal “Connecting structure and fitness landscapes to overcome antibiotic resistance.” |
| Aug 25, 2023 | I received a Mary Anne Koda-Kimble Seed Award for Innovation to support my efforts for massively combinatorial library generation for transformative pharmacogenomics, with an exciting acronym: SHRIMPLE. |
| Feb 26, 2023 | Samantha Martinez from the University of San Francisco spent the break in the lab working on a project with us, and gave a great presentation for the UCSF-USF internship program. Thanks for your hard work, Samantha! |
latest posts
| Jun 04, 2024 | De-spaghettification |
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| May 30, 2024 | PyMOL mapping notes |
| May 28, 2024 | Note to self |