Frank J. Tucci, Ph.D.

Frank Tucci is a postdoctoral fellow in the Laboratory of Molecular Pathogenesis, led by Elizabeth Campbell, at Rockefeller University. He obtained his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Northwestern University in the lab of Amy Rosenzweig and his B.A. in chemistry and neuroscience from Wesleyan University.

Broadly, Tucci is interested in the many ways microbes respond to and utilize metals. He uses structural methods like cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) and cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) to visualize these processes across scales and in increasingly native-like contexts, including within cells. For his dissertation research, Tucci studied membrane-bound metalloenzymes that control environmental levels of greenhouse gases through microbial metabolism. Tucci’s work revealed key details of these complexes in their native contexts, where they form highly active ordered arrays, shedding light on the remarkable chemistries they catalyze. As a postdoctoral fellow at Rockefeller, Tucci is shifting his focus from environmental microbes to the world’s deadliest human pathogen: Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). Specifically, he studies how Mtb remodels its proteome and cellular ultrastructure in response to extreme metal stress during infection, a defense strategy leveraged by the host immune system.

Tucci’s research has been supported by the Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral National Research Service Award (NRSA) and a Chemistry of Life Processes grant from the NIH. He also received the Rappaport Award for Research Excellence from Northwestern University and the Young Investigator Award from the American Chemical Society (ACS) Division of Biological Chemistry.