Laura M.K. Dassama

Laura Dassama is an Assistant Professor at Stanford University with appointments in both the Department of Chemistry and Department of Microbiology & Immunology. She is actively affiliated with multiple interdisciplinary institutes including Bio-X, SPARK at Stanford, MCHRI, Sarafan ChEM-H, and Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute.

• PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Pennsylvania State University (2013)
• Postdoctoral training at Northwestern University (Molecular Biosciences, 2017)
• Research Associate position at Boston Children's Hospital/Harvard Medical School/Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (2018)

Laboratory research focuses on chemical biology approaches to understand biomolecular interactions, particularly bacterial lipid trafficking and targeted protein degradation. Key methodologies include bioinformatic analyses, structural studies, and machine learning algorithms like SLiPP for lipid-binding pocket prediction.

Recent publications emphasize antimicrobial resistance challenges and opportunities, protein delivery systems for erythroid cells, and structure-function relationships in lipid transport proteins. These studies demonstrate innovative approaches to address therapeutic limitations through chemical biology tools and interdisciplinary methods.

• MAC3 Impact Philanthropies Faculty Fellow (2023-2025)
• Terman Faculty Fellowship (2022-2025, 2018-2021)
• Hellman Faculty Scholar (2019-2020)
• Gabilan Junior Faculty Fellowship (2018-2021)

Active advisor to multiple PhD candidates and postdoctoral researchers, with formal advising roles in Biophysics, Cancer Biology, and Microbiology & Immunology graduate programs. Laboratory located at Rm. W215 ChEM-H/Neuro Research Complex.