Biophysical Society Bulletin | June 2020

Biophysicist in Profile

Christopher Barnes Areas of Research Structural biology and biochemistry focusing on host-pathogen interactions

Institution California Institute of Technology

At-a-Glance

When Christopher Barnes was a child, he wanted to be a chef — but not just any chef — a great one. “My mom likes to tell everyone the story of how I used to watch The Great Chefs of the World and make shopping lists for her so I could recreate the dishes I saw,” he shares. “Obviously I didn’t know how much some of the things on my list cost, as I was asking for truffles, wines, and other ingredients to recreate Michelin star dishes.” He has similarly striven for greatness to his career in science, now serving as a HHMI Hanna Gray Postdoctoral Fellow at Caltech.

Christopher Barnes

Christopher Barnes , HHMI Hanna Gray Postdoctoral Fellow at the California Institute of Technology, always enjoyed science. As a teenager, he was a member of STEM clubs and competed in Science Olympiad. He planned to become a medical doc- tor, so upon entering college at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (UNC), he studied chemistry and biology to start building toward his goal. At the end of his sophomore year, he inquired about undergraduate research opportunities. “It was at this point that my life changed forever, as I joined the lab of my first mentor, Gary Pielak ,” he says. “Gary instilled in me a desire to pursue scientific research and introduced me to the challenges of biophysical research by developing methods for in-cell nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. His lab single-handedly put me on the path towards a scientific career in biochemistry and biophysics.” Pielak remembers his then-graduate student Lisa Charlton rav- ing about Barnes, who was a student of hers in a teaching lab. “Lisa would not stop going on about Christopher Barnes, and that I must recruit him as an undergraduate research assis- tant. I did. He soon earned co-authorship on a key paper about crowding and protein stability in his senior year,” he shares. The projects they worked on involved protein NMR of macromolec- ular crowding in vitro and in living cells. “One of the coolest ef- forts involved bolting a globular protein to a disordered protein. We could observe the disordered part in cells, but the globular part remained invisible,” Pielak explains. “Christopher’s goal was to attend grad school, but playing Division 1 football and being a BS chemistry major is hard on the GPA, even for a star. I suggested he stay on and earn a master’s degree, which forgives a lot of sins. After three more papers (in about a year), two of them as first author, Christo- pher left triumphant for Pitt,” he says. “Christopher has many admirable qualities as a biophysicist: high intellectual horse- power combined with a normal-sized ego, unafraid of hard work, a reluctance to give up, the ability to listen, and ‘cheerful in all weathers.’ I wish I was still working with Christopher. Hope springs eternal.”

Following his master’s degree in chemistry at UNC, Barnes be- gan a PhD program in molecular pharmacology at the Univer- sity of Pittsburgh. His work there set him on the path into his current field of study. “As a structural biologist and biochemist, I use electron microscopy and X-ray crystallographic tech- niques to investigate interactions between proteins involved in signaling and disease pathogenesis. I got interested in this type of research during my PhD in molecular pharmacology, when I worked under the tutelage of Guillermo Calero in the molecular biophysics and structural biology program,” Barnes shares. “My work focused on resolving fundamental questions about the mechanism by which the general transcription factors regulate RNA Polymerase II (Pol II) activity. Due to the size and complexity of such systems, I had to utilize unique techniques to reconstitute and achieve high-resolution structural infor- mation. I purified, assembled, and crystallized Pol II complexes for data collection at synchrotron and X-ray free electron laser sources, while also developing transmission electron microsco- py methods.” During graduate school, Barnes and his wife, who is also a biophysicist, became parents to two sons. Balancing new par- enthood and a PhD program was a very difficult undertaking. “Learning how to balance work and life was a challenge, but I faced it by learning how to ask for help. I think most of life’s challenges are not meant to be faced alone and it’s okay to reach out to those around you, as well as family, to help when things seem overwhelming,” he says. The experience of parenting, especially as his children get older, has deepened his admiration for his parents. “They provided my siblings and me with a great childhood and the tools we needed to succeed in life, while working and being present for all of our activities. I didn’t appreciate how much running around they had to do with us and our activities until my kids started playing soccer,” he says. “When we started having to shuttle kids between parks for games, multiple practices a week, on top of working, I developed a better appreciation for my parents and definitely admire what they did for us.”

June 2020

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