Kendra Frederick

Dr. Kendra Frederick is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biophysics at UT Southwestern Medical Center. She focuses on understanding how cellular environments affect protein structures, particularly metastable or intrinsically disordered proteins linked to neurodegenerative diseases. Her work integrates NMR spectroscopy, protein chemistry, and yeast genetics to study protein folding and dynamics in physiological contexts.

• B.S. in Biochemistry and French from the University of Michigan
• M.S. in protein structure at Université de Paris XI
• Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at the University of Pennsylvania
• Post-doctoral work at Whitehead Institute with Susan Lindquist

Her research includes conformational entropy, protein dynamics, and ligand binding, with technology for atomic-level structural analysis in native cellular contexts. She has pioneered in-cell NMR and dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) NMR to study macromolecular assemblies in diseases.

Dr. Frederick’s publications span structural biology, protein folding, and neurodegenerative disease mechanisms. Her recent work emphasizes α-synuclein in Parkinson’s disease and prion strains in amyloid diversity. She applies segmental labeling, sensitivity-enhanced NMR, and solvent effects to improve protein detection in cellular environments.

• NSF CAREER Award (2018)
• NIH NRSA fellowship (post-doctoral)
• HHMI fellowship from Life Science Research Foundation

She leads the Frederick Lab, which has secured funding from the Welch Foundation to study α-synuclein in cellular contexts. The lab explores how cells regulate protein conformations to shape phenotypes and disease progression, with recent work on amyloid fibrils and calmodulin inhibitors.