PhD - Heidelberg University (2007) Postdoc - University of California, Santa Barbara (2008-2013)

Analytical Physical

Our research focuses on determining the structures and interactions of macromolecules by ion mobility / mass spectrometry. We are interested in macromolecular systems of both industrial and biological importance. The two main areas of research are chemokine-mediated chemotaxis of immune cells and the structural determinants of non-conventional oils. The work is a blend of experiment and theory that brings a structural perspective to two of the Grand Challenges of the 21st century, health and energy.

Y. Seo, A. Andaya, C. Bleiholder, J. A. Leary: Differentiation of CC vs CXC chemokine dimers with GAG octasaccharide binding partners: An ion mobility mass spectrometry approach. Journal of the American Chemical Society, accepted. C. Bleiholder, N. F. Dupuis, M. Murray Gessel, M. T. Bowers: Dimerization of chirally mutated Enkephalin neurotransmitters: implications for peptide and protein aggregation mechanisms. Journal of Physical Chemistry B 117, 1770-1779 (2013). C. Bleiholder, T. Wyttenbach, M. T. Bowers: A novel projection approximation algorithm for the fast and accurate computation of molecular collision cross sections (I). Method. International Journal of Mass Spectrometry 308, 1-10 (2011).

C. Bleiholder, N. F. Dupuis, T. Wyttenbach, M. T. Bowers: Ion mobility?Cmass spectrometry reveals a conformational conversion from random assembly to ?-sheet in amyloid fibril formation. Nature Chemistry 3, 172-177 (2011).