Amy E. Keating is the Jay A. Stein Professor of Biology and Professor of Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has served as Head of the Department of Biology since August 2022, following roles as associate department head and graduate officer. Keating joined the MIT Biology faculty in 2002 and the Department of Biological Engineering in 2014. She is a member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. Her education includes an SB in Physics from Harvard College in 1992 and a PhD in Physical Organic Chemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1998, with graduate research on carbene reaction mechanisms using computational and experimental physical organic chemistry methods. Postdoctoral training at the Whitehead Institute and MIT Chemistry Department with Peter S. Kim and Bruce Tidor marked the start of her studies on protein interactions.

The Keating Lab investigates protein-protein interaction specificity encoded in sequences and structures through integrated high-throughput assays, structural modeling, bioinformatics, biochemical, and biophysical experiments. Focal areas encompass α-helical coiled-coil proteins, Bcl-2 family apoptosis regulators, and protein domains binding short linear motifs. Her group designs synthetic interactions and peptide inhibitors targeting cancer processes in leukemia, lymphoma, and breast cancer. Key publications include "Comprehensive identification of human bZIP interactions with coiled-coil arrays" (Science, 2003), "Design of protein-interaction specificity gives selective bZIP-binding peptides" (Nature, 2009), "Networks of bZIP protein-protein interactions diversified over a billion years of evolution" (Science, 2013), "High-throughput discovery of inhibitory protein fragments with AlphaFold" (PNAS, 2025), and "Training bias and sequence alignments shape protein-peptide docking by AlphaFold and related methods" (Protein Science, 2025). Awards include the NIH Transformative R01 grant (2010), Georgina Sweet Award for Women in Quantitative Biomedical Science, and presidency of The Protein Society. Keating co-directs the biology graduate program, serves as co-PI on the department's NIGMS doctoral training grant since 2012, and contributes to search and selection committees, advancing research, teaching, and mentorship.

Professional Email: keating@mit.edu