Emily Que

Emily Que graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2004, where she conducted undergraduate research in bioinorganic chemistry with Larry Que and in materials chemistry with Andreas Stein. She then attended the University of California, Berkeley for graduate studies, working with Chris Chang to develop a series of gadolinium-based contrast agents for copper-sensing applications. In recognition of this work, she received the ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry Young Investigator Award in 2010. Que subsequently joined Northwestern University as a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratories of Tom O'Halloran (chemistry) and Teresa Woodruff (reproductive biology). There, she developed new imaging tools and methods to investigate how mammalian eggs utilize zinc during fertilization. This collaborative project involved close interactions with chemists, reproductive biologists, electron microscopists and researchers at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory.

Research in the Que lab lies at the interface of bioinorganic chemistry and chemical biology, with an emphasis on chemical synthesis of new molecular tools that will be characterized in the test tube and in biological settings ranging from isolated proteins, cell culture, and whole organisms. Two major areas of the lab include the development of chemical tools to probe cellular metal homeostasis and the development of novel MRI contrast agents for molecular imaging.