Keriann Backus

Keriann Backus is Associate Professor of Biological Chemistry at UCLA. Her NIH-funded lab develops chemoproteomic technologies to map functional cysteines, linking missense variants to disease mechanisms. Patents cover cysteine profiling methods for drug discovery.

Research focuses on redox biology, covalent ligand discovery, and proteostasis regulation. Her group created CysDB, a cysteine reactivity database, and subcellular mapping tools.

Publications characterize inflammation-responsive redoxomes, proteome-wide ligand screening, and variant impact on protein function. Recent work prioritizes disease-associated mutations using chemoproteomics.

Awards include NIH Director's New Innovator Award. She mentors trainees in chemical biology and precision medicine applications.