Lukasz Joachimiak

Dr. Joachimiak is an Associate Professor in the Center for Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases and a O’Donnell Brain Institute Investigator at UT Southwestern Medical Center where he is a Marie Cain Endowed Scholar in Medical Research. He received his PhD from the University of Washington where he worked with Dr. David Baker to develop computational methods to design protein-protein interactions. He did his postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University with Dr. Judith Frydman, there he implemented computational and structural approaches to define architectures and mechanics of large and dynamic complexes. His lab develops computational and structural approaches to probe the conformations of proteins and complexes. His current interests are focused on understanding how proteins change shape to cause disease. In particular, he is interested in understanding the incipient conformational changes in the microtubule-associated protein tau that drive pathogenicity and how cellular factors including molecular chaperones or post-translational modifications mediate this process.