Julia Kardon has joined the Department of Biochemistry as an assistant professor.  Her research addresses the molecular mechanisms that control the activity and quality of mitochondrial proteins to match the dynamic needs of eukaryotic cells. She discovered that a mitochondrial chaperone (ClpX) activates a conserved biosynthetic enzyme through partial unfolding. This discovery poses testable models for how protein unfolding can be controlled and limited and thus how protein unfoldases can direct diverse transformations of their substrates. Her lab will employ diverse biochemical and biophysical approaches to delineate molecular mechanisms of chaperone-mediated control of mitochondrial protein activity, in combination with cell biological, genetic, and proteomic tools to discover new components of mitochondrial protein regulation and quality control.

Julia performed her postdoctoral research with Tania Baker at MIT. She received a Ph.D. in Cell Biology from the University of California, San Francisco with Ron Vale and a B.S. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University.