Caitlin Davis
Member of Yale faculty since 2020
Research Interests
Research
The Davis lab uses experiments at multiple scales, from in vitro to single cell to whole organism, to study fundamental and applied problems at the intersection of chemistry, physics, and biology. A common theme of our research is the development of quantitative spectroscopic imaging techniques to investigate the relationship between function and dynamics in biological systems. This quantitative biophysical approach will be used to address kinetic questions that require characterization in the complex, heterogeneous environment of the cell including phase-separated bio-condensates, pre-mRNA splicing, and “quinary” interactions.
Education
B.S. University of Michigan, 2007
Ph.D. Emory University, 2015
CPLC Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2015-2019
Honors
Scholarly Inquiry and Research at Emory-HHMI Fellowship, 2011-2012
Emory Clare Boothe Luce Scholar Program Graduate Fellowship, 2013
Emory 3MT® Public Dissertation Abstract Winner, 2014
Achievement Rewards for College Scientists Scholarship, 2013-2014
Center for the Physics of Living Cells Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2015-2019
Recent Publications
R. Feng, M. Gruebele, C.M. Davis. Quantifying protein dynamics and stability in a living organism. Nat. Commun. 2019, 10, 1179.
C.M. Davis, L.Z. Polzi, M. Gruebele, A. Amadei, R.B. Dyer, I. Daidone. A quantitative connection of experimental and simulated folding landscapes by vibrational spectroscopy. Chem. Sci. 2018, 9, 9002-9011.
C.M. Davis, M. Gruebele. Non-steric interactions predict the trend and steric interactions the offset of protein stability in cells. ChemPhysChem 2018, 19 (18), 2290-2294.
C.M. Davis, M. Gruebele. Labeling for quantitative comparison of imaging measurements in vitro and in cells. Biochemistry 2018, 57 (13), 1929-1938.
C.M. Davis, M. Gruebele, S. Sukenik. How does solvation in the cell affect protein folding and binding? Curr. Opin. Struct. Biol. 2018, 48, 23-29.