Lillian Chong

Lillian T. Chong is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh, affiliated with the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences. She leads the Chong Lab, focusing on computational biophysics and biomolecular simulations. Her research emphasizes developing advanced simulation methods like weighted ensemble (WESTPA) for studying rare events in biomolecules, such as protein folding, binding pathways, and conformational switches.

Research Interests:
- Development of weighted ensemble algorithms for long-timescale simulations
- Protein-protein binding kinetics and unbinding pathways
- Design of switchable proteins with enhanced dynamic properties
- Integration of experimental data (e.g., NMR, EPR) with simulations

Recent Article Trends: Recent work explores ligand unbinding mechanisms, glycan-mediated spike protein dynamics, and force field validation. The lab’s methods are applied to drug discovery, viral entry mechanisms, and enzyme catalysis.

Awards & Honors:

• Gordon Bell Special Prize for HPC-Based COVID-19 Research (2020)
• NSF CAREER Award (2009-2014)
• Bellet Teaching Excellence Award (2017)

Advising & Grants: Advised students including Darian Yang (PhD 2023) and Jeremy Leung (PhD 2023). Funded by NSF and industry grants, including work on SARS-CoV-2 spike protein dynamics and force field development.

Labs & Teams: The Chong Lab collaborates with groups at CMU and NIH, developing open-source tools like WESTPA and LPATH. Research spans Pittsburgh’s computational biophysics community, with interdisciplinary projects in drug design and protein engineering.