Barbara Imperiali

Barbara Imperiali is the Class of 1922 Professor of Chemistry and Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), affiliated with the School of Science and the Department of Chemistry and Biology. Her research employs a multidisciplinary approach integrating organic synthesis, spectroscopy, molecular modeling, enzymology, and molecular biology to study protein glycosylation pathways and design chemical probes for biological systems.

Her primary research focuses on:

• Enzymatic mechanisms of bacterial N-linked glycosylation
• Development of fluorescent probes for membrane proteins and protein kinases
• Structure-function studies of phosphoglycosyl transferases
• Host-microbe interactions mediated by glycan recognition

Recent work includes:

• Engineering glycan-binding proteins for pathogen detection
• Designing inhibitors targeting glycosylation enzymes in pathogens
• Developing lipid nanoparticle systems for membrane protein analysis

Her lab has pioneered methods for:

• Functional characterization of monotopic membrane proteins
• High-throughput screening of glycosylation inhibitors
• Fluorescence imaging of membrane proteins in native environments

Key contributions include:

• Discovery of uridine bisphosphonate inhibitors for glycosyltransferases
• Identification of co-conserved motifs governing enzyme specificity
• Development of ZG16B lectin-based probes for microbial glycans

Current projects emphasize:

• Bioinformatic annotation of glycosylation pathways
• Structural studies of bacterial glycosyltransferases
• Applications of lanthanide-binding tags for protein imaging