Brandon Ruotolo

Brandon T. Ruotolo is currently a Professor in the Department of Chemistry, University of Michigan. He earned his B.S. in Chemistry from Saint Louis University in 1999. Brandon then received his Ph.D. from Texas A&M University in 2004 under the direction of David H. Russell. He did his post-doctoral work at the University of Cambridge with Dame Carol V. Robinson, and was awarded the first ever Waters Research Fellowship in 2008. Brandon moved to the University of Michigan in 2009, where he began his independent career. The Ruotolo research group at the University of Michigan seeks to enable breakthroughs in structural biology and drug discovery by leveraging the potential of ion mobility-mass spectrometry (IM-MS) for the comprehensive, 3D structural analysis of the proteome. To this end, Ruotolo and his team have studied the role of solvation on biomolecular structure, introduced collision induced unfolding (CIU) - a new fingerprinting technology capable of detecting the structural state of protein-ligand complexes and biotherapeutics, developed software packages for the enhanced interpretation and throughput of IM-MS and CIU data, and investigated the structural consequences of small molecule drug-like compounds on amyloid-related peptides. Ruotolo’s work has resulted in ca. 130 peer-reviewed publications, and many awards, including the Eli Lilly Award in Analytical Chemistry, the NSF CAREER award, the ASMS Research Award, the Protein Science Young Investigator Award, and the Agilent Thought Leader Award.