Christianson earned his bachelor's degree from
Harvard College in 1983, and remained at
Harvard University to complete his master's and doctoral studies in 1985 and 1987, respectively. He was a doctoral student in the research group of
William N. Lipscomb. Christianson’s doctoral studies established the structural basis for the catalytic mechanism of the zinc protease carboxypeptidase A. Christianson joined the
University of Pennsylvania faculty in 1988, and is currently the
Roy and Diana Vagelos Professor in Chemistry and Chemical Biology. Christianson's research focuses on enzyme structure, mechanism, and inhibition. Highlights of Christianson’s research accomplishments include some of the first crystal structures of site-specific variants of an enzyme, human carbonic anhydrase II, including variants with engineered zinc binding sites with applications as metal ion biosensors. In 1996, he reported the first crystal structure of an enzyme in the arginase-deacetylase superfamily, arginase I, later discovering that this manganese metalloenzyme regulates the nitric oxide-dependent processes underlying sexual arousal. Subsequent work in this enzyme superfamily included crystal structure determinations of histone deacetylases 6, 8, and 10 complexed with inhibitors (including HDAC-targeted drugs), as well as the surprising discovery that HDAC10 is a highly specific polyamine deacetylase. Christianson has also led the field of terpene synthase structural biology with the first crystal structure determination of a bacterial sesquiterpene cyclase in 1997, followed by landmark structures of hemiterpene, monoterpene, and diterpene synthases from bacteria, fungi, and plants. Later, Christianson was the first to report structures of bifunctional “assembly-line” terpene synthases, along with the discovery that some of these bifunctional enzymes engage in substrate channeling between active sites. Christianson's research accomplishments have been recognized by the
Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry (1999) and the
Repligen Corporation Award in Chemistry of Biological Processes (2013) from the Biological Chemistry Division of the
American Chemical Society, and the
American Chemical Society Philadelphia Section Award (2021). Christianson was also awarded a
Guggenheim Fellowship in 2006. Earlier in his career at Penn, Christianson received the Young Investigator Award from the
Office of Naval Research (1989), a
Searle Scholar Award (1989), an
Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (1992), and a
Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award (1993). the Luojia Lecture at
Wuhan University (2018), the Chemistry & Biochemistry Distinguished Lecture at the
University of California, Los Angeles (2023), the Drug Research Academy Lecture at the
University of Copenhagen (2024), and the Warwick Structural Biology Lecture at the
University of Warwick (2025). To date, Christianson has published more than 300 papers (
H-index = 99) and has deposited 578 protein structures in the
Protein Data Bank (PDB). Protein structures determined in his research group have been featured five times as the "PDB Molecule of the Month". == Entrepreneurial Activities ==