Sara J. Weaver

About Sara J. Weaver

I am a structural biologist and electron microscopist in Southern California. My research is driven by my passion to apply electron cryomicroscopy (cryoEM) technologies to various problems in biochemistry. Between my graduate and postdoctoral work, I have gained expertise in Single Particle cryoEM, cryogenic electron tomography, and Microcrystal Electron Diffraction (MicroED). I also use x ray crystallography in my work at Amgen. As a postdoc in Tamir Gonen\'s lab at UCLA, I worked on high throughput data collection and processing for MicroED. Through my own research and a variety of collaborations, I worked with small molecules, peptides, proteins and membrane proteins. I also worked on membrane protein biochemistry. My work was funded by a NIH Kirschstein NRSA F32 postdoctoral fellowship. In 2019, I defended my Doctorate in Chemistry in Grant Jensen\'s cryoEM lab at the California Institute of Technology. My focus was on solving atomic resolution structures by single particle cryoEM. I purified a membrane protein for single particle cryoEM. I also used correlated light and electron microscopy (CLEM) to target specific cellular features in electron cryotomograms and answer cell biology questions.

Experience

1. Principal Scientist

   Amgen

   May 2025 — Present · Thousand Oaks, CA, US

   CryoEM administrator and leadStructural Biology and Induced Proximity Platform (IPP) groupsCryoEM Super UserSingle Particle cryoEMMicroEDX-ray crystallographyAWS parallel cluster

Education

• Barnard College

  BA, Chemistry

  2008 — 2012

• Caltech

  Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Chemistry

  2014 — 2019

Skills

• Autodock Vina
• Western Blotting
• Flow Cytometry
• Red Cross Lifeguard
• Lab Management
• Bacterial Culture
• Supply Ordering
• Spectroscopy
• Molecular Docking
• Wsi Certified
• Laboratory
• Uv-Vis
• Uv/Vis
• Cpr Certified
• Sybyl
• Fluorescence Spectroscopy
• Pcr
• Cell Culture
• Molecular Cloning
• Mass Spectrometry
• Science