Campus Directory

Pronouns she, her, her, hers, herself, they, them, theirs, themselves

Division Physical & Biological Sciences Division

Department/College/Unit Chemistry & Biochemistry Department

Title Associate Specialist
Chemical Screening Center Director of Operations

Affiliation Staff

Staff Type Academic

Primary Office Location Physical Sciences Building
456

Additional Location(s) Physical Sciences Building 465

Mail Stop Chemistry

Biography, Education and Training

Dr. Rabbitts' research career went from Lewis & Clark's Hermann Lab, to Johns Hopkins pharmacology dept's Cole Lab, to postdocs in Seattle Children's Research Inst's Morgan-Sedensky lab and NIH Balaban lab, and to an assistant research professorship at WA State U where they ran a microscopy facility. They have experience in industry at Boston Scientific, in outreach at the Maryland Science Center and the PNW Mito Guild, in medicine at Livingstone Hospital in S. Africa, and in science writing and illustration.

Summary of Expertise

Currently practiced wet lab skills: fluorescence microscopy and various optical technologies (confocal, DIC, STED and also microscope instrument maintenance), mammalian cell culture, lab automation and high throughput liquid handling, enzyme assays, protein analysis. Additional wet lab skills: PAGE and westerns, C. elegans genetics, recombinant DNA technologies, transient and stable cell line production with construct expression or knockdowns, several oxygen consumption technologies, mass spec, protein and organelle purification, work with bacteria, solid phase peptide synthesis and conjugation techniques, microinjection, quantitative RT-PCR, radioactive work, microarrays, flow cytometry, yeast tetrad dissection.

Research Interests

Dr. Rabbitts is the Director of Operations of the UCSC Chemical Screening Center, a core facility providing trained users with chemical collections, high throughput liquid handling, automated microplate assay workflows, high content imagers and plate readers, image bioinformatics software, and expertise in biochemical and cell-based experimental methodology. Dr. Rabbitts also runs CRO-style tasks for external customers including other universities, local nonprofits, and a variety of companies from small to huge.

Teaching Interests

Dr. Rabbitts is passionate about hands-on wet lab teaching in the research environment, and offers researchers training in skills that are directly transferrable to biotech and pharma jobs. These skills are developed in the context of a wide variety of questions in basic science and global health. Trainees have ranged from high school students all the way to tenured faculty, but most are grad students or postdocs. Dr. Rabbitts also teaches as part of the curricula for BIOC100L and METX125 and as part of the programming for various diversity programs.

Awards, Honors and Grants

First place talk prize, Mitochondrial Research Society (2014)

Postdoctoral fellowship grant, PNW Mito Guild (2013-4)

ASBMB poster prize (2005)

Neely Scholarship (2002-6)

Various travel awards and prizes for conferences

Selected Publications

Rabbitts BM, Liu F, Lossl P, Balaban RS, Heck AJR. The interactome of intact mitochondria by cross-linking mass spectrometry provides evidence for coexisting respiratory supercomplexes (2018). Mol Cell Proteomics 17(2):216-32. Co-first alphabetized in print.

Dancy BM, Liu F, Lossl P, Heck AJR, Balaban RS. The mitochondrial interactome visualized by crosslinking mass spectrometry (2016). BBA-Bioenergetics 1857:e22. Mtg Abstract.

Koopman M, Michels H, Dancy BM, …Houtkooper RH. A screening-based platform for the assessment of cellular respiration in Caenorhabditis elegans (2016). Nat Protoc 11(10):1798-816.

Dancy BM, Brockway N, Ramadasan-Nair R, Yang Y, Sedensky MM, Morgan PG. Glutathione S-transferase mediates an ageing response to mitochondrial dysfunction (2016). Mech Ageing Dev 153:14-21.

Dancy BM, Cole PA. Protein Lysine Acetylation by p300/CBP (2015). Chem Rev 115(6):2419-52, correction 116(14):8314. Review.

Dancy BM, Sedensky MM, Morgan PG. Mitochondrial bioenergetics and disease in C. elegans (2015). Front Biosci 20:198-228. Review.

Dancy BM, Sedensky MM, Morgan PG. E ects of the mitochondrial respiratory chain on longevity in C. elegans (2014). Exp Gerontol 56:245-55. Review.

Dancy BM. Biochemical investigation of protein lysine acetylation by p300/CBP (2013). Johns Hopkins University. Thesis.

Yan G, …Dancy BM, …Alani RM. Selective inhibition of p300 HAT blocks cell cycle progression, induces cellular senescence, and inhibits the DNA damage response in melanoma cells (2013). J Invest Dermatol 133(10):2444-52.

Dancy BM, …Boeke JD, Cole PA. Live-cell studies of p300/CBP histone acetyltransferase activity and inhibition (2012). ChemBioChem 13(14):2113-21.

Martinez-Ferrando I, ...Dancy BM, …Cole PA. Identification of targets of c-Src tyrosine kinase by chemical complementation and phosphoproteomics (2012). Mol Cell Proteomics 11(8):355-69.

Dancy BC, …Dancy BM, …Cole PA. Azalysine analogues as probes for protein lysine deacetylation and demethylation (2012). J Am Chem Soc 134(11):5138-48.

Hermann G, …Rabbitts BM, Warren K. C. elegans BLOC-1 functions in tra icking to lysosome-related gut granules (2012). PLoS ONE 7(8):e43043.

Dancy BM, Yoshida M, Zhang J, Boeke JD, Cole PA. Real-time imaging and quantification of p300/CBP acetyltransferase inhibition using a FRET-based reporter in living mammalian cells (2011). FASEB J 25(1):896.3. Mtg Abstract.

Huang R, Holbert MA, Tarrant MK, Benitski S, Dancy BM, …Cole PA. Site-specific introduction of an acetyl-lysine mimic into peptides and proteins by cysteine alkylation (2010). J Am Chem Soc 132(29):9986-7.

Yan G, Bowers E, Larocca C, Lareau L, Dancy B, Meyers D, Cole PA, Alani RM. Functional significance of a small molecule inhibitor of p300/CBP histone acetyltransferase activity in melanoma (2009). Pigment Cell & Melanoma Res 22(6):904-5.

Hansson ML, Popko-Scibor AE, Saint Just Ribeiro M, Dancy BM, …Wallberg AE. The transcriptional coactivator MAML1 regulates p300 autoacetylation and HAT activity (2009). Nucleic Acids Res 37(9):2996-3006.

Metzger MB, Maurer MJ, Dancy BM, Michaelis S. Degradation of a cytosolic protein requires endoplasmic reticulum-associated degradation machinery (2008). J Biol Chem 283(47):32302-16.

Rabbitts BM, …Hermann GJ. glo-3, a novel Caenorhabditis elegans gene, is required for lysosome-related organelle biogenesis (2008). Genetics 180(2):857-71.

Rabbitts BM, Miller NE, Hermann, GJ. Genetic and molecular analysis of glo-3, a gene necessary for specialized lysosome biogenesis in C. elegans (2006). FASEB J 20(4)A493. Mtg Abstract.

Rabbitts BM. Genetics and molecular characterization of glo-3, a gene involved in lysosome-related organelle biogenesis in C. elegans (2006). Lewis & Clark College. Thesis.

Hermann GJ, …Rabbitts BM, …Priess JR. Genetic Analysis of Lysosomal Tra icking in C. elegans (2005). Mol Biol Cell 16:3273-88.