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Charles "Chuck" Williams, PhD

Charles Williams
  • Assistant Professor Research
  • Office of Research
  • Academic Address: 8254 Life Science Bldg, Room B238A, East Lansing, MI 48824

BIO

Charles "Chuck" Williams, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, with a secondary appointment in Pharmacology & Toxicology. His laboratory studies extracellular acidification as a physiological signal, asking how tissues sense small, localized drops in pH and how that sensing goes wrong in cancer, pulmonary disease, muscle disease, and injury.

The lab's core tool is pHluorin2-GPI, a transgenic zebrafish reporter of extracellular pH that Dr. Williams developed. It resolves discrete acidic microdomains within the first 72 hours of development, at the notochord, otic placode, and myotome, and shows that skeletal muscle holds its T-tubule lumen at a pH distinct from the space around it. Using this platform in an in vivo chemical genetic screen, Dr. Williams identified ogremorphin (OGM), the first selective antagonist of the proton-sensing receptor GPR68, profiled clean against 158 GPCRs and 442 kinases. In glioblastoma, GPR68 inhibition with OGM induces ferroptosis by relieving suppression of ATF4 and increases radiosensitivity; this work has since extended that vulnerability to diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma. Related work links GPR68 to mucin secretion in airway epithelium and to acid-driven loss of pulmonary endothelial barrier function. The OGM series is covered by an issued U.S. patent, US 12,194,027 B2. He co-directs the MSU zebrafish facility with Kari Sant.

Williams worked as a research technician for five years before entering the Cell and Developmental Biology PhD program at Vanderbilt University, where he studied the chemical genetics of vertebrate development under Charles C. Hong and completed his degree in 2017. After a one-year postdoctoral fellowship at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, he joined the University of Maryland School of Medicine as research faculty, where he directed a course in human genetics and continued research with Dr. Hong until 2023, when he moved to Michigan State. Dr. Williams co-edited Chemical Biology: Methods and Protocols (Methods in Molecular Biology) and has authored roughly 30 peer-reviewed publications.

EDUCATION AND CERTIFICATION

Education

2001 – 2004    Vanderbilt University            

2006 – 2007    B.S., Molecular and Cell Biology, Vanderbilt University

2012 - 2017     Ph.D., Cell and Developmental Biology, Vanderbilt University,

Thesis Advisor – Dr. Charles C Hong MD, PhD, FAHA 

“Chemical Genetics of Vertebrate development”     

 

Post Graduate Education and Training    

2017 - 2018     Post Doctoral Fellowship, Dept. Med., Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Link to the lab website:

https://williamslabmsu.github.io/Home/