Barbara Imperiali

Professor Barbara Imperiali has illuminated the chemistry of protein modification, developing innovative tools to understand glycosylation and phosphorylation. Her work spans the creation of fluorescent probes for kinase activity, the dissection of bacterial glycosylation pathways and the design of chemical approaches for manipulating cellular processes.

Imperiali earned her B.Sc. in medicinal chemistry from University College London in 1979 and her Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry from MIT in 1983 under Satoru Masamune. After postdoctoral work with Robert Abeles at Brandeis University, she joined Carnegie Mellon University, then moved to Caltech in 1989. She returned to MIT in 1999 as the Ellen Swallow Richards Professor of Biology and Chemistry.

Her group developed Sox-based fluorescent sensors that report kinase activity in real time. These peptidyl probes incorporate synthetic fluorescent amino acids that respond to phosphorylation, enabling high-throughput screening of kinase inhibitors and monitoring of signaling pathways in cells and tissues. The technology has been commercialized for drug discovery applications.

Imperiali made fundamental contributions to understanding asparagine-linked glycosylation. Her laboratory characterized the oligosaccharyltransferases and glycosyltransferases that assemble glycans on membrane-bound polyprenyl carriers, revealing how these enzymes function at the membrane interface. She also developed chemically caged phosphopeptides and proteins for studying DNA damage and cell cycle control with temporal precision.

Imperiali was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2010 and became a Fellow of the Royal Society. Her awards include the Caltech Feynman Prize for Excellence in Teaching, the ACS Breslow Award, the Kaiser Award from the Protein Society and the MIT MacVicar Fellowship.