Contact Information
600 S. Mathews Ave., 63-5
Biography
Professor Sweedler is the Director of the School of Chemical Sciences and he holds the James R. Eiszner Family Chair in Chemistry; he is affiliated with the Departments of Molecular and Integrative Physiology and Bioengineering, the Neuroscience program, the Beckman Institute of Science and Technology, and the Institute of Genomic Biology. Sweedler has authored or coauthored over 400 peer-reviewed publications, has 14 patents issued, and has delivered over 500 invited lectures to universities, companies, and at scientific meetings. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief for Analytical Chemistry.
Research Interests
Professor Jonathan Sweedler’s research involves analytical neurochemistry. He develops new measurement tools that enable small scale chemical analysis, and applies these tools to understanding the chemistry occurring in the brain. He has been at the forefront in advancing small-volume mass spectrometry; he and his collaborators have characterized peptides in the honeybee, planarian, songbird, and sea snail brains, in individual cells and vesicles, the latter being one of the smallest samples ever assayed using mass spectrometry. They discovered and characterized literally hundreds of novel neuroactive peptides, studied the release of several classes of neurotransmitters, and investigated neurotransmitter cotransmission at the single cell and subcellular levels. They are studying d-amino acids and d-amino acid containing neuropeptides. As a member of large international research teams, Sweedler has performed comprehensive interrogation of the genome, transcriptome, and peptidome in a broad range of animals to uncover the signaling molecules and pathways involved in diverse functions and behaviors. A subset of Sweedler's research is designed to understand the molecular (chemical) nature of learning and memory.
Research Description
Professor Sweedler runs a large center for the chemical characterization of the brain, and as such is associated with several NIH centers.
Sweedler is the PI of the UIUC Neuroprotoemics and Neurometabolomics Center on Cell-Cell Signaling, a P30 Center of Excellence from the National Institutes on Drug Abuse that provides the ability to follow neurochemical changes occurring during addiction processes: see http://neuroproteomics.scs.uiuc.edu/
Sweedler is a member of the Center for Subcellular Genomics (http://csg.sas.upenn.edu/) with the goal of providing the ability to profile the chemistry occurring in organelles within cells and relating this to the transcriptomics of those specific cells.
Education
Ph.D. from the University of Arizona in Tucson Arizona in 1989.
Postdoctoral associate at Stanford University with Richard Zare and Richard Scheller, 1989-1991.
Awards and Honors
His scientific contributions have been recognized by numerous awards including the ANACHEM Award, Malcom E. Pruitt Award, ACS Analytical Chemistry Award, ACS Ralph N. Adams Award, the EAS Award for Outstanding Achievements in the Fields of Analytical Chemistry, the Viktor Mutt Prize, Pittsburgh Analytical Chemistry Award, Heinrich-Emanuel Merck Prize, ACS Analytical Instrumentation Award, and the Gill Prize; he is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Chemical Society, and the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Additional Campus Affiliations
Professor Sweedler is affiliated with the Department of Integrative Physiology, Bioengineering, College of Medicine, The Beckman Institute, the Institute of Genomic Biology and the Center for Advanced Study.
External Links
Honors & Awards
Donald F. Hunt Distinguished Contributions in Proteomics Award
Visionary Award, American Diabetes Association
Malcom E. Pruitt Award, Council for Chemical Research
Torbern Bergman Medal from the Swedish Chemical Society
ANACHEM Award, Federation of Analytical and Spectroscopy Societies
The Analytical Chemistry Award, The American Chemical Society
Ralph N. Adams Award, The Pittsburgh Conference
Fellow of the American Chemical Society
Theophilus Redwood Lecturer, Royal Society of Chemistry
Viktor Mutt Prize, International Regulatory Peptide Society
Highlighted Publications
Castro, D. C., Xie, Y. R., Rubakhin, S. S., Romanova, E. V., & Sweedler, J. V. (2021). Image-guided MALDI mass spectrometry for high-throughput single-organelle characterization. Nature Methods, 18(10), 1233-1238. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-021-01277-2
Clark, K. D., Lee, C., Gillette, R., & Sweedler, J. V. (2021). Characterization of Neuronal RNA Modifications during Non-associative Learning in Aplysia Reveals Key Roles for tRNAs in Behavioral Sensitization. ACS Central Science, 7(7), 1183-1190. https://doi.org/10.1021/acscentsci.1c00351
Jia, J., Ellis, J. F., Cao, T., Fu, K., Morales-Soto, N., Shrout, J. D., Sweedler, J. V., & Bohn, P. W. (2021). Biopolymer Patterning-Directed Secretion in Mucoid and Nonmucoid Strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Revealed by Multimodal Chemical Imaging. ACS Infectious Diseases, 7(3), 598-607. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsinfecdis.0c00765
Neumann, E. K., Ellis, J. F., Triplett, A. E., Rubakhin, S. S., & Sweedler, J. V. (2019). Lipid Analysis of 30 000 Individual Rodent Cerebellar Cells Using High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry. Analytical Chemistry, 91(12), 7871-7878. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.analchem.9b01689
Checco, J. W., Zhang, G., Yuan, W. D., Le, Z. W., Jing, J., & Sweedler, J. V. (2019). Aplysia allatotropin-related peptide and its newly identified D-amino acid-containing epimer both activate a receptor and a neuronal target. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 293(43), 16862-16873. https://doi.org/10.1074/jbc.RA118.004367
Morales-Soto, N., Dunham, S. J. B., Baig, N. F., Ellis, J. F., Madukoma, C. S., Bohn, P. W., Sweedler, J. V., & Shrout, J. D. (2018). Spatially dependent alkyl quinolone signaling responses to antibiotics in Pseudomonas aeruginosa swarms. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 293(24), 9544-9552. https://doi.org/10.1074/jbc.RA118.002605
Jansson, E. T., Comi, T. J., Rubakhin, S. S., & Sweedler, J. V. (2016). Single Cell Peptide Heterogeneity of Rat Islets of Langerhans. ACS chemical biology, 11(9), 2588-2595. https://doi.org/10.1021/acschembio.6b00602
Wang, T. A., Yu, Y. V., Govindaiah, G., Ye, X., Artinian, L., Coleman, T. P., Sweedler, J. V., Cox, C. L., & Gillette, M. U. (2012). Circadian rhythm of redox state regulates excitability in suprachiasmatic nucleus neurons. Science, 337(6096), 839-842. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1222826
Recent Publications
Bell, S. E., Xie, Y. R., Maciejewski, M. F., Rubakhin, S. S., Romanova, E. V., Bell, A. M., & Sweedler, J. V. (Accepted/In press). Single-Cell Peptide Profiling to Distinguish Stickleback Ecotypes with Divergent Breeding Behavior. Journal of Proteome Research. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jproteome.4c00832
Dong, J., Croslow, S. W., Lane, S. T., Castro, D. C., Blanford, J., Zhou, S., Park, K., Burgess, S., Root, M., Cahoon, E., Shanklin, J., Sweedler, J. V., Zhao, H., & Hudson, M. E. (2025). Enhancing lipid production in plant cells through automated high-throughput genome editing and phenotyping. The Plant cell, Article koaf026. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1093/plcell/koaf026
Andersen, H. M., Tai, H. C., Rubakhin, S. S., Yau, P. M., & Sweedler, J. V. (2024). A novel series of metazoan L/D peptide isomerases. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 300(7), Article 107458. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbc.2024.107458
Castro, D. C., Chan-Andersen, P., Romanova, E. V., & Sweedler, J. V. (2024). Probe-based mass spectrometry approaches for single-cell and single-organelle measurements. Mass Spectrometry Reviews, 43(4), 888-912. https://doi.org/10.1002/mas.21841
Croslow, S. W., Trinklein, T. J., & Sweedler, J. V. (2024). Advances in multimodal mass spectrometry for single-cell analysis and imaging enhancement. FEBS Letters, 598(6), 591-601. https://doi.org/10.1002/1873-3468.14798