Kwangwoon “Jon” Lee, PhD
Assistant Professor, Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy
Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy
Professional Interests
The Chromatin Design Lab develops engineered proteins and biosensors to study chromatin regulation and transcriptional control. We aim to create custom molecular tools, including mutant-selective binders and sensors that recognize specific combinations of post-translational modifications. These approaches will be used to investigate how histone modifications and transcription factors regulate gene expression, and to design new strategies for targeting diseased epigenetic regulation.
Research Areas:
Biography
Kwangwoon “Jon” Lee is a biochemist and chemical biologist whose research focuses on engineering proteins and biosensors to investigate histone modifications, transcription factors, and mechanisms of chromatin regulation. He received his undergraduate training in biochemistry at UC Santa Barbara, completed his PhD at the CUNY Graduate Center, and pursued postdoctoral training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School before joining Ohio State.
Education
- 2019-2025, Postdoc Chemical Biology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital / Harvard Medical School
- 2012-2019, Ph.D. Biochemistry, The Graduate Center, City University of New York
- 2006-2010, B.S. Biochemistry, University of California, Santa Barbara
Honors
- 2025, Dana-Farber / Harvard Cancer Center (Neuro-Oncology Program) Career Enhancement Program Award through the National Cancer Institute-sponsored Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE)
- 2024, Best Abstract Award, 8th Annual Cardiovascular Bioengineering (CVBE) Symposium
- 2021-2023, American Heart Association Postdoctoral Fellowship
- 2015-2017, American Heart Association Predoctoral Fellowship
Publications
- DNA bendability regulates transcription factor binding to nucleosomes, Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. 2025 Nov | journal-article. doi: 10.1038/s41594-025-01633-2.
- Structural and enzymatic plasticity of SIRT6 deacylase activity., The Journal of biological chemistry. 2025 Mar | journal-article. doi: 10.1016/j.jbc.2025.108446.
- UM171 glues asymmetric CRL3-HDAC1/2 assembly to degrade CoREST corepressors., Nature. 2025 Feb | journal-article. doi: 10.1038/s41586-024-08532-4.
- Uncoupling histone modification crosstalk by engineering lysine demethylase LSD1, Nature Chemical Biology. 2025 Feb | journal-article. doi: 10.1038/s41589-024-01671-9.
- Deubiquitinase processing of a non-natural linkage of ubiquitinated-PTEN., Bioorganic chemistry. 2025 Jan | journal-article. doi: 10.1016/j.bioorg.2025.108223.
- Circular Engineered Sortase for Interrogating Histone H3 in Chromatin., Journal of the American Chemical Society. 2024 Nov | journal-article. doi: 10.1021/jacs.4c12585.
- Protein semisynthesis reveals plasticity in HECT E3 ubiquitin ligase mechanisms, Nature Chemistry. 2024 Nov | journal-article. doi: 10.1038/s41557-024-01576-z.
- A circular engineered sortase for interrogating histone H3 in chromatin, . 2024 Sep | preprint. doi: 10.1101/2024.09.10.612318.
- Multifaceted regulation of Sirtuin 2 (Sirt2) Deacetylase Activity., The Journal of biological chemistry. 2024 Aug | journal-article. doi: 10.1016/j.jbc.2024.107722.
- An autoinhibitory switch of the LSD1 disordered region controls enhancer silencing., Molecular cell. 2024 Jun | journal-article. doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2024.05.017.
- Deficiency of lncRNA MERRICAL abrogates macrophage chemotaxis and diabetes-associated atherosclerosis., Cell reports. 2024 Feb | journal-article. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2024.113815.
- Structural Basis of Sirtuin 6-Catalyzed Nucleosome Deacetylation., Journal of the American Chemical Society. 2023 Mar | journal-article. doi: 10.1021/jacs.2c13512.
- Distinct biochemical properties of the class I histone deacetylase complexes. , Current opinion in chemical biology. 2022 Jul | journal-article. doi: 10.1016/j.cbpa.2022.102179.
- Histone H2B Deacylation Selectivity: Exploring Chromatin's Dark Matter with an Engineered Sortase., Journal of the American Chemical Society. 2022 Feb | journal-article. doi: 10.1021/jacs.1c13555.
- Diverse nucleosome Site-Selectivity among histone deacetylase complexes, eLife. 2020 Jun | journal-article. doi: 10.7554/eLife.57663.
- The role of calcium in the interaction between calmodulin and a minimal functional construct of eukaryotic elongation factor 2 kinase., Protein science : a publication of the Protein Society. 2019 Dec | journal-article. doi: 10.1002/pro.3753.
- Structural Dynamics of the Activation of Elongation Factor 2 Kinase by Ca2+-Calmodulin., Journal of molecular biology. 2018 May | journal-article. doi: 10.1016/j.jmb.2018.05.033.
- Structural Basis for the Recognition of Eukaryotic Elongation Factor 2 Kinase by Calmodulin., Structure (London, England : 1993). 2016 Aug | journal-article. doi: 10.1016/j.str.2016.06.015.
- The linker between the dimerization and catalytic domains of the CheA histidine kinase propagates changes in structure and dynamics that are important for enzymatic activity., Biochemistry. 2014 Jan | journal-article. doi: 10.1021/bi4012379.
- Conformational coupling between receptor and kinase binding sites through a conserved salt bridge in a signaling complex scaffold protein., PLoS computational biology. 2013 Nov | journal-article. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003337.
- CheA-receptor interaction sites in bacterial chemotaxis., Journal of molecular biology. 2012 May | journal-article. doi: 10.1016/j.jmb.2012.05.023.