Klaus Hahn, PhD

EMAIL: khahn@med.unc.edu

PERSONAL WEBSITE: https://www.med.unc.edu/pharm/people/primaryfaculty/

PUBLICATIONS: Publications Link

Our lab focuses on two synergistic areas: 1) developing methods to visualize and control protein activity in live cells and animals, and 2) applying these to address basic questions re spatio-temporal control of signaling. Our biological studies center on the integration of invadopodia and adhesion dynamics in metastasis, and more recently on protein misfolding diseases. We are extending our studies to examine how cancer cells alter their morphology to facilitate signaling.
While addressing specific molecules for biological studies, we try to produce methods that are readily applied to multiple systems. We are focused on fluorescent biosensors to visualize conformational changes of endogenous proteins, means to study the conformation of individual molecules in live cells, and optogenetic/chemogenetic methods. We are developing environment-sensing dyes designed to report protein conformational changes, and engineered domains that can be inserted into proteins to control conformation using either light or small molecules.
In biological studies, we control and visualize signaling while inducing cancer cells to convert between invadopodia and focal adhesion engagement. This enables us to model the interactions and structural dynamics governing target recognition and cancer cell adaptation to different environments during metastasis. Using computational models and image analysis, we shed light on feedback and spatio-temporal control of signaling networks.