Chemistry

I have held my current position in the Department of Chemistry at Oklahoma State University since 2014 after moving from the University of California San Diego where I worked as a Staff Scientist at the Center for NMR Spectroscopy and Imaging of Proteins. I graduated from Concordia University with a Bachelor's degree as a Biology major and Chemistry minor. I then attended Kansas State University where I earned a PhD in Biochemistry in the lab of Dr. John Tomich. My research dissertation focused on the channel activity and structures of several channel-forming peptides derived from the human M2 glycine receptor in an effort to develop therapeutics for the treatment of channelopathies such as Cystic Fibrosis. I then moved to the University of California San Diego as a Post Doctoral Scholar in the lab of Dr. Stanley Opella where my studies focused on the structural and dynamic characterization of the membrane viroporin protein p7 from Hepatitis C Virus for the development of anti-HCV drugs.

Research Interests:

My lab's current interest is in determining the structure, dynamics and interactions of membrane glycoproteins. Glycoproteins are a large class of proteins, taking part in nearly every biological process. They participate in the immune system as antibodies and as factors in the major histocompatibilty complex interacting with T cells as part of a the adaptive immune response. They are also involved in white blood cell recognition, cell growth, differentiation, cell-cell interactions and protein folding. Glycoproteins are also indicators for various cancers. A large number of important glycoproteins are integral membrane proteins. They can be found in the lipid bilayers that make up the plasma membrane and the membranes of organelles. Two of the proteins that my lab is specifically interested in are Sarcoglycan, involved in maintaining the integrity of muscle cells, and whose malfunction can lead to Muscular Dystrophy, and Syndecan, a protein used as a marker for several cancers including breast and prostate. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy has been shown recently to be the ideal method for studying large membrane proteins in a native-like lipid environment. In my lab a combination of solution and solid-state NMR is employed to study the effects of glycosylation on structure, dynamics and the interactions of these important proteins. Understanding these properties is an incredibly important component to the development of treatments of human disease involving glycoproteins.

Keywords: Biochemistry, Chemistry, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (NMR), Membrane Proteins, Glycoproteins, Glycosylation, Post-translational Modifications

Please visit our lab website for more information. 

For information, see: https://millerlab.okstate.edu/

Spencer was born and raised in the small Canadian province of Prince Edward Island. In 2012, he completed his B.Sc. with Honours in Chemistry at the University of Prince Edward Island with a minor in Physics. During his time at UPEI, he worked in the lab of Dr. Brian Wagner, focusing on structure-activity relationships of modified β-cyclodextrins for host-guest chemistry. As an undergraduate, Spencer also spent time at the National Research Council of Canada in Ottawa working under the supervision of Dr. Linda Johnston, where he studied the photo-uncaging of ceramides in supported lipid bilayers. In 2012, Spencer joined the group of Juan (Tito) Scaiano at the University of Ottawa as a Ph.D. student. His research in the Scaiano group focused on developing metal-free alternatives for visible-light photoredox catalysis, developing new mechanistic tools for characterization of photochemically-initiated chain reactions, and using heterogeneous semiconductors to catalyze photoredox transformations. After graduating from uOttawa in 2017, Spencer escaped the cold Canadian winters by joining the lab of Larry Overman at the University of California, Irvine as a NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow. Spencer’s research in the Overman lab focused on utilizing tertiary alcohols as radical precursors for the alkylation of medicinally relevant heterocycles and developing a Lewis acid catalyzed 1,4-radical addition reaction. In 2019, Spencer joined Oklahoma State University as an Assistant Professor and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2026, where he is interested in exploring new reactivity regimes in photoreduction reactions and cobalt catalysis.