James Hurley

Professor; Kirsch Springer Chair in Biological Sciences

Dept of Molecular & Cell Biology

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(510) 643-9483

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Research Bio

The interplay between proteins and membrane lipids is central to almost every aspect of cell biology. This laboratory is interested in fundamental questions of how the interactions between proteins and membranes determine cell and organelle shape , how protein-membrane interactions turn on and off the signals that control essential cell processes, and how this information can be used to intervene therapeutically in neurodegenerative disease and viral infection. The lab currently focuses on (1) basic mechanisms of autophagy, (2) mitophagy and its role in Parkinson's disease, (3) lysosome biogenesis, damage, and repair in cancer and Alzheimer's disease, and (4) hijacking of membrane traffic by HIV. The major approaches used in the lab are cryoelectron microscopy (cryo-EM), cryoelectron tomography (cryo-ET), in vitro reconstitution, and mechanistic cell biology.

Research Expertise and Interest

Structural Biology, reconstitution, membrane biology, autophagy, HIV, x-ray crystallography, cryo-electron microscopy

In the News

A collage of headshots of all 6 people who won the MTI award

2025 MTI Innovator Awardees Announced

As federal research funding faces growing uncertainty, the Molecular Therapeutics Initiative (MTI) at UC Berkeley is stepping up to support bold scientific innovation.

Seven UC Berkeley Scientists Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Seven UC Berkeley scientists — including a chemist, a psychologist, an engineer, two biologists and two physicists — are among 250 new members elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

researchers wearing protective masks looking at computer screens

The Odd Structure of ORF8: Scientists Map the Coronavirus Protein Linked to Immune Evasion and Disease Severity

Biologists used crystallography performed at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source to reveal the new virus’s unusual protein structure.

diagram of brain as mismatched puzzle pieces

$14 Million Boost for Parkinson’s Disease Research

Two new grants totaling nearly $14 million over three years will jump-start research at UC Berkeley into the molecular and genetic causes of Parkinson’s disease, a neurodegenerative disorder that afflicts more than 1 million Americans, yet whose cause remains a mystery.

National Academy, Royal Society Elect New UC Berkeley Members

Chemist Dean Toste, biochemist James Hurley and astrophysicist Eliot Quataert are the latest University of California, Berkeley, faculty members elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a group that has provided policy guidance to the U.S. government since 1863.

Here’s How Early Humans Evaded Immunodeficiency Viruses

For hundreds of thousands of years, monkeys and apes have been plagued by simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), which still devastates primate groups in Africa. Luckily, as humans evolved from these early primates, we picked up a mutation that made us immune from SIV — at least until the early 20th century, when the virus evolved to get around our defenses, giving rise to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and an AIDS pandemic that today affects an estimated 38 million people worldwide. University of California, Berkeley, researchers have now discovered how that long-ago human mutation interfered with SIV infection, a finding that could provide clues for the development of new therapies to thwart HIV and similar viral infections.

Aiding Cells’ Strategy to Survive

The Bakar Fellows Program supports James Hurley’s research to develop a drug that can help neurons and other cells clear out debris – a process essential for cell survival.

Featured in the Media

Please note: The views and opinions expressed in these articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or positions of UC Berkeley.

May 5, 2020