Harden McConnell

Robert Eckles Swain Professor (b. 1927)

B.S., 1947, George Washington University; Ph.D., 1951, California Institute of Technology

California Section Award of the ACS, 1961; National ACS Award in Pure Chemistry, 1962; National Academy of Sciences, 1965; Harrison Howe Award, 1968; Irving Langmuir Award in Chemical Physics, 1971; Dickson Prize for Science, 1982; Remsen Award, ACS; Wolf Prize in Chemistry, 1984; Pauling Medal, 1987; Wheland Medal, 1986; National Academy of Sciences Award in Chemical Sciences, 1988; Peter Debye Award in Physical Chemistry, 1990; National Medal of Science, 1990; Bruker Prize, Royal Society of Chemistry, 1995; ACS Award in Surface Chemistry, 1997; Gold Medal of the International EPR Society, 1997; Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (foreign member), 1997; Biophysical Society Fellow, 1999

Physical Chemistry and Molecular Immunology

650-723-4571
harden@leland.stanford.edu

Principal Research Interests

Research in my laboratory at Stanford is concerned with the physical chemistry of biological membranes. Such studies range all the way from lipid monolayers at the air-water interface to the regions of membrane-membrane contact that are important in immunology. Current problems being studied on lipid monolayers include an effort to find relations between critical points and molecular structure, and the role of long-range electrostatic forces. The immunological studies are focused on the kinetics of the reactions of antigenic peptides with class II proteins of the major histocompatibility complex, and the triggering of T-lymphocytes by isomers of these complexes.

Representative Publications

1 "Formation of a Highly Peptide-Receptive State of Class II MHC," J.D. Rabinowitz, M. Vrljic, P.M. Kasson, M.N. Liang, R. Busch, M.M. Davis, and H.M. McConnell, Immunity, 9, 1-20 (1998).

2 "Stripe Phases in Lipid Monolayers Near a Miscibility Critical Point," S.L. Keller and H.M. McConnell, Phys. Rev. Letters, 82, No. 7, 1602-1605 (1999).

3 "Cholesterol-Phospholipid Complexes in Membranes," A. Radhakrishnan and H.M. McConnell, J. Amer. Chem. Soc., 121, 486-487 (1999).

4 "Catalysis of Peptide Dissociation from Class II MHC-Peptide Complexes," L. Schmitt, J.R. Kratz, M.M. Davis, and H.M. McConnell, PNAS, 96, 6581-6586 (1999).

5 "Conformational Isomers of a Class II MHC-Peptide Complex in Solution," L. Schmitt, J.J. Boniface, M.M. Davis, and H.M. McConnell, J. Mol. Biology, 286, 207-218 (1999).