Rate My Professor Jennifer Cash

Jennifer Cash is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology within the College of Biological Sciences at the University of California, Davis. She earned a B.S. in Zoology from Kent State University, where her undergraduate research under Dr. Gail Fraizer focused on VEGF signaling. Cash completed her Ph.D. in Structural Biology at the University of Cincinnati in the laboratory of Dr. Thomas Thompson, mastering X-ray crystallography to study regulation in TGF-β signaling pathways. She conducted postdoctoral research in Structural Biology at the University of Michigan, first with Dr. John Tesmer investigating mechanisms in downstream GPCR signaling including RhoGEF pathways, and subsequently with Dr. Michael Cianfrocco, where she learned cryo-electron microscopy. Her career reflects a sustained interest in understanding signaling pathways through structural biology and mechanistic approaches. Currently, she leads the Cash Lab at UC Davis, housed in Briggs Hall, and serves as Faculty Co-Director of the Biological Electron Microscopy Facility.

Cash's research specializes in the structure and function of RhoGEF signaling scaffolds, with a focus on the P-Rex subfamily and other Dbl RhoGEF family members. Her studies employ cryo-electron microscopy, X-ray crystallography, and biochemical methods to analyze protein domains such as the Pleckstrin Homology Domain of P-Rex2 and the catalytic core of P-Rex1, and their regulation by phosphoinositides like PIP3 (PtdIns(3,4,5)P3). Notable contributions include the development of small-molecule screening methods for inhibitors of cellular responses to myostatin and activin A (Cash et al., Journal of Biomolecular Screening, 2013), structural and biochemical characterization of P-Rex1's catalytic core (Cash et al., Structure, 2016), the Pleckstrin Homology Domain of P-Rex2 (Cash et al., Journal of Structural Biology: X, 2019), cryo-EM structure of the P-Rex1–Gβγ signaling scaffold (Cash et al., Science Advances, 2019), and discovery of small molecules targeting the P-Rex1 PIP3-binding site to inhibit functions in human neutrophils (Cash et al., Molecular Pharmacology, 2020). She is committed to advancing structural biology techniques and their application to signaling regulation.