Tracy M. Handel

Tracy Handel

Email: trhandel@ucsd.edu

Ph.D. 1989, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA

Dr. Tracy Handel is a Professor of Pharmacy at the University of California, San Diego Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharamaceutical Sciences.  She received her B.S. in Chemistry at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, and her Ph.D. in the Department of Chemistry, at California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA.  She was a Post-doctoral Fellow with Dr. William F. DeGrado at E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Company.

Research Interests

  • Structural studies of proteins by high resolution NMR methods, crystallography and biochemical/biophysical analysis of protein function.  Systems of particular interest include chemokines/chemokine receptors which control leukocyte migration in the normal immune response and in chronic inflammation, viral proteins that function as immunomodulators to subvert the host immune response, membrane receptors.
  • Development of computational methods for protein design with the goal of understanding protein structure and function and for engineering proteins with new or improved properties.

Selected Publications

L. Mizoue, J.F. Bazan, E.C. Johnson and T.M. Handel. (1999) Solution Structure and Dynamics of the CX3C Chemokine Domain of Fractalkine and its Interaction with an N-terminal Fragment of CX3CR1. BIOCHEMISTRY 38:1402-1414.

S. Hemmerich, C. Paavola, A. Bloom, S. Bhakta, R. Freedman, D. Grunberger, J. Krstenansky, S. Lee, D. McCarley, M. Mulkins, B. Wong, J. Pease, L. Mizoue, I. Polsky, K. Thompson, T.M. Handel, K. Jarnagin. (1999) Identification of Residues in the Monocyte Chemotactic Protein-1 that Contact the MCP-1 Receptor, CCR2b. BIOCHEMISTRY 38:13013-13025.

E.C. Johnson and T.M. Handel. (1999) The Effect of Hydrophobic Core Packing on Side Chain Dynamics. J. BIOMOLECULAR NMR. 15:135-143.

L.S. Mizoue, T.N. Kledal, K.B. Bacon, T.M. Handel. (2001) Recognition Of The CX3C Chemokine, Fractalkine, By Its Cognate Receptor And The Viral Receptor US28. J. OF BIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY, 276: 33906-14.

T.M. Handel, Carolyn Bertozzi, and Jeff Hubbell. (2001) Biopolymer Engineering and Design: Beyond the Genome. CURRENT OPINION IN CHEMICAL BIOLOGY, 5:675-676.

J.C. Lougheed, P.J. Domaille  and T.M. Handel. (2002) Solution Structure and Dynamics of the Melanoma Inhibitory Activity Protein (MIA). JOURNAL OF BIOMOLECULAR NMR, 22:211-23..

J.M. Alexander, C.A. Nelson, V. van Berkel Fezzie, E.K. Lau, J.M. Studts, T.J. Brett, S.H. Speck, T.M. Handel, H.W. Virgin and D.H. Fremont. (2002)  Structural Basis of Chemokine Sequestration by a Herpesvirus Decoy Receptor. CELL, 111:343-56.

B.T. Seet, C.A. McCaughan, T.M. Handel, G. McFadden and S. B. Fleming. (2003) Analysis of an Orf Virus Chemokine-binding Protein: Shifting Ligand Specificities Amoung a Family of Poxvirus Viroreceptors. PNAS, 100:15137-42.