John Williams, Ph.D.

626-256-4673
John Williams, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Cancer Biology and Molecular Medicine
Clinical Expertise
  • Structural Biology, Including X-Ray Crystallography and NMR
  • Biophysics, Including SPR, ITC, AUC and CD
  • Protein Engineering
Research Area
  • Protein Engineering, Antibodies and Immunotherapy, Drug Design, Signaling and Cytoskeleton
Academic Appointments
  • Director, X-ray Crystallography Core
Research Teams
Cancer Biology and Molecular Medicine

Duarte Cancer Center

Location

Education & Experience

Degrees

  • 1990, B.S., University of California, Santa Cruz, CA
  • 1993, M.Phil., M.S., Chemistry, Columbia University, New York, NY
  • 1995, Ph.D., Chemistry, Columbia University, New York, NY, Mentor: Ann E. McDermott, PI

Fellowship

  • Columbia University
  • European Molecular Biology Laboratory

Research

Our research primarily focuses on structural and biophysical methods to identify sources of energy additivity and multivalency in macromolecular complexes and use these properties to develop new tools and novel therapeutics. Based on an ‘atoms-up’ approach, my research team and I have developed chemically-induced molecular traps (Varma, 2010), tumor-activated, masked antibodies (Donaldson, 2009), and monoclonal antibody (mAb) technology called meditopes (Donaldson, 2013, Bzymek 2018, King 2018). One of our most successful efforts to date, the generation of a tumor-activated, anti-CTLA4 mAb, is now in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial at Xilio Therapeutics, a company co-founded by Dr. Williams.

Lab Members

Hyeran Choi
Research Associate II
[email protected]


Matthew Craft
Post-doctoral Fellow
[email protected]


Amanda Duplan
lrell & Manella Graduate School of Biological Sciences Ph.D. Student
[email protected]


Asaul Gonzalez
Research Associate II
[email protected]


Juliet Gonzales
lrell & Manella Graduate School of Biological Sciences Ph.D. Student
[email protected]


SM Yead Murshed Jewel
Post-doctoral Fellow
[email protected]


Ma. Carmina Ladra
Research Associate II
[email protected]


Kevin Ly
Research Associate II
[email protected]


Conn Mallett
Assistant Research Professor, X-Ray Crystallography Core
[email protected]


Bea Joyce Parcutela
Research Associate I
[email protected]


Miso Park
Assistant Research Professor
[email protected]


Tynan Young
Post-doctoral Fellow
[email protected]
 

Publications

  • Wakefield DL, Golfetto O, Jorand R, Biswas S, Meyer K, Avery KN, Zer C, Cacao EE, Tobin SJ, Talisman IJ, Williams JC*, Jovanovic-Talisman T*. Using quantitative single molecule localization microscopy to optimize multivalent HER2-targeting ligands  2023 Front Med (Lausanne) Apr 17;10:1064242. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2023.1064242 PMID: 37138747
  • Fan C, Cohen AA, Park M, Hung AF, Keeffe JR, Gnanapragasam PNP, Lee YE, Gao H, Kakutani LM, Wu Z, Kleanthous H, Malecek KE, Williams JC, Bjorkman PJ. Neutralizing monoclonal antibodies elicited by mosaic RBD nanoparticles bind conserved sarbecovirus epitopes. Immunity. 2022 Dec 13;55(12):2419-2435.e10. doi: 10.1016/j.immuni.2022.10.019. Epub 2022 Oct 27.PMID: 3637071
  • Zhang C, Guo C, Russell RW, Quinn CM, Li M, Williams JC, Gronenborn AM, Polenova T. Magic-angle-spinning NMR structure of the kinesin-1 motor domain assembled with microtubules reveals the elusive neck linker orientation. Nat Commun. 2022 Nov 10;13(1):6795. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-34026-w.PMID: 36357375
  • Kuo YC, Kuo CF, Jenkins K, Hung AF, Chang WC, Park M, Aguilar B, Starr R, Hibbard J, Brown C, Williams JC. (2022) Antibody-based redirection of universal Fabrack-CAR T cells selectively kill antigen bearing tumor cells J Immunother Cancer. Jun;10(6):e003752. doi: 10.1136/jitc-2021-003752. PMID: 35728874
  • Guo C, Williams JC, Polenova T. (2019) Conformational Flexibility of p150Glued(1-191) Subunit of Dynactin Assembled with Microtubules. Biophys J. 117(5) doi: 10.1016/j.bpj.2019.07.036 PMID: 31445682
  • 5Mutsvunguma LZ, Rodriguez E, Escalante GM, Muniraju M, Williams JC, Warden C, Qin H, Wang J, Wu X, Barasa A, Mulama DH, Mwangi W, Ogembo JG. (2019) Identification of multiple potent neutralizing and non-neutralizing antibodies against Epstein-Barr virus gp350 protein with potential for clinical application and as reagents for mapping immunodominant epitopes. Virology. Jul 30;536:1-15. doi: 10.1016/j.virol.2019.07.026. PMID:  31377598
  • King JD, Williams JC. (2019) Refining the Quality of Monoclonal Antibodies: Grafting Unique Peptide-Binding Site in the Fab Framework. Methods Mol Biol. 1904:293-298. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4939-8958-4_12 PMID: 30539475
  • Golfetto O, Wakefield DL, Cacao EE, Avery KN, Kenyon V, Jorand R, Tobin SJ, Biswas S, Gutierrez J, Clinton R, Ma Y, Horne DA, Williams JC, Jovanović-Talisman T (2018) Platform To Enhance Quantitative Single Molecule Localization Microscopy. J Am Chem Soc. 140(40):12785-12797. doi: 10.1021/jacs.8b04939
  • King JD, Ma Y, Kuo Y-C, Bzymek KP, Goodstein LH, Meyer K, Moore RE, Crow D, Colcher DM, Singh G, Horne DA, Williams JC. (2018) Template-Catalyzed, Disulfide Conjugation of Monoclonal Antibodies Using a Natural Amino Acid Tag Bioconjugate Chemistry; 29(6):2074-2081. doi: 10.1021/acs.bioconjchem.8b00284. PMID: 29763554.
  • Lewis A, Raoof M, Ituarte PHG, Williams J, Melstrom L, Li D, Lee B, Singh G. Resection of the Primary Gastrointestinal Neuroendocrine Tumor Improves Survival with or without Liver Treatment. (2018) Ann Surg. doi: 10.1097/SLA.0000000000002809. PubMed PMID: 29746336.
  • Bzymek KP, Puckett JW, Zer C, Ma Y, King JD, Goodstein LH, Avery KN, Colcher D, Singh G, Horne DA, Williams JC. (2018) Mechanically-interlocked, functionalization of monoclonal antibodies Nature Communications 9; 1580 doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-03976-5 PMID 29679060

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