Rate My Professor Lan Huang

Lan Huang is Professor in the Department of Physiology & Biophysics at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine. She received a B.S. in Chemistry from Nanjing University, China, in 1986 and a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Florida in 1995. From 1996 to 1997, she was a postdoctoral fellow in the Mass Spectrometry Facility, Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, at the University of California, San Francisco. She continued there as a research specialist from 1997 to 2003. Joining UCI in 2003 as Assistant Professor in the Departments of Physiology & Biophysics and Developmental & Cell Biology, she was promoted to Associate Professor in 2009 and to Professor in the Department of Physiology & Biophysics in 2012. She serves as Graduate Advisor for the department and Director of the High-end Mass Spectrometry Facility.

Huang's research centers on biological mass spectrometry and proteomics, specializing in cross-linking mass spectrometry to study protein complexes, posttranslational modifications, protein-protein interactions, and ubiquitin-proteasome degradation pathways. These pathways control essential cellular functions including cell cycle progression, apoptosis, and DNA repair, with disruptions linked to cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. Her lab has developed innovative MS-cleavable crosslinkers for accurate identification of cross-linked peptides. Key publications include "Development of a novel cross-linking strategy for fast and accurate identification of cross-linked peptides of protein complexes" (Molecular & Cellular Proteomics, 2011), "Cross-linking mass spectrometry (XL-MS): an emerging technology for interactomics and structural biology" (Analytical Chemistry, 2017, 416 citations), "Oxidative stress-mediated regulation of proteasome complexes" (Molecular & Cellular Proteomics, 2011, 451 citations), and "Regulation of the 26S Proteasome Complex During Oxidative Stress" (Science Signaling, 2010, 323 citations). She received the Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award in 2021 for Introduction to Proteomics and is an Associate Editor for Molecular & Cellular Proteomics. Her work advances proteomics for structural biology and therapeutic targets in cancer and Alzheimer's disease.