Constance Jeffery

Constance Joan Jeffery is an American biophysicist and an associate professor of biological sciences at the University of Illinois Chicago. She was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2022. Jeffery is known for her work with multifunctional proteins.

Early life and career

Jeffery was drawn to science and math from a young age, with gene cloning in magazines like Time driving an interest in understanding how these discoveries could further scientific knowledge. Jeffery earned her Bachelor of Science degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1987 with initial lab experience in chemistry and immunology. She earned her Ph.D. in 1993 in Douglas Koshland's lab at the University of California, Berkeley where she worked on better understanding protein structure and function. Following her Ph.D., she was a postdoctoral fellow at Brandeis University and Tufts University School of Medicine. In 1999 she moved to the University of Illinois Chicago, where she was promoted to associate professor in 2005.

Research

Jeffery applies several biochemical and biophysical techniques in her research including x-ray crystallography, ligand binding assays and catalytic activity assays. Jeffery is known for her work describing multi-functional proteins, which she termed moonlighting proteins, which are proteins with a single polypeptide chain that have multiple functions. Jeffery has used crystallography to investigate proteins, and examined how multifunctional proteins can assist with treatments for cancer.

Awards and honors

In 2022 Jeffrey was elected to join the 2021 class of fellows for the American Association for the Advancement of Science for her work with proteins.