Caitlin Davis

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.

Education

B.S. University of Michigan, 2007
Ph.D. Emory University, 2015
CPLC Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2015-2019

Honors

• Beckman Young Investigator, 2024-2028
• National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, 2024-2029
• Hevolution/AFAR New Investigator Awards in Aging Biology and
• Geoscience Research, 2024-2026
• Scialog Fellow, 2019-2021
• Center for the Physics of Living Cells Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2015-2019

Recent Publications

Castillo, H.B. ^†; Shuster, S.O. ^†; Tarekegn, L.H.; Davis, C.M. “Oleic acid differentially affects lipid droplet storage of de novo synthesized lipids in hepatocytes and adipocytes,” Chem. Comm. 2024, 60: 3138-3141. DOI: 10.1039/D3CC04829B

Knab, E.; Davis, C.M. “Chemical interactions modulate l_6-85 stability in cells,” Protein Sci. 2023, 32 (7): e4698. DOI: 10.1002/pro.4698 

Shuster, S.O.; Burke, M.J.; Davis, C.M. “Spatiotemporal heterogeneity of de novo lipogenesis in fixed and living single cells,” J. Phys. Chem. B, 2023, 127 (13): 2918-2926. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.2c08812

Yoo, H.; Davis, C.M. “An in vitro cytomimetic of in-cell RNA folding,” ChemBioChem. 2022, 23 (20): e202200406. DOI: 10.1002/cbic.202200406

Feng, R.; Gruebele, M.*; Davis, C.M.* “Quantifying protein dynamics and stability in a living organism,” Nat. Commun. 2019, 10, 1179. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-09088-y