John Lueck

John Lueck is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology and is a member of The Center for RNA Biology at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Dr. Lueck is a multidisciplinary scientist with over nine years of experience designing and managing research projects. During his Ph.D. training at the University of Rochester Medical Center, he gained expertise in membrane biophysics, molecular biology and muscle physiology in studies focused on channelopathies that underly myotonia in myotonic dystrophy (DM). As a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Iowa, he became interested in the field of genetic code expansion and its use as a therapeutic for diseases that result from nonsense mutations with a focus on cystic fibrosis (CF). There he also honed his skills in molecular genetics, protein biochemistry, viral gene delivery, and generation of transgenic mice as models of disease.

His current research is focused on the development of engineered tRNAs as a therapeutic platform for nonsense-associated diseases. He and his team are also developing novel methodologies for manipulating DNA and high-throughput cloning and screening for the development of eukaryotic nonsense suppression technologies. In addition to studying nonsense-associated diseases, his group is focused on determining the mechanisms that underly skeletal muscle weakness and degeneration in DM with the ultimate goal of identifying novel targets for the development of therapeutics.