Lisa Jones (scientist)

Jones became interested in science as a freshman at high school, where she took part in a national Science Technology Engineering Program.[1] She went to college at Syracuse University, where she was the only person of colour.[2] Jones completed her PhD at Georgia State University and specialized in structural biology.[3]

She was a Pfizer postdoctoral researcher at Washington University in St. Louis.[4][1] She joined Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis, where she became an associate professor.[5][6] In 2016 Jones won a $1.1 million National Science Foundation Career grant to develop new techniques to study cell membranes.[1] Her award supported research training for students from historically black colleges and universities to work in biochemistry.[1] She developed cell-footprinting, a technique that uses mass spectrometry coupled with in vivo fast photochemical oxidation of proteins (FPOP).[1][7][8] She is recognised for solving new questions in medicine as well as developing important tools for biomedical researchers.[6]

She moved to the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy in 2016.[9] The Jones Lab is a structural proteomics group, who specialist in FPOP using an excimer laser for photolysis, which generates hydroxyl radicals.[10] Hydroxyl radicals go on to oxidise the side chains of amino acids and provide solvent accessibility of proteins within a cell.[11] FPOP can provide information on the sites of ligand binding, protein interaction and protein conformational changes in vivo.[10] Her group has continued to develop the FPOP technique, extending it with a no-flow platform for high-throughput in-cell measurements.[12] In 2019, she received the Biophysical Society's Junior Faculty Award.[13]