Benjamin R. Morehouse
Assistant Professor, Department of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry, Charlie Dunlop School of Biological Sciences (Primary)
Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (Secondary)
Biography
Benjamin R. Morehouse, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry in the Charlie Dunlop School of Biological Sciences and the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. His research focuses on nucleotide second messengers and chemical signals in innate immunity across evolution, examining how bacteria and animals use cyclic nucleotide signaling to defend against viral infection. Morehouse received a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Biophysics from Brandeis University in 2017, where he studied the cyclization mechanism of limonene synthase, and completed postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute as a Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Fellow.
Morehouse has made contributions to understanding the evolutionary origins of immune signaling pathways, demonstrating that STING cyclic dinucleotide sensing originated in bacteria and characterizing diverse cyclic nucleotide signals in bacterial antiviral defense systems. His work has revealed structural mechanisms of immune surveillance proteins and identified how viruses subvert bacterial defense systems. He has published over 20 papers in journals including Nature, Cell, and Science, with several as first or co-corresponding author.
Morehouse received recognition by the Michelson Medical Research Foundation as of one of five 2026 Michelson Grants: Next Generation Prize winners to support his research in uncharacterized human immune genes. Morehouse received the Chancellor's Award for Distinguished Fostering of Undergraduate Research from UCI in 2025 and the Outstanding Postdoctoral Fellow Award from Harvard Medical School in 2021. He was awarded a Young Investigator Award at the 10th International Conference on cGMP in 2022 and received an NIH NIGMS Early Stage Investigator Maximizing Investigators' Research Award (MIRA) for 2025-2029. He serves on the Early-career Editorial Board of mBio Journal and is a member of the UCI Center for Virus Research and UCI Institute for Immunology.
Return to topEducation
- B.S. in Biochemistry, Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), 2012
- Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Biophysics, Brandeis University, 2018
Distinctions
- 2026 Michelson Grants: Next Generation Prize, 2026
- Chancellor's Award for Distinguished Fostering of Undergraduate Research, UCI, 2025
- NIH NIGMS ESI MIRA 1R35GM157311-01, 2025-2029
- Young Investigator Award, 10th International Conference on cGMP, 2022
- HMS Outstanding Postdoctoral Fellow Award, Harvard Medical School, 2021
- NIH F32 Individual Postdoctoral Fellowship (Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA), 2019-2021
- NIH T32 Training Grant, Cancer Immunology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, 2018-2019
- SPROUT Virtual Incubator Innovation Award, Brandeis University, 2015-2016
- NIH T32 Training Grant, Macromolecular Structure & Mechanism, Brandeis University, 2013-2014
Areas of Expertise
- Innate Immunity Signaling Pathways
- Cyclic Nucleotide Second Messengers
- Bacterial Antiphage Defense Mechanisms
- Structural Biology Enzyme Characterization
- CRISPR Polymerase Decoy Nucleotides
- TIR-STING Filament Complex Formation
- Pharmacological Cyclic Nucleotide Therapeutics
Recent Publications
- Bonhomme D, Vaysset H, Ednacot EMQ, Rodrigues V, Salloum Y, Cury J, Wang A, Benchetrit A, Affaticati P, Trejo VH, Vittot P, Bories C, Cornec A, Levraud JP, Hernández PP, Benaroch P, Morehouse BR, Bernheim A, Poirier EZ, “A human homolog of SIR2 antiphage proteins mediates immunity via the TLR pathway” (opens in new tab), Science, vol. 389, no. 6758, pp. eadr8536, 2025.
- Nabhani A, Morehouse BR, “Amyloids in bacterial antiphage defence” (opens in new tab), Nature Microbiology, vol. 10, pp. 2104-2105, 2025.
- Sullivan A.E., Nabhani A., Izrailevsky D.S., Schinkel K., Hoffman C.R.K., Robbins L.K., Nagy T.A., Duncan M.L., Ledvina H.E., Erbse A.H., Kibby E.M., Tak U., Dinh D.M., Ednacot E.M.Q., Nguyen C.M., Burroughs A.M., Aravind L., Whiteley A.T., Morehouse B.R., “The Panoptes system uses decoy cyclic nucleotides to defend against phage” (opens in new tab), Nature, vol. 647, pp. 988-996, 2025.
- Ednacot EMQ, Morehouse BR, “An OLD protein teaches us new tricks: prokaryotic antiviral defense” (opens in new tab), Nature Communications, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 2527, 2024.
- Ednacot EMQ, Nabhani A, Dinh DM, Morehouse BR, “Pharmacological potential of cyclic nucleotide signaling in immunity” (opens in new tab), Pharmacology and Therapeutics, vol. 258, pp. 108653, 2024.
- Morehouse BR, “Phage defense origin of animal immunity” (opens in new tab), Current Opinion in Microbiology, vol. 73, pp. 102295, 2023.
- Li Y, Slavik KM, Toyoda HC, Morehouse BR, de Oliveira Mann CC, Elek A, Levy S, Wang Z, Mears K, Liu J, Kashin D, Guo X, Mass T, Sebé-Pedrós A, Schwede F, Kranzusch PJ, “cGLRs are a diverse family of pattern recognition receptors in innate immunity” (opens in new tab), Cell, vol. 186, no. 15, pp. 3261–3276.e20, 2023.
- Nabhani A, Morehouse BR, “Say YES to single gene lysis!” (opens in new tab), Cell Host and Microbe, vol. 31, no. 9, pp. 1420-1422, 2023.
- Hobbs SJ, Wein T, Lu A, Morehouse BR, Schnabel J, Leavitt A, Yirmiya E, Sorek R, Kranzusch PJ, “Phage anti-CBASS and anti-Pycsar nucleases subvert bacterial immunity” (opens in new tab), Nature, vol. 605, pp. 522–526, 2022.
- Morehouse BR, Yip MCJ, Keszei AFA, McNamara-Bordewick NK, Shao S, Kranzusch PJ, “Cryo-EM structure of an active bacterial TIR-STING filament complex” (opens in new tab), Nature, vol. 608, pp. 803–807, 2022.
- Leavitt A, Yirmiya E, Amitai G, Lu A, Garb J, Herbst E, Morehouse BR, Hobbs SJ, Antine SP, Sun ZYJ, Kranzusch PJ, Sorek R, “Viruses inhibit TIR gcADPR signaling to overcome bacterial defense” (opens in new tab), Nature, vol. 611, pp. 326–331, 2022.
- Slavik KM, Morehouse BR, Ragucci AE, Zhou W, Ai X, Chen Y, Li L, Wei Z, Bähre H, König M, Seifert R, Lee ASY, Cai H, Imler J-L, Kranzusch PJ, “cGAS-like receptors sense RNA and control 3′2′-cGAMP signaling in Drosophila” (opens in new tab), Nature, vol. 597, no. 7874, pp. 109–113, 2021.
- Tal N, Morehouse BR, Millman A, Stokar-Avihail A, Avraham C, Fedorenko T, Yirmiya E, Herbst E, Brandis A, Mehlman T, Oppenheimer-Shaanan Y, Keszei AFA, Shao S, Amitai G, Kranzusch PJ, Sorek R, “Cyclic CMP and cyclic UMP mediate bacterial immunity against phages” (opens in new tab), Cell, vol. 184, pp. 5728–5739, 2021.
- Lowey B, Whiteley AT, Keszei AFA, Morehouse BR, Mathews IT, Antine SP, Cabrera VJ, Kashin D, Niemann P, Jain M, Schwede F, Mekalanos JJ, Shao S, Lee ASY, Kranzusch PJ, “CBASS Immunity Uses CARF-Related Effectors to Sense 3′–5′- and 2′–5′-Linked Cyclic Oligonucleotide Signals and Protect Bacteria from Phage Infection” (opens in new tab), Cell, vol. 182, no. 1, pp. 38–49.e17, 2020.
- Morehouse BR, Govande AA, Millman A, Keszei AFA, Lowey B, Ofir G, Shao S, Sorek R, Kranzusch PJ, “STING cyclic dinucleotide sensing originated in bacteria” (opens in new tab), Nature, vol. 586, no. 7829, pp. 429–433, 2020.
- Whiteley AT, Eaglesham JB, de Oliveira Mann CC, Morehouse BR, Lowey B, Nieminen EA, Danilchanka O, King DS, Lee ASY, Mekalanos JJ, Kranzusch PJ, “Bacterial cGAS-like enzymes synthesize diverse nucleotide signals” (opens in new tab), Nature, vol. 567, no. 7747, pp. 194–199, 2019.
- Morehouse BR, Kumar RP, Matos JO, Yu Q, Bannister A, Malik K, Temme JS, Krauss IJ, Oprian DD, “Direct evidence of an enzyme-generated LPP intermediate in (+)-limonene synthase using a fluorinated GPP substrate analog” (opens in new tab), ACS Chemical Biology, vol. 14, no. 9, pp. 2035–2043, 2019.
- Zhou W, Whiteley AT, de Oliveira Mann CC, Morehouse BR, Nowak RP, Fischer ES, Gray NS, Mekalanos JJ, Kranzusch PJ, “Structure of the human cGAS–DNA complex reveals enhanced control of immune surveillance” (opens in new tab), Cell, vol. 174, no. 2, pp. 300–311, 2018.
- Morehouse, BR, Kumar, RP, Matos, JO, Olsen, SN, Entova, S, Oprian, DD, “Functional and structural characterization of a (+)-limonene synthase from Citrus sinensis” (opens in new tab), Biochemistry, vol. 56, no. 12, pp. 1706-1715, 2017.
- Kumar, RP, Morehouse, BR, Matos, JO, Malik, K, Lin, H, Krauss, IJ, Oprian, DD, “Structural characterization of early Michaelis complexes in the reaction catalyzed by (+)-limonene synthase from Citrus sinensis using fluorinated substrate analogues” (opens in new tab), Biochemistry, vol. 56, no. 12, pp. 1716-1725, 2017.
Contact Information
Website: https://faculty.sites.uci.edu/morehouselab/
Email: b.morehouse@uci.edu
Phone: (949) 824-4845
Address: 520A Steinhaus Hall, Irvine, CA 92697-3900
Return to topThis profile was created with the help of AI.
Last updated on 3/11/2026.