I am currently working as a macromolecular crystallography beamline scientist at the beamline BL13-XALOC in the synchrotron ALBA situated near Barcelona, Spain with emphasis in the development of the end station. We are currently looking to start collaborations in the field of structural biology with biochemistry, biophysics, and molecular biology groups. If you are interested please send me an email.

I worked as a post-doc fellow and associate research scientist in the laboratory of Prof. John F. Hunt at the Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia University (New York, NY, USA) in the field of molecular biophysics and protein crystallography. My research in the Hunt lab was devoted in understanding the structural and thermodynamic mechanisms by which proteins perform mechanical activities at the molecular scale [1-2]. The other main focus of interest in his lab was the elucidation of crystal structures by x-ray crystallography within the NESG (Northeast Structural Genomics Consortium) [3-5]. I obtained my PhD in structural biology and biophysics in the laboratory of Prof. Rudolf Ladenstein at the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden [6-8].

Curriculum vitae --- Bookmarks --- Structure Gallery --- PhD thesis

Selected publications

[1] Benach, J., Chou, Y.-T., Fak,J. J., Itkin, A., Nicolae, D. D., Smith, P. C., Wittrock, G. Floyd, D. L.,Golsaz, C. M.,Gierasch, L. M.&Hunt, J. F. (2003) Phospholipid-induced monomerization and signal-peptide-inducedoligomerization of SecA.J. Biol.Chem. 278:362.

[2] Benach, J.& Hunt, J. F.(2004) Cell biology: shape-shifting protein channel.Nature.427(6969):24-6. Review article.

[3] Keller, J. P., Smith, P. M.,Benach, J.,Christendat D., deTitta, G. T., Hunt, J. F. (2002). The crystal structure ofMT0146/CbiT shows that the putative precorrin-8W decarboxylase is a methyltransferase.Structure.10(11):1475-87.

[4] Yu, B., Edstrom, C. W.,Benach,J., Hamuro, Y., Weber, P. C., Gibney, B. R. and Hunt, J. F (2006) Crystal structures of catalytic complexes of the oxidative DNA/RNA repair enzyme AlkB.Nature,439(7078):879-84.

[5] Benach, J., Swaminathan, S.S., Tamayo, R., Handelman, S.K., Folta-Stogniew, E., Ramos, J.E., Forouhar, F., Neely, H., Seetharaman, J., Camilli, A., and Hunt, J.F. (2007) The structural basis of cyclic diguanylate signal transduction by PilZ domains. EMBO J. 26(24):5153-66.

[6] Benach, J., Atrian S.,Gonz?lez-Duarte R. and Ladenstein R. (1998) The refined crystal structure of Drosophila lebanonensis alcohol dehydrogenase at 1.9 ? resolution.J. Mol Biol.,282, 383-399.

[7] Benach, J., Atrian S.,Gonz?lez-Duarte R. and Ladenstein R. (1999) The catalytic reaction andinhibition mechanismofDrosophilaalcohol dehydrogenase: observation ofan enzyme-bound NAD-ketone adduct at 1.4 ? resolution by X-ray crystallography.J. Mol Biol., 289, 335-355.

[8] Filling, C., Berndt. K. D.,Benach, J., Knapp,S., Prozorovski, T., Nordling, E., Ladenstein, R., J?rnvall, H.&Oppermann, U. (2002) Critical residues for structure and catalysis inshort-chain dehydrogenases/reductases.J.Biol.Chem.277(28):25677-84.