Members

James received his B.Sc. from Massey University, New Zealand, and also completed his Ph.D. there in 1989 mentored by David Parry. He joined the lab of Alasdair Steven at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda MD, USA in 1990 as a Visiting Fellow, transitioning to a Staff Scientist in 1995 until departing in 1999. He joined the Institut de biologie structurale (IBS) in Grenoble, France, as a CNRS Directeur de recherche (DR2) and leading the Laboratoire Microscopie Electronique Structurale on the retirement of Richard Wade. In 2005 James was recruited by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine to join the newly established Department of Structural Biology and to build a new cryo-electron microscopy facility. Equipment included FEI Polara, TF20 and T12 microscopes, and in 2019 the Polara was replaced with a Krios G3i that now has a Selectris energy filter and Falcon 4i camera. James’ focus has been on virus structure, including herpesvirus and bacteriophage capsid assembly, and has expanded to the portals, tails and tail-tips. In addition, he has been providing cryoEM access to numerous local researchers at U Pitt, Carnegie Mellow University, and Duquesne University, as well as collaborations will faculty at Penn State University, Michigan State University, the NIH, and other institutions and become involved in solving structure of many kinds of protein complex.

Bob received his B.A. from Hampshire College, Amherst MA, and his Ph.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1983, mentored by Fred Eiserling with whom he continued as a post-doctoral fellow. He joined the lab of Roger Hendrix at Pitt in 1988 where he later bedame a Research Assistant Professor and Member of the Graduate Faculty. Bob’s work with Roger Hendrix (and many collaborators, including James) established the HK97 capsid as an important model system for studying virus assembly.

Josh developed his skills working with bacteriophage biology, biochemistry and genetics with Bob Duda in the laboratory of Roger Hendrix, Dept of Biological Sciences at the Pitt School of Arts & Sciences. He started with Roger and Bob as an undergraduate researcher and later became a full-time technician. Josh recently joined the Conway lab to continue working on phage assembly, structure and function.

Ryan worked on data analysis, including capsids and helical reconstructions. In 2021 he was working on his Ph.D. with Lawrence Shapiro at Columbia University.

Josh joined the Conway Lab from Susan Hafenstein’s lab at Penn State. He worked on herpesvirus capsid structure.

Katerina received her Ph.D. at the University of Leeds and joined the Conway lab as a post-doc in 2007 working on virus structure and assembly. She is currently working in the Institute of Structural and Molecular Biology at Birkbeck University of London, UK.

Roberto worked in the Conway lab on virus structure analysis before starting Medical School at the University of Chicago.

Carlos worked in the Conway lab on virus structure analysis before Medical School at the University of Pittsburgh. In 2017 he had a fellowship in cancer survivorship care at Memorial Sloan Kettering.

Alexander earned his B.Sc. and M.Sc. at the Technical University, St. Petersburg, Russia, and his Ph.D. at the D.I. Ivanovsky Institute of Virology, Moscow, Russia, in 1983. He continued working at the D.I. Ivanovsky Institute of Virology as a Research and Senior Scientist until 1990. He joined Alasdair Steven’s lab at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda MD, USA, in 1991 as a Visiting Scientist, and moved to the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA, where he worked as a Post-doctoral fellow from 1992-1995. After a 2-year return to the D.I. Ivanovsky Institute of Virology, he rejoined the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center from 1997 to 2008 as a Research Associate and later a Research Assistant Professor. Alexander joined the Conway lab in 2009 until his retirement in 2020.