Barbara Imperiali

Barbara Imperiali (born 1 January 1957) is a Professor of Biology and Chemistry at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Affiliate Member of the Broad Institute. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Education and early career Barbara Imperiali was raised in England and attended the Southbank School in Caterham in Surrey, followed by Coloma Grammar School in Croydon where she specialized in studying the sciences. She received her Bachelor of Science in Medicinal Chemistry from the University College London in 1979. She attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she received her Doctor of Philosophy in synthetic organic chemistry in 1983. She joined the lab of Satoru Masamune, working to develop and apply new techniques to synthesize a class of antibiotic chemicals known as ansamycin. As a postdoc in the Masamune lab she worked with the enzyme beta-ketothiolase.

In addition to studying glycosylation, Imperiali has also led investigations into how to design, develop, and apply chemical approaches to understand and manipulate biochemical processes for a variety of applications. Her group has collaborated to develop a fluorescence-based method to detect phosphorylation of peptides and proteins to monitor the activity of kinases, which are enzymes that catalyze phosphorylation and coordinate a vast array of cellular activities. This method can be applied to screen for protein kinase inhibitors and monitor their activities in cells and tissues, enabling tracking of signaling pathways and providing a potential diagnostic tool for diseases like cancers that may result from disrupted kinase-mediated regulation.

She has also authored the textbook Chemical Glycobiology.

Awards and honors

Elected Fellow of the Royal Society, 2025 Elected Member, National Academy of Sciences, 2010 Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, 2006 Breslow Award for Achievement, American Chemical Society, 2006 Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2001 Sloan Research Fellowship, 2003