Timothy Grant

Timothy Grant is an Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and an Investigator at the Morgridge Institute for Research, embedded within the John W. and Jeanne M. Rowe Center for Research in Virology. His laboratory, the Grant Lab, focuses on pushing the limits of cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) to visualize ever-smaller and more dynamic biological macromolecules.

Education & Academic Home:

• Faculty appointment: Assistant Professor, Department of Biochemistry, UW–Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.
• Concurrent appointment: Morgridge Institute Investigator, Rowe Center for Research in Virology.

Research Interests: The Grant group develops computational and experimental methods that extend cryo-EM into two major frontiers: size—capturing structures of very small proteins previously invisible to cryo-EM—and motion—resolving conformational changes of molecular machines in real time. These advances are integrated into the open-source software package cisTEM, which provides a user-friendly workflow for single-particle image processing.

Publication Trends: Across the 15 most recent papers (2021-2025), Grant’s work spans method-centric algorithmic innovation, high-resolution structural studies of bacterial DNA replication-restart machinery, and integrative technologies that couple native mass spectrometry with cryo-EM. A clear trajectory emerges from tool development toward application in virology and antibiotic-target validation.

Scientific Awards: None explicitly mentioned in the provided text.

Students & Research Team: Grant currently mentors six graduate students (Colin Hemme, Gan Li, Heidy Elkhaligy, Peter Ducos, Roma Broadberry, Shashwat Shastri) and several postdoctoral researchers and staff, including Alex Duckworth, Raison Dsouza, and Tim Wagner.

Laboratory & Collaborations: The Grant Lab is physically located within UW–Madison’s Biochemistry Building and leverages the Center for High-Throughput Computing shared between UW–Madison and Morgridge to perform large-scale cryo-EM data processing.