Endowed Chair-Med Biophysics
Email: lfinzi@clemson.edu
Brief Bio
Laura Finzi is a professor of biophysics and the Dr. Waenard L. Miller, Jr. ’69 and Sheila M. Miller Endowed Chair in Medical Biophysics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. She is a Fellow of the America Physical Society and on the Editorial Board of Biophysical Reviews. She received a Laurea in Industrial Chemistry from the University of Bologna, Italy and a PhD in Chemistry from the University of New Mexico. She was a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Carlos Bustamante at The Institute of Molecular Biology in Eugene, OR, and with Dr. Jeff Gelles at Brandeis University. She is recognized internationally for her contributions to the understanding of DNA mechanics, topology and physical interactions relevant to transcription regulation.
Research Interests
Dr. Finzi’s interests lie at the intersection between physics, chemistry and biology. How does the structure, topology and physical phase of DNA affect transcription and its interaction with proteins? Using single-molecule approaches, Dr. Finzi’s group has unveiled the fundamental mechanisms of genetic switches, the key parameters regulating the strength of protein roadblocks to transcription and the structural features permitting transcription recycling. The knowledge produced by her group about molecular mechanisms is important to understand human disease, guide drug design and advance personalized medicine.
Five Publications
- Jin Qian, Bing Wang, Irina Artsimovitch, David Dunlap, Laura Finzi “Force and the α-C-terminal domains bias RNA polymerase recycling”, Nature Comm. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51603-3. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-51603-3
- Jin Qian, Allison Cartee, Wenxuan Xu, Yan Yan, Bing Wang, Irina Artsimovitch, David Dunlap, Laura Finzi “Reciprocating RNA Polymerase batters through roadblocks” Nature Comm., doi:10.1038/s41467-024-47531-x.
- Yue Lu, Gustavo Borjas, Cristine Hendrickson, Zsuzsanna Vörös, David Dunlap, Keith Shearwin and Laura Finzi, “Proteins mediating different DNA topologies block RNAP elongation with different efficiency.” FEBS Letters, 2022, 596, 1994-2006; doi:10.1002/1873-3468.14447. Editor’s choice-Journal cover.
- Wenxuan Xu, Yan Yan, Irina Artsimovich, David Dunlap and Laura Finzi, “Positive supercoiling favors transcription elongation through lac repressor-mediated DNA loops”, Nucleic Acids Research 50, 2826-2835, 2022.
- Yan Yan, Wenxuan Xu, Sandip Kumar, Alexander Zhang, Fenfei Leng, David D. Dunlap and Laura Finzi, “Negative DNA supercoiling makes protein-mediated looping deterministic and ergodic within the bacterial doubling time”, Nucleic Acids Research 2021, 49(20) 11550-11559; https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkab946.