Karen G. Fleming PhD

Karen Fleming is a Professor of Biophysics in the TC Jenkins Dept. of Biophysics at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Fleming’s lab works in discovery to fill the scientific pipeline. Her research is motivated by the power that a deep understanding of the physics/biology intersection can bring to disease, evolution, and biological design.

Dr. Fleming studied the energetics of transmembrane helix-helix interactions. She developed a theory to describe their association reactions, defined conditions for “forced cohabitation” of helices in micelles; and discovered thermodynamic coupling in transmembrane helix-helix dimerization. Recently, Dr. Fleming’s laboratory has turned its focus to the water-to-bilayer protein-folding problem. Using transmembrane beta-barrels, her group quadrupled the number of known membrane protein stabilities; developed a novel side-chain hydrophobicity scale; and experimentally demonstrated that transfer free energies of aromatic side chains follow the polarity gradient inherent in the structure of a phospholipid bilayer. In addition to experiments, Dr. Fleming’s group uses molecular simulations to address questions of membrane protein structure in phospholipid bilayers and has applied ODE methods to develop a quantitative flux model that describes the sorting of membrane proteins in the periplasms of bacterial envelopes. Coupled with experiments, this holistic approach identifies the functions of chaperones and has defined the role played by the essential BAM complex.

Dr. Fleming was the inaugural recipient of the Arne Tiselius Young Investigator Award, a recipient of the Department of Defense Career Award, and the 2016 Thomas E. Thompson Award from the Biophysical Society. She has served on the Executive Council of the Biophysical Society and has co-chaired the national meeting of the Biophysical Society (2015) as well as Gordon Research Conferences on Biomolecular Interactions & Methods (2010), and Membrane Protein Folding (2015).