Celia A. Schiffer, PhD 
Arthur F. and Helen P. Koskinas Professorship in Biochemistry & Molecular Biotechnology; Professor & Chair of Biochemistry & Molecular Biotechnology; Principal Investigator; Director Institute for Drug Resistance (IDR)
Office Location: LRB 927
Lab Location: LRB 970A-E
Phone: 508-856-2251
Dr. Celia A. Schiffer is the Arthur F. and Helen P. Koskinas Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biotechnology, Professor and Chair of Biochemistry and Molecular Biotechnology, and Founder and Director of the Institute of Drug Resistance at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School where she has been on the faculty since 1998.
Dr. Schiffer’s contributions to science are in defining the field of drug resistance and developing framework to avoid drug resistance from the very initial design phase. As a structural virologist and molecular biophysicist, she integrates crystallography, enzymology, molecular dynamics and organic chemistry to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of drug resistance and develop robust inhibitors that avoid resistance. She discovered that drug resistance occurs when mutations in the target enzyme alter the balance of substrate recognition to inhibitor binding to favor the substrates.
Mechanistically Dr. Schiffer demonstrated that resistance mutations either 1) occur where drugs physically contact regions of the drug target that are not essential for substrate recognition or 2) alter the ensemble dynamics of the drug target. These resistance mutations are selected from sequence heterogeneities that are often introduced in cancer or viruses by APOBEC3s where she leads the field in structure determination. She defined the substrate envelope and successfully designed inhibitors that minimize the likelihood for resistance in structure-based drug design. She delineated a strategy of parallel molecular dynamics to capture how mutations (often remote from the active site) equate with alterations in inhibitor potency. The strategies Dr. Schiffer derived through her work with the viral proteases are generally applicable in the development of novel drugs that are less susceptible to resistance in other quickly evolving diseases.
Dr. Schiffer has acquired and led numerous collaborative NIH grants from NIGMS and NIAID. She has over 200+ publications culminating from her research that primarily uses a combination of experimental and computational structural biology techniques to obtain key insights into drug resistance. In this effort, over the years, she has mentored a diverse laboratory of over 70 scholars (see below for mentoring statement and awards).
In 2012 she conceptualized and founded the Institute for Drug Resistance. In 2015 she was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology. She was awarded the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 2020 William C. Rose Award, which recognizes a demonstrated commitment to the training of younger scientists and outstanding contributions to biochemical and molecular biological research. In 2020 she became chair of the board of trustees of the wwPDB Foundation. In October 2021 she became chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biotechnology at UMass Chan Medical School. In 2024 she was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Schiffer has a BA in physics from the University of Chicago, PhD in biophysics from University of California, San Francisco with Robert M Stroud, PhD and Peter A. Kollman, PhD, with postdoctoral training at the ETH in Zurich, Switzerland with Wilfred F. van Gunsteren, PhD, and Genentech, Inc. in S. San Francisco, with Anthony A. Kossiakoff, Ph.D.
Mentoring Statement:
As a mentor, I strive to provide a constructive environment, empowering a heterogenous set of scholars to fulfill their potential as scientists.
On this path I have succeeded in personally mentoring over 70 scholars, including PhD and MD/PhDs students, postdoctoral associates and faculty in my laboratory – most who have gone on to successful careers in science and medicine. These diverse scholars came from around the world, and a wide variety of scientific and personal backgrounds.
My mentoring efforts have been recognized both locally and nationally. In 2010 I received the UMass Chan Medical School’s Outstanding Mentoring to Women Faculty Award, in 2016 I was honored by the inaugural Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring and in October 2016 I was awarded the Massachusetts Society for Medical Research Educator of the year. In 2018 I shared the UMass Chan Chancellor's Award for Diversity. In 2021, I was awarded the ASBMB 2020 Rose Award.
I also mentor my colleagues, where I support junior faculty of all backgrounds to empower them to succeed, through grantsmanship and lab leadership coaching. In October 2021 I was recruited as the first female Chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biotechnology and in April 2022 was appointed Arthur F. and Helen P. Koskinas Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biotechnology.