Stanford University, Stanford, CA B.S., M.S. 06/80 Chemistry
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA Ph.D. 06/85 Chemistry
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Postdoctoral 10/05-8/06 Biophysics
Baltimore, MD

Dr. Berg’s research focuses the relationships between the structures and functions of biological molecules. He has made major contributions to understanding how zinc-containing proteins bind to the genetic material DNA or RNA and regulate gene activity. His work, and that of others in the field, has led to the design of metal-containing proteins that control the activity of specific genes. These tailored proteins are valuable tools for basic research on gene function, and such proteins could one day have medical applications in regulating genes involved in diseases, as well. Dr. Berg has also made contributions to our understanding of systems that target proteins to specific compartments within cells and to the use of sequence databases for predicting aspects of protein structure and function. He is currently using computational methods to estimate binding free energies for peptides interacting with targeting receptors.

1. Jantz D, Berg JM. Reduction in DNA-Binding Affinity of Cys2His2 Zinc Finger Proteins by linker phosphorylation. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2004 May 18;101(20):7589-93. PubMed PMID: 15128941; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC419650.
2. Maynard EL, Gatto, Jr GJ, Berg JM. Pex5p Binding Affinities for Canonical and Non-Canonical PTS1 Peptides. Proteins. 2004 Jun 1;55(4):856-61. PubMed PMID: 15146484.
3. Blasie CA, Berg JM. Entropy-Enthalpy Compensation in Ionic Interactions Probed in a Zinc Finger Peptide. Biochemistry. 2004 Aug 17;43(32):10600-4. PubMed PMID: 15301557.
4. Thickman KR, Davis A, Berg JM. Site Selection in Tandem Arrays of Metal-Binding Domains. Inorg Chem. 2004 Dec 13;43(25):7897-901. PubMed PMID: 15578823.
5. Maynard EL, Berg JM. Quantitative Analysis of Peroxisomal Targeting Signal Type-1 Binding to Wild-type and Pathogenic Mutants of Pex5p Supports an Affinity Threshold for Peroxisomal Protein Targeting. J Mol Biol. 2007 May 18;368(5):1259-66. Epub 2007 Mar 12. PubMed PMID: 17399738.