Academic Affiliation
Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Credentials
PhD, 2000, University of California
HHMI Postdoctoral Fellow, 2000-2004, Harvard Medical School
Bio
John C. Chaput, PhD, investigates the directed molecular assembly of nanometer scale protein arrays and the directed molecular evolution of nonbiological proteins from large combinatorial libraries.
In October 2004, Dr. Chaput joined the faculty at Arizona State University as principal investigator at the Biodesign Institute Center for BioOptical Nanotechnology.
From 2000 to 2004, he was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Professor Jack Szostak at Harvard Medical School. While there, he developed an evolutionary optimization strategy for evolving proteins with improved folding stability. He also initiated preliminary investigations into the in vitro selection of polymerases with catalytic activity for unnatural nucleic acids.
After receiving a BS Chemistry degree from Creighton University in Omaha, Neb., in 1994, he continued his education at the University of California, Riverside, where he earned a PhD degree in 2000. His doctoral thesis research was directed by Professor Christopher Switzer and focused on the molecular recognition of natural and non-natural nucleic acids and DNA self-assembly. During this time, he designed and constructed the first five-stranded DNA helix based on a novel iso-guanine pentamer motif.
Dr. Chaput was born in St. Paul, Minn., in 1972.