Michael W. Beck
Dr. Beck earned his B.S. in chemistry with a concentration in biochemistry and ACS certification cum laude at Tennessee Technological University in 2011, where he performed research with Professor Edward C. Lisic. He continued his scientific training at the University of Michigan obtaining his Ph.D. in Chemistry in 2015 with Professor Mi Hee Lim, spending the last year of his graduate studies as a visiting scholar at Ulsan National Institute of Science in Ulsan, South Korea. His graduate work focused on designing small molecule chemical tools to study metal-protein interactions in neurodegenerative diseases. He joined our group in 2015 as a postdoctoral scholar where his work has been concentrated on studying covalent cysteine PTMs. Most recently, he has developed ratiometric fluorescent probes to study the enzymes that regulate cysteine S-depalmitoylation.
Publications:
Qiu, T.; Kathayat, R. S.; Cao, Y.; Beck, M. W.; Dickinson, B. C. “A Fluorescent Probe with Improved Water Solubility Permits the Analysis of Protein S-Depalmitoylation Activity in Live Cells.” Biochemistry, 57, 221 (2018).
Beck, M. W.; Derrick, J.S.; Suh, J.-M.; Kim, M.; Korshavn, K. J.; Kerr, R. A.; Cho, W. J.; Larsen, S. D.; Ruotolo, B. T.; Ramamoorthy, A.; Lim, M. H. “Minor Structural Variations of Small Molecules Tune Regulatory Activities toward Pathological Factors in Alzheimer's Disease.” ChemMedChem, 12, 1828 (2017). *Featured on the front cover
Beck, M. W.; Kathayat, R. S.; Cham, C. M.; Chang, E. B.; Dickinson, B. C. “Michael Addition-Based Probes for Ratiometric Fluorescence Imaging of Protein S-Depalmitoylases in Live Cells and Tissues.” Chem. Sci. 8, 7588 (2017).
Beck, M. W.; Derrick, J. S.; Kerr, R. A.; Oh, S. B.; Cho, W. J.; Lee, S. J. C.; Ji, Y.; Han, J.; Tehrani, Z. A.; Suh, N.; Kim, S.; Larsen, S. D.; Kim, K. S.; Lee, J.-Y.; Ruotolo, B. T.; Lim, M. H. “Structure-Mechanism-Based Engineering of Chemical Regulators Targeting Distinct Pathological Factors in Alzheimer’s Disease.” Nature Commun. 7, 13115 (2016).
Beck, M. W.; Oh, S. B.; Kerr, R. A.; Lee, H. J.; Kim, S. H.; S; Kim, S.; Jang, M.; Ruotolo, B. T.; Lee, J.-Y.; Lim, M. H. “A Rationally Designed Small Molecule for Identifying an In Vivo Link of Metal-Amyloid-β Complexes to the Pathogenesis of Alzheimer's Disease.” Chem. Sci. 6, 1879 (2015). *Recommended as "Very Good" by Prof. Liz Nolan (MIT) on Faculty of 1000.
Beck, M. W.; Pithadia, A. S.; DeToma, A. S.; Korshavn, K. J.; Lim, M. H. “Ligand Design to Target and Modulate Metal-Protein Interactions in Neurodegenerative Diseases.”
Chapter 10: In Ligand Design in Medicinal Inorganic Chemistry John Wiley & Sons: Chichester, England, 2014. *Featured in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 54, 2324 (2015).
Liu, Y.; Kochi, A.; Pithadia, A. S.; Lee, S.; Nam, Y.; Beck, M. W.; He, X.; Lee, D.; Lim, M. H. “Tuning Reactivity of Diphenylpropynone Derivatives with Metal-Associated Amyloid-β Species via Structural Modifications.” Inorg. Chem. 52, 8121 (2013).
A. S.; Kochi, A.; Soper, M. T.; Beck, M. W.; Liu, Y.; Lee, S.; DeToma, A. S.; Ruotolo, B. T.; Lim, M. H. “Reactivity of Diphenylpropynone Derivatives Toward Metal-Associated Amyloid-β Species Pithadia.” Inorg. Chem. 51, 12959 (2012).
Education and Experience:
Ph.D., Chemistry, University of Michigan, August 2015
Advisor: Professor Mi Hee Lim
B.S., Chemistry, Cum Laude, Tennessee Technological University, May 2011
Biochemistry Concentration
American Chemical Society Certification
Advisor: Professor Edward C. Lisic
Visiting Research Scholar, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology,
Ulsan, South Korea, Jan. 2014 – Feb. 2015
Global Research and Development Summer Intern, Colgate-Palmolive Company,
Piscataway, NJ, June 2010 – Aug. 2010
