Susan A. Martinis

Susan A. Martinis is the Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she holds dual appointments as Professor of Biochemistry and Stephen G. Sligar Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, and Professor of Biophysics and Quantitative Biology. Her research laboratory focuses on the molecular mechanisms of tRNA synthetases, essential enzymes governing protein synthesis fidelity through aminoacylation and editing activities.

Research interests span enzymology, RNA biology, molecular evolution, and protein-nucleic acid interactions, with emphasis on:

• Fidelity mechanisms in tRNA synthetases, particularly leucyl-tRNA synthetase (LeuRS)
• Proofreading and editing pathways preventing translational errors
• Mitochondrial group I intron splicing mediated by LeuRS
• Engineering tRNA synthetases for genetic code expansion applications

Her publications demonstrate sustained focus on enzyme kinetics, structural biology of synthetases, and therapeutic targeting of pathogen-specific editing mechanisms. Recent work explores benzoxaborole inhibitors, evolutionary adaptations in Mycoplasma, and non-canonical roles in gene regulation.

Martinis leads an active research group (Martinis Lab) investigating novel synthetase functions beyond translation. Current projects examine splicing-activation domains, CP1 domain evolution, and amino acid editing dynamics using biochemical, structural, and computational approaches.