Professor Chris Chang

Chris Chang
Department of Chemistry
Princeton University

Activity-Based Sensing: Leveraging Chemical Reactivity for Selective Biological Imaging

Traditional strategies for developing selective imaging reagents rely on molecular recognition and static lock-and- key binding to achieve high specificity. We are advancing an alternative approach to chemical probe design, termed activity- based sensing, in which we exploit inherent differences in chemical reactivity as a foundation for distinguishing between chemical analytes that are similar in shape and size within complex biological systems. This presentation will focus on our latest work in activity-based sensing approaches to visualize dynamic fluxes of reactive oxygen, sulfur, carbon, and nitrogen species. These chemical probes enable us to reveal new principles of their signal and/or stress contributions to living systems.

Chris Chang

Chris Chang is the Edward and Virginia Taylor Professor of Chemistry at Princeton University. He completed his B.S. and M.S. at Caltech in 1997, working with Harry Gray, followed by a Fulbright scholar year at the Université Louis Pasteur in 1998 with Jean-Pierre Sauvage. Chris earned his Ph.D. from MIT in 2002 with Dan Nocera and continued his postdoctoral studies at MIT with Steve Lippard. Chris began his independent career at UC Berkeley in 2004 and moved to Princeton in 2024. His laboratory focuses on the study of elements in chemistry and biology, spanning transition metals, reactive oxygen species, and carbon metabolites. The Chang laboratory develops activity-based sensing and proteomics probes to investigate questions in neuroscience, cancer, and metabolic diseases, advancing new concepts that drive biology and medicine such as transition metal signaling, metalloallostery, and metalloplasia. Chris has mentored over 100 graduate students and postdoctoral scholars in his laboratory, along with another 90 undergraduates and visiting scholars, with 45 group alumni now leading their own laboratories as independent faculty. 

Host: Professor Rene Boiteau