The mission of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology is to promote impactful and innovative biochemical and molecular biological research and teaching.
Welcome to the Department
Venkata Shiva Mandala, PhD
Dr. Mandala received his PhD in Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He then did a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Rockefeller University in the laboratory of Dr. Roderick MacKinnon. His research lab focuses on studies of ion channels. Ion channels are proteins that facilitate the diffusion of ions such as K+ across cell membranes. This simple process underlies electrical signaling in living cells, from the propagation of action potentials in neurons to the contraction of muscle cells. These channels can be turned on and off by a variety of stimuli, including the membrane voltage, specific lipids, and interacting proteins. His lab studies the molecular mechanisms by which these regulators open and close ion channels. Many of these channels also interact with other proteins as part of signaling pathways. Dr. Mandala's lab is interested in the chemical nature of these interactions to understand how life assembles circuits using ion channels.
Ksenia Krupina, PhD
Dr. Krupina received her PhD in Biology from Strasbourg University in France in 2014 and completed her postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Don Cleveland at the University of California, San Diego before starting her faculty position at Iowa in February 2026. Dr. Krupina studies how cancer cells remodel their genomes through catastrophic chromosome rearrangements, including chromothripsis and extrachromosomal DNA formation. Her lab focuses on micronuclei, small abnormal nuclear structures that form when chromosomes missegregate during cell division, and on how ruptured micronuclei can become sites of chromosome fragmentation. Her recent work identified N4BP2 as a nuclease that fragments cytoplasm-exposed chromosomes and promotes chromothripsis and ecDNA formation. The Krupina lab is now investigating how this chromosome-shattering pathway drives tumor evolution and whether it can be targeted to slow cancer adaptation and therapy resistance.
Yue Lu, PhD
Dr. Lu obtained his PhD degree in 2014 at China Agricultural University in China. He started his faculty position at Iowa in March 2026. Dr. Lu studies cell-cell fusion, a process in which two individual cells combine their membranes and cytoplasm to form a single multinucleated cell. This process plays essential roles in diverse physiological and pathological contexts, including fertilization (egg–sperm fusion), placenta formation (trophoblast fusion), skeletal muscle development and regeneration (myoblast fusion), immune response (macrophage fusion), bone remodeling (osteoclast fusion), viral transmission (such as SARS-CoV-2 spreads) and cancer progression (cancer cell–macrophage fusion). Using skeletal muscle as the primary model system, Lu Lab seeks to understand the mechanisms that allow cells to overcome the energetic and structural barriers to merge their plasma membranes, and transition into functional syncytia. To do so, Lu Lab uses a multidisciplinary approach including: Advanced microscopy (high-resolution live-cell imaging, super-resolution microscopy and electron microscopy), Cell biology, Biochemistry and Mouse genetics.