PULSe Home > Faculty Members J-L > Wen Jiang

Assistant Professor-Biological Sciences Ph.D. 2001 Baylor College of Medicine Contact Info: jiang12@purdue.edu 765-496-8436 Training Group(s): Biomolecular Structure and Biophysics

Current Research Interests:

Electron cryomicroscopy (cryo-EM) is an emerging structure determination technique for solving structures of large macromolecular assemblies. Cryo-EM does not require crystalline order for the studied object. This unique capability makes cryo-EM extremely valuable in imaging and solving the structures and the dynamics of macromolecular machines.

The research in my lab focuses on the development of cryo-EM techniques for near atomic resolution single particle 3-D reconstruction, tomographic three-dimensional reconstruction, and to improve the cryo-EM project throughput to eventually transform the cryo-EM technique into a common laboratory tool for functional studies of biological systems. To achieve these goals, our research involves development of new image processing algorithms, high performance computing, data collection automation and reliable sample freezing. These techniques are applied to study the biological systems including enveloped viruses and bacteriophages.

Jiang Lab Web Page
Faculty Page at Department of Biological Sciences

Selected Publications:

He, Y., Ye, T., Su, M., Zhang, C., Ribbe, A. E., Jiang, W. and Mao, C. 2008. Hierarchical Self-Assembly of Symmetric Supramolecular Polyhedra. Nature. 452(7183):198-201

Jiang, W., Baker, M. L., Jakana, J., Weigele, P., King, J. and Chiu, W. 2008. Backbone Structure of the Infectious Epsilon15 Virus Capsid Revealed by Electron Cryomicroscopy. Nature. 451(7182): 1130-4.

Liu, X., Jiang, W., Jakana, J. and Chiu, W. 2007. Averaging tens to hundreds of icosahedral particle images to resolve protein secondary structure elements using a multi-path simulated annealing optimization algorithm. J. Struct. Biol. 160(1):11-27

Chang, J., P. Weigele, J. King, W. Chiu, W. Jiang. 2006. Cryo-EM Asymmetric Reconstruction of Bacteriophage P22 Reveals Organization of its DNA Packaging and Infecting Machinery. Structure. 14:1-10.

Jiang, W., Chang, J., Jakana, J., Weigele, P., King, J. and Chiu, W. 2006. Structure of Epsilon15 phage reveals organization of genome and DNA packaging/injection apparatus. Nature. 439(7076): 612-616