Robert J Tomko Jr. Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Biosketch
Tomko Lab Webpage
Dr. Tomko completed his graduate studies in pharmacology at the University Of Pittsburgh School Of Medicine’s Drug Discovery Institute, where he became familiar with modern drug discovery and development. His thesis work probing the regulation of a short-lived protein sparked his interest in the cell’s machinery to recycle damaged or unneeded proteins. To pursue this interest, he moved to Yale University, where he was an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry. As a postdoctoral fellow, Robert made several seminal discoveries regarding the assembly of the proteasome, a large, multisubunit protease complex that executes most of the cell’s regulatory and quality control protein degradation. In 2015, Dr. Tomko joined the faculty of Biomedical Sciences at FSU, where his group studies how cells build, maintain, and utilize the proteasome in normal and disease states. His laboratory works on the scale of individual proteins up to whole cells, and integrates approaches spanning biochemistry, cell biology, genetics, proteomics, biophysics, and pharmacology. Ultimately, his group aims to utilize the information gained from these basic studies of the proteasome to exploit its assembly and function for therapeutic benefit in human diseases.
Education
American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow, Yale University, Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry
Ph.D., Pharmacology and Chemical Biology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
B.S., Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Lebanon Valley College
Service
2016 - 2019, Florida State University College of Medicine Research Advisory Committee
2016 - 2018, Dept. of Biomedical Sciences Promotion and Tenure Committee
2015 - Present, Dept. of Biomedical Sciences Faculty Search Committee
2015 - Present, Dept. of Biomedical Sciences Postdoctoral Career and Mentoring Committee
2015 - 2016, 2017 - Present Dept. of Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program Committee
2015 - 2016, 2017 - Present Dept. of Biomedical Sciences Admissions Committee
Honors/Awards
Florida State University Graduate Teaching Award, 2019
Florida State University College of Medicine Outstanding Junior Faculty Researcher Award, 2018
Florida State University College of Medicine Outstanding Junior Faculty Educator Award, 2018
First-Year Assistant Professor Award, 2015
Finalist, Earl Stadtman Symposium on Molecular Biology and Biochemistry NIH, Bethesda MD Jan 6-8, 2014.
Nominee, Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists, 2013.
American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2010-2013
James Hudson Brown – Alexander B. Coxe Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Medical Sciences, 2009-2010
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Most Well-Rounded Graduate Student Award, 2007.
American Chemical Society Outstanding Chemistry Major Award, 2002.
Southeastern PA Section American Chemical Society Award, 2002.
American Chemical Society Polymer Education Committee Award for Outstanding Performance in Organic Chemistry, 2001.
Memberships
2015 - Present, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
2006 - Present, American Association for Cancer Research
2005 - Present, American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
Courses
PAS-5071 Clinical Pharmacology I (Course Director; instructor) PAS-5072 Clinical Pharmacology II (Course Director; instructor) BMS-5186C Research Techniques (instructor) BMS-5525 Bioregulation (ins
Research Focus
Regulation of proteasome assembly and function in health and infectious disease; multidisciplinary analyses of biomedically important molecular machines; proteases and proteolysis
Publications
Dr. Tomko's full list of publications can be found HERE.
Selected publications from the Tomko lab (student authors are underlined):
Rossetti, M., Tomko, R. J. Jr., and Gordon, B. Androgen depletion alters the diurnal patterns to signals that regulate autophagy in the limb skeletal muscle. Mol. Cell. Biochem. 476: 959-69, 2021. PMID: 33128669.
Beesley, S., Kim, D., D'Alessandro, M., Jin, Y., Lee, K., Joo, H., Young, Y., Tomko, R. J. Jr., Kim, J. K., and Lee, C. Robustness of the circadian rhythm requires precise trafficking of the pacemaker PER protein. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA. 117: 28402-11, 2020. PMID: 33106420.
Higgins, R., Kabbaj, M-H., Sherwin, D., Howell, L.A., Hatcher, A., Tomko, R. J. Jr., and Wang, Y. The Cdc48 complex alleviates the cytotoxicity of misfolded proteins by regulating ubiquitin homeostasis. Cell Rep. 32: 107898, 2020. PMID: 32668237.
Nemec, A. A., and Tomko, R. J. Jr. A suite of polymerase chain reaction-based peptide tagging plasmids for epitope-targeted enzymatica functionalization of yeast proteins. Yeast. 37: 327-35, 2020. PMID: 32401365.
Howell, L. A., Peterson, A. K., and Tomko, R. J. Jr. Proteasome subunit alpha1 overexpression preferentially drives canonical proteasome biogenesis and enhances stress tolerance in yeast. Scientific Reports. 9: 12418, 2019. PMID: 31455793.
Rossetti, M. L., Esser, K. A., Lee, C., Tomko, R. J. Jr., Eroshkin, A. M., and Gordon, B.S. Disruptions to the limb muscle core molecular clock coincide with changes in mitochondrial quality control following androgen depletion. Am. J. Physio. Endocrinol. Metab. 317: E631-E645, 2019. PMID: 31361545.
Reed, R. G. and Tomko, R. J. Jr. Engineered disulfide crosslinking to measure conformational changes in the 26S proteasome. Methods in Enzymology. 619: 145-159, 2019. PMID: 30910019.
Nemec, A. A., Peterson A. K., Warnock, J. L., Reed, R. G., and Tomko, R. J. Jr. An Allosteric Interaction Network Promotes Conformation State-Dependent Eviction of the Nas6 Assembly Chaperone from Nascent 26S Proteasomes. Cell Reports. 26: 483-495, 2019. PMID: 30625330.
Eisele, M.†, Reed, R. G.†, Rudack, T.†, Schweitzer, A., Beck, F., Nagy, I., Pfeifer, G., Plitzko, J., Baumeister, W.,* Tomko, R. J. Jr.,*# and Sakata, E.* Expanded coverage of the 26S proteasome conformational landscape reveals mechanisms of peptidase gating. Cell Reports. 24: 1301-1315, 2018. PMID: 30067984.
†Equal contributions
*Corresponding author
#Lead contact
Featured in Trends in Biochemical Sciences 2018; 18: 30150-6.
Nemec, A. A.,* Howell, L. A.,* Peterson, A. K., Murray, M. A., and Tomko, R. J. Jr. Autophagic clearance of proteasomes in yeast requires the conserved sorting nexin Snx4. Journal of Biological Chemistry. 292: 21466-21480, 2017. PMID: 29109144.
*Equal contributions
Tomko, Jr., R.J.,* Taylor, D.W., Chen, Z.A., Wang, H.W., Rappsilber, J., and Hochstrasser, M. A Single Alpha Helix Drives Largescale Remodeling of the Proteasome Lid and Completion of Regulatory Particle Assembly. Cell. 163: 432-444, 2015.
*Corresponding Author
Tomko Lab Webpage
Dr. Tomko completed his graduate studies in pharmacology at the University Of Pittsburgh School Of Medicine’s Drug Discovery Institute, where he became familiar with modern drug discovery and development. His thesis work probing the regulation of a short-lived protein sparked his interest in the cell’s machinery to recycle damaged or unneeded proteins. To pursue this interest, he moved to Yale University, where he was an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry. As a postdoctoral fellow, Robert made several seminal discoveries regarding the assembly of the proteasome, a large, multisubunit protease complex that executes most of the cell’s regulatory and quality control protein degradation. In 2015, Dr. Tomko joined the faculty of Biomedical Sciences at FSU, where his group studies how cells build, maintain, and utilize the proteasome in normal and disease states. His laboratory works on the scale of individual proteins up to whole cells, and integrates approaches spanning biochemistry, cell biology, genetics, proteomics, biophysics, and pharmacology. Ultimately, his group aims to utilize the information gained from these basic studies of the proteasome to exploit its assembly and function for therapeutic benefit in human diseases.
American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow, Yale University, Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry
Ph.D., Pharmacology and Chemical Biology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
B.S., Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Lebanon Valley College
2016 - 2019, Florida State University College of Medicine Research Advisory Committee
2016 - 2018, Dept. of Biomedical Sciences Promotion and Tenure Committee
2015 - Present, Dept. of Biomedical Sciences Faculty Search Committee
2015 - Present, Dept. of Biomedical Sciences Postdoctoral Career and Mentoring Committee
2015 - 2016, 2017 - Present Dept. of Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program Committee
2015 - 2016, 2017 - Present Dept. of Biomedical Sciences Admissions Committee
Florida State University Graduate Teaching Award, 2019
Florida State University College of Medicine Outstanding Junior Faculty Researcher Award, 2018
Florida State University College of Medicine Outstanding Junior Faculty Educator Award, 2018
First-Year Assistant Professor Award, 2015
Finalist, Earl Stadtman Symposium on Molecular Biology and Biochemistry NIH, Bethesda MD Jan 6-8, 2014.
Nominee, Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists, 2013.
American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2010-2013
James Hudson Brown – Alexander B. Coxe Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Medical Sciences, 2009-2010
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Most Well-Rounded Graduate Student Award, 2007.
American Chemical Society Outstanding Chemistry Major Award, 2002.
Southeastern PA Section American Chemical Society Award, 2002.
American Chemical Society Polymer Education Committee Award for Outstanding Performance in Organic Chemistry, 2001.
2015 - Present, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
2006 - Present, American Association for Cancer Research
2005 - Present, American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
PAS-5071 Clinical Pharmacology I (Course Director; instructor) PAS-5072 Clinical Pharmacology II (Course Director; instructor) BMS-5186C Research Techniques (instructor) BMS-5525 Bioregulation (ins
Regulation of proteasome assembly and function in health and infectious disease; multidisciplinary analyses of biomedically important molecular machines; proteases and proteolysis
Dr. Tomko's full list of publications can be found HERE.
Selected publications from the Tomko lab (student authors are underlined):
Rossetti, M., Tomko, R. J. Jr., and Gordon, B. Androgen depletion alters the diurnal patterns to signals that regulate autophagy in the limb skeletal muscle. Mol. Cell. Biochem. 476: 959-69, 2021. PMID: 33128669.
Beesley, S., Kim, D., D'Alessandro, M., Jin, Y., Lee, K., Joo, H., Young, Y., Tomko, R. J. Jr., Kim, J. K., and Lee, C. Robustness of the circadian rhythm requires precise trafficking of the pacemaker PER protein. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA. 117: 28402-11, 2020. PMID: 33106420.
Higgins, R., Kabbaj, M-H., Sherwin, D., Howell, L.A., Hatcher, A., Tomko, R. J. Jr., and Wang, Y. The Cdc48 complex alleviates the cytotoxicity of misfolded proteins by regulating ubiquitin homeostasis. Cell Rep. 32: 107898, 2020. PMID: 32668237.
Nemec, A. A., and Tomko, R. J. Jr. A suite of polymerase chain reaction-based peptide tagging plasmids for epitope-targeted enzymatica functionalization of yeast proteins. Yeast. 37: 327-35, 2020. PMID: 32401365.
Howell, L. A., Peterson, A. K., and Tomko, R. J. Jr. Proteasome subunit alpha1 overexpression preferentially drives canonical proteasome biogenesis and enhances stress tolerance in yeast. Scientific Reports. 9: 12418, 2019. PMID: 31455793.
Rossetti, M. L., Esser, K. A., Lee, C., Tomko, R. J. Jr., Eroshkin, A. M., and Gordon, B.S. Disruptions to the limb muscle core molecular clock coincide with changes in mitochondrial quality control following androgen depletion. Am. J. Physio. Endocrinol. Metab. 317: E631-E645, 2019. PMID: 31361545.
Reed, R. G. and Tomko, R. J. Jr. Engineered disulfide crosslinking to measure conformational changes in the 26S proteasome. Methods in Enzymology. 619: 145-159, 2019. PMID: 30910019.
Nemec, A. A., Peterson A. K., Warnock, J. L., Reed, R. G., and Tomko, R. J. Jr. An Allosteric Interaction Network Promotes Conformation State-Dependent Eviction of the Nas6 Assembly Chaperone from Nascent 26S Proteasomes. Cell Reports. 26: 483-495, 2019. PMID: 30625330.
Eisele, M.†, Reed, R. G.†, Rudack, T.†, Schweitzer, A., Beck, F., Nagy, I., Pfeifer, G., Plitzko, J., Baumeister, W.,* Tomko, R. J. Jr.,*# and Sakata, E.* Expanded coverage of the 26S proteasome conformational landscape reveals mechanisms of peptidase gating. Cell Reports. 24: 1301-1315, 2018. PMID: 30067984.
†Equal contributions
*Corresponding author
#Lead contact
Featured in Trends in Biochemical Sciences 2018; 18: 30150-6.
Nemec, A. A.,* Howell, L. A.,* Peterson, A. K., Murray, M. A., and Tomko, R. J. Jr. Autophagic clearance of proteasomes in yeast requires the conserved sorting nexin Snx4. Journal of Biological Chemistry. 292: 21466-21480, 2017. PMID: 29109144.
*Equal contributions
Tomko, Jr., R.J.,* Taylor, D.W., Chen, Z.A., Wang, H.W., Rappsilber, J., and Hochstrasser, M. A Single Alpha Helix Drives Largescale Remodeling of the Proteasome Lid and Completion of Regulatory Particle Assembly. Cell. 163: 432-444, 2015.
*Corresponding Author