Researcher

Alice Ting

Profile

Alice Ting is a chemical biologist at Stanford University who develops innovative chemical and genetic tools to study the biology of living systems, particularly in the context of neuroscience and cell signaling. Her laboratory invented the BioID proximity labeling system (evolved into TurboID and miniTurbo), which allows researchers to identify all proteins in proximity to a given protein of interest inside living cells, enabling the systematic mapping of protein interaction networks and subcellular proteomes with unprecedented resolution. TurboID has been widely adopted across biology for studying protein complexes, organelle proteomes, and signaling networks. Ting's group also developed the APEX enzyme-based proximity labeling system, the PRIME technology for genetically encoding unnatural amino acids, and novel fluorescent probes for live-cell imaging. Her tools are widely used in drug target identification, synaptic protein mapping in neuroscience, and organelle biology. Commercial versions of proximity labeling reagents and kits derived from her laboratory's innovations are distributed by companies like Thermo Fisher Scientific, enabling researchers worldwide to map molecular neighborhoods. Her contributions bridge chemistry and cell biology in ways directly applicable to drug target discovery.

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