Jennifer A. Prescher

Biography

Jennifer A. Prescher, Ph.D., is Professor of Chemistry, Molecular Biology & Biochemistry, and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. She is also a member of the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Institute for Immunology. Prescher received her Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, where she was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Predoctoral Fellow working with Professor Carolyn R. Bertozzi. She completed postdoctoral training at Stanford University as a Stanford Molecular Imaging Scholar and Susan G. Komen Postdoctoral Fellow with Professor Christopher H. Contag. Her research focuses on developing bioluminescent and bioorthogonal chemical tools for imaging cellular and molecular processes in living systems, with applications ranging from cancer biology to immunology.

Prescher has developed orthogonal luciferase-luciferin pairs that enable multicomponent bioluminescence imaging, allowing researchers to visualize multiple biological processes simultaneously in living animals and cells. Her laboratory has also pioneered bioorthogonal cyclopropenone reagents that react with phosphines and other nucleophiles for selective biomolecule labeling. These chemical tools have been applied to study tumor heterogeneity, cell-cell interactions, RNA dynamics, and immune cell function. Her work has resulted in over 90 publications from her independent career and has been featured in high-profile journals including Nature Methods, Cell, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Prescher is an elected member of the editorial advisory boards for Accounts of Chemical Research, Cell Chemical Biology, RSC Chemical Biology, and Bioconjugate Chemistry, and serves as Associate Editor for ACS Chemical Biology. She is a standing member and Co-chair of the NIH Chemical Biology & Probes Study Section. Her research has been recognized with the ACS Cope Scholar Award, the Paul Allen Distinguished Investigator Award, the Novartis Early Career Award in Organic Chemistry, the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, and the NSF CAREER Award. She was named a Scialog Fellow by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and received the Cottrell Scholar Award.

Education

• B.S. in Chemistry (A.C.S. certified), University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, 2001
• Ph.D. in Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, 2006

Distinctions

• ACS Cope Scholar Award, 2023
• Howard Hughes Medical Institute Predoctoral Fellowship, 2001-2006
• Paul Allen Distinguished Investigator Award, 2021
• Scialog Fellow, RCSA/Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, 2018
• Kavli Fellow, 2014
• Thieme Chemistry Journal Award, 2016
• Novartis Early Career Award in Organic Chemistry, 2015
• ACS Women in Chemistry Committee Rising Star Award, 2016
• Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, 2015
• Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, 2015