Past Projects

Rachel Werther has Bachelor and Master of Science Degrees, both in Chemistry, from Western Washington University where she learned protein crystallography.  She worked in a lab studying evolutionary changes and irregularities in collagen cross-linking in the Eyre Lab at the University of Washington for two years.  Then she returned to structural biology for a five-year adventure in X-ray crystallography in the Stoddard Lab at Fred Hutch.

Current Projects

Rachel joined the Campbell Lab as a Research Technician in October 2020.  She is interested in the structure and ligand complements of the beta 2 integrins.  She maintains mammalian cell lines and uses negative stain and cryoEM methods to support the Campbell Lab’s structural studies.

Rachel also promotes Hutch United in it’s mission to recruit, retain, and support underrepresented scientists.

Publications

Shen BW, Doyle LA, Werther R, Westburg AA, Bies DP, Walter SI, Luyten YA, Morgan RD, Stoddard BL, Kaiser BK. Structure, substrate binding and activity of a unique AAA+ protein: the BrxL phage restriction factor. Nucleic Acids Res. 2023 May 8;51(8):3513-3528. doi: 10.1093/nar/gkad083. PMID: 36794719; PMCID: PMC10164562.

Forsberg KJ, Schmidtke DT, Werther R, Hausman D, Sommer MOA, Stoddard BL, Kaiser BK, Malik HS, The novel anti-CRISPR AcrIIA22 relieves DNA torsion in target plasmids and impairs SpyCas9 activity, PLoS Biol. 2021 Oct 13;19(10):e3001428.

Lambert AR, Hallinan JP, Werther R, Glow D, Stoddard BL, Optimization of protein thermostability and exploitation of recognition behavior to engineer altered protein DNA-binding specificity, Structure. 2020 Jul 7, 28(7):760-775.e8.

Werther R, Hallinan JP, Lambert AR, Havens K, Pogson M, Jarjour J, Galizi R, Windbichler N, Crisanti A, Nolan T, Stoddard BL, Crystallographic analyses illustrate significant plasticity and efficient recoding of meganuclease target specificity. Nucleic Acids Res. 2017 Aug 21, 45(14):8621-8634.

Niyonzima N, Lambert AR, Werther R, De Silva Feelixge H, Roychoudhury P, Greninger AL, Stone D, Stoddard BL, Jerome KR, Tuning DNA binding affinity and cleavage specificity of an engineered gene- targeting nuclease via surface display, flow cytometry and cellular analyses. Protein Eng Des Sel. 2017 Jul 1, 30(7):503-522.

Hudson DM, Joeng KS, Werther R, Rajagopal A, Weis M, Lee BH, Eyre DR, Post-translationally abnormal collagens of prolyl 3-hydroxylase-2 null mice offer a pathobiological mechanism for the high myopia linked to human LEPREL1 mutations. J Biol Chem. 2015 Mar 27, 290(13):8613-22.

Hudson DM, Werther R, Weis M, Wu JJ, Eyre DR., Evolutionary origins of (GPP)n 3-hydroxyproline formation in vertebrate tendon collagen. PLoS One. 2014 Apr 2, 9(4):e93467.

Walter JD, Werther RA, Polozova MS, Pohlman J, Healey JF, Meeks SL, Lollar P, Speigel PC Jr., Characterization and solution structure of the factor VIII C2 domain in a ternary complex with classical and non-classical inhibitor antibodies. J Biol Chem 2013 Apr 5, 288(14):9905-14.

Walter JD, Werther RA, Brison CM, Cragerud RK, Healey JF, Meeks SL, Lollar P, Speigel PC Jr., Structure of the Factor VIII C2 Domain in a Ternary Complex with Two Inhibitor Antibodies Reveals Classical and Non-Classical Epitopes. Blood 2013 Dec 19;122(26):4270-8.