Professor of Cell Biology Phone: 205-934-6446 E-mail: BDSha@uab.edu

Dr. Sha earned his B.S. in crystallography from the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei and his Ph.D. in protein crystallography from the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.  He then did a post-doctoral fellowship in the Center for Macromolecular Crystallography, Department of Microbiology at UAB.  In 1998, he joined the Department of Cell Biology as an Assistant Professor, rising to Associate Professor in 2003 and to Professor in 2008.  He is the recipient of the Zhang Zongzhi Award in Science and Technology in China and a Howard Hughes Memorial Institute Career Development Award.

Dr. Sha’s laboratory focuses on the structure, function and mechanisms of action of molecular chaperones Hsp40, Hsp70 and Hsp100.  He is particularly interested in the Hsp40 and Hsp70 chaperones of bacteria (E. coli) and yeast, both important enteric microorganisms.

Selected Publications

1. Li, J. and Sha, B.D.  Cloning, expression, purification and preliminary X-ray crystallographic studies of E. coli Hsp100 ClpB nucleotide-binding domain (NBD1).  Acta Crystallogr. D57:909-911, 2001.
2. Li, J. and Sha, B.D.  Crystal structure of E. coli Hsp100, ClpB nucleotide-binding doman 1 (NBD1) and mechanistic studies on ClpB ATPase activity.  J. Mol. Biol. 318:1127-1137, 2002.
3. Li, J. and Sha, B.D.  Cloning, expression, purification and preliminary X-ray crystallographic studies of E. coli Hsp100 nucleotide binding domain 2 (NBD2).  Acta Crystallogr. D58:1030-1031, 2002.
4. Li, J. and Sha, B.D.  Crystal structure of E. coli ClpB N-terminal domain.  Structure 11:1, 2002.
5. Li, S., Finley, J., Liu, Z.J., Qiu, S.H., Chen, H., Luan, C.H., Carson, M., Tsao, J., Johnson, D., Lin, G., Zhao, J., Thomas, Wl, Nagy, L.A., Sha, B.D., DeLucas, L.J., Wang, B.C. and Luo, M.  Crystal structure of the cytoskeleton-associated protein glycine-rich (CAP-Gly) domain.  J. Biol. Chem. 277:48596-48601, 2002.
6. Li, J. and Sha, B.D.  Structure-based mutagenesis studies of the peptide substrate binding fragment of type I heat-shock protein 40.  Biochem. J. 386:453-460, 2005.
7. Li, J., Wu, Y., Qian, X. and Sha, B.D.  The crystal structure of the yeast Hsp40 Sis1 complexed with Hsp70 Ssal.  Biochem. J. 398:353-360, 2006.
8. Wu, Y., McCombs, D., Nagy, L., DeLucas, L. and Sha, B.D.  Preliminary X-ray crystallographic studies of yeast mitochondria translocon member Tom70p.  Acta Crystallogr. F62:265-267, 2006.
9. Josyula, R., Jin, Z., Fu, Z. and Sha, B.D.  Crystal structure of yeast peripheral mitochondrial membrane protein Tim44p C-terminal domain.  J. Mol. Biol. 359:798-804, 2006.
10. Wu, Y. and Sha, B.D.  Crystal structure of yeast mitochondria translocon member Tom70p.  Nature Struct. Mol. Biol. 13:589-593, 2006.