UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry : UCLA Portal

Website:

Joseph Loo's Home Page.

Work Email Address:

jloo@chem.ucla.edu

Laboratory Address:

Paul Boyer Hall 416

Mol Sci Bldg 1424

Work Address:

Paul Boyer Hall 402

Work Phone Number:

1 (310) 794-7023

Professor
Chemistry and Biochemistry, Biochemistry, Biological Chemistry

Member
ACCESS Program: Dept. of Biological Chemistry, JCCC Cancer Cell Biology Program Area

A Short Biography:

Professor Loo received his B.S. in Chemistry from Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY in 1982 and his Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry in 1988 from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. In 1988-1990, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA, prior to joining PNNL as a staff scientist. In 1992-2001, he was employed at Parke-Davis Pharmaceutical Research/Warner-Lambert Company (later became Pfizer Global Research and Development) in Ann Arbor, MI as Group Leader of Biological Mass Spectrometry. He joined the faculty at UCLA in 2001.

Awards and Honors:

Clarkson U. American Chemical Society Analytical Chemistry Division Award ; Clarkson U. Chemical Rubber Company Achievement Award ; Clarkson U. George L. Jones, Jr. Memorial Award ; Clarkson U. Merck Chemistry Award ; Cornell Chemistry Teaching Assistant Award ; Clarkson U. Stephen Brunauer Senior Thesis Award ; Bridges to the Professorate NIGMS Program Compact for Faculty Diversity Faculty Mentor of the Year Award ; Australian and New Zealand Society for Mass Spectrometry (ANZSMS) Visiting Lecturer ; Allan Maccoll Organic Mass Spectrometry Journal Award

Research Interest:

The Loo research group focuses on the development of bioanalytical mass spectrometry (MS) methods for the structural characterization of peptides and proteins and the application of MS for proteomics and disease biomarkers. Research projects include: development of novel modes of electrospray ionization and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization for applicability to structural biology and proteomics; mass spectrometry and ion mobility analysis of noncovalently-bound macromolecular complexes and their interactions with other binding partners and ligands; gas phase protein structures and the relationship to their solution phase counterparts; development of separation and MS-sequencing tools for large-scale proteome profiling; top-down protein mass spectrometry; elucidation of protein complexes, interactions, and post-translational modifications found in complex, biological systems; discovering protein markers of human diseases; MS-based characterization of protein aggregation and its role in neurodegenerative diseases.

Detailed Biography:

Dr. Joseph A. Loo is a Professor in the Department of Biological Chemistry, David Geffen School of Medicine, and in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and he is the Faculty Director of the UCLA Mass Spectrometry and Proteomics Technology Center. He is also a member of UCLA/DOE Laboratory for Genomics and Proteomics, the UCLA Molecular Biology Institute, and the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.

He is an expert in the mass spectrometry characterization of proteins and their post-translational modifications, and is the author of over 180 scientific publications. In 2000-2002, he served on the Board of Directors for the American Society for Mass Spectrometry. He has been on the Editorial Boards of the journals Bioconjugate Chemistry, Analytical Chemistry, Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (JASMS), and Chemical & Engineering News and currently he serves on the Editorial Advisory Board for Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry and as an Associate Editor for JASMS.

His research interests include the development of bioanalytical methods for the structural characterization of proteins and their application for proteomics and disease biomarkers. He was one of the first researchers to apply electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) to directly measure noncovalently-bound macromolecular assemblies and their interactions with other binding partners and ligands. The method can be applied to measure drug binding to their targeted proteins to even larger complexes in excess of 1 MDa.

Currently, his laboratory is developing technologies to profile proteins in human salivary fluids for their application for human disease biomarker discovery. He co-authored a study with a consortium composed of groups from UCLA, UCSF, and Scripps that details the first catalog and preliminary analysis of ductal salivary proteins.

In 2008, he received one of the first grants made under the new "Exceptional, Unconventional Research Enabling Knowledge Acceleration (EUREKA)" NIH program. The goal of this program is to "help investigators test novel, often unconventional hypotheses or tackle major methodological or technical challenges". The Loo award is to study the "Impact of Non-Canonical Decoding on the Proteome".

Before he joined UCLA in 2001, he was Group Leader of the Biological Mass Spectrometry and Proteomics Teams at Warner-Lambert/Parke-Davis Pharmaceutical (currently Pfizer Global Research). He worked at Parke-Davis/Pfizer for nearly 10 years before moving to UCLA.

Publications:

Hu Shen, Loo Joseph A, Wong David T Human saliva proteome analysis. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2007; 1098(5): 323-9.

Kaddis Catherine S, Loo Joseph A Native protein MS and ion mobility large flying proteins with ESI. Analytical chemistry, 2007; 79(5): 1778-84.

Loo Rachel R Ogorzalek, Loo Joseph A Matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-mass spectrometry of hydrophobic proteins in mixtures using formic acid, perfluorooctanoic acid, and sorbitol. Analytical chemistry, 2007; 79(3): 1115-25.

Faller Michael, Matsunaga Michio, Yin Sheng, Loo Joseph A, Guo Feng Heme is involved in microRNA processing. Nature structural & molecular biology, 2007; 14(1): 23-9.

Benchaar Sabrina A, Xie Yongming, Phillips Martin, Loo Rachel R Ogorzalek, Galkin Vitold E, Orlova Albina, Thevis Mario, Muhlrad Andras, Almo Steven C, Loo Joseph A, Egelman Edward H, Reisler Emil Mapping the interaction of cofilin with subdomain 2 on actin. Biochemistry, 2007; 46(1): 225-33.

Thevis Mario, Loo Joseph A, Loo Rachel R Ogorzalek, Schänzer Wilhelm Recommended criteria for the mass spectrometric identification of target peptides and proteins ( Rapid communications in mass spectrometry : RCM, 2007; 21(3): 297-304.

Hu Shen, Loo Joseph A, Wong David T Human body fluid proteome analysis. Proteomics, 2006; 6(23): 6326-53.

Skaggs Brian J, Gorre Mercedes E, Ryvkin Ann, Burgess Michael R, Xie Yongming, Han Yun, Komisopoulou Evangelia, Brown Lauren M, Loo Joseph A, Landaw Elliot M, Sawyers Charles L, Graeber Thomas G Phosphorylation of the ATP-binding loop directs oncogenicity of drug-resistant BCR-ABL mutants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2006; 103(51): 19466-71.

Lee Nathan V, Sato Makoto, Annis Douglas S, Loo Joseph A, Wu Lily, Mosher Deane F, Iruela-Arispe M Luisa ADAMTS1 mediates the release of antiangiogenic polypeptides from TSP1 and 2. The EMBO journal, 2006; 25(22): 5270-83.

Xie Yongming, Zhang Jennifer, Yin Sheng, Loo Joseph A Top-down ESI-ECD-FT-ICR mass spectrometry localizes noncovalent protein-ligand binding sites. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2006; 128(45): 14432-3.

Poderycki Michael J, Kickhoefer Valerie A, Kaddis Catherine S, Raval-Fernandes Sujna, Johansson Erik, Zink Jeffrey I, Loo Joseph A, Rome Leonard H The vault exterior shell is a dynamic structure that allows incorporation of vault-associated proteins into its interior. Biochemistry, 2006; 45(39): 12184-93.

Ramachandran Prasanna, Boontheung Pinmannee, Xie Yongming, Sondej Melissa, Wong David T, Loo Joseph A Identification of N-linked glycoproteins in human saliva by glycoprotein capture and mass spectrometry. Journal of proteome research, 2006; 5(6): 1493-503.

Divakaruni Arun V, Loo Rachel R Ogorzalek, Xie Yongming, Loo Joseph A, Gober James W The cell-shape protein MreC interacts with extracytoplasmic proteins including cell wall assembly complexes in Caulobacter crescentus. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2005; 102(51): 18602-7.

Leikina Eugenia, Delanoe-Ayari Helene, Melikov Kamran, Cho Myoung-Soon, Chen Andrew, Waring Alan J, Wang Wei, Xie Yongming, Loo Joseph A, Lehrer Robert I, Chernomordik Leonid V Carbohydrate-binding molecules inhibit viral fusion and entry by crosslinking membrane glycoproteins. Nature immunology, 2005; 6(10): 995-1001.

Gomes Aldrin V, Zong Chenggong, Edmondson Ricky D, Berhane Beniam T, Wang Guang-Wu, Le Steven, Young Glen, Zhang Jun, Vondriska Thomas M, Whitelegge Julian P, Jones Richard C, Joshua Irving G, Thyparambil Sheeno, Pantaleon Dawn, Qiao Joe, Loo Joseph, Ping Peipei The murine cardiac 26S proteasome: an organelle awaiting exploration. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2005; 1047(7): 197-207.

Joseph Loo, Ph.D.