Kinetics of Enzyme Catalysis

Bruce A. Palfey became interested in enzymes and kinetics during his undergraduate biochemistry major at Penn State University. Afterwards, these interests were put on hold while he worked as a technician doing developmental neurobiology at the Wistar Institute and then while he earned an M.S. degree from Drexel University doing organic synthesis. He finally returned to enzymology, studying the reaction mechanisms of a flavin-dependent enzyme at the University of Michigan for a Ph.D. in Biological Chemistry. He continued studying flavoenzymes at Michigan as a postdoc, then as a lecturer, and then jumped to the tenure-track. He is now an Associate Professor in Biological Chemistry at Michigan and the Associate Director of the Program in Chemical Biology. His advanced graduate course on kinetics has become a rite of passage for students at Michigan studying enzyme mechanisms.

Rebecca L. Switzer earned a B.S. degree in chemistry from Indiana State University, during which she became interested in the intersection of biology and chemistry. She moved on to the University of Michigan for her graduate studies, earning a Ph.D. in biological chemistry in 2009. Her graduate work focused on mechanistic enzymology of flavoenzymes. Following her graduate studies, Rebecca continued to study enzymes but shifted her focus to drug discovery for her postdoctoral studies at the University of Iowa which centered on discovering novel small molecule inhibitors of DNA methyltransferases. Rebecca joined the faculty at Bucknell University, a primarily undergraduate liberal arts institution in Pennsylvania, in 2014, where she is currently an Assistant Professor of Chemistry. At Bucknell, Rebecca teaches general chemistry and biochemistry. Her research group is using biochemical and biophysical techniques to understand the activity, regulation, and inhibition of DNA methyltransferases.