Charles L. Bloch, M.D. Professorship
College of Arts and Sciences
Eugene G. Mueller is a professor of chemistry and a member of the Institute for Molecular Diversity and Drug Design.
His research interests include the enzymology of RNA modification, sulfur transfer and bio-organic mechanisms.
His research group works on the ways proteins called enzymes alter the standard components of ribonucleic acid (RNA), the large molecule essential to the life of every cell because it allows the conversion of gene information into the proteins that do a cell’s work. Mueller is looking at the conversion of an RNA component into two products: pseudouridine, the lack of which can lead to human disease; and 4-thiouridine, which bacteria use to sense exposure to near-ultraviolet light. The study of this system sheds light on how sulfur is put into a cell’s many other molecules, including vitamins and other essential molecules.
Mueller is national treasurer of the American Chemical Society’s biological chemistry division and is a member of the RNA Society, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Society of Biological Inorganic Chemistry and American Association for the Advancement of Science. He serves on the National Institutes of Health study sections on molecular structure and function.
Prior to joining UofL in 2007, he had been associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry at University of Delaware, where he had taught since 1995. He had been a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at California Institute of Technology and a postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The Phi Beta Kappa member earned his doctorate in biochemistry from Harvard University and his bachelor’s degree in chemistry summa cum laude from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.