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Scripps Research Institute Geoffrey Chang Wins EUREKA Award
Associate Professor Geoffrey Chang has been awarded a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant "for exceptionally innovative research projects that could have an extraordinarily significant impact on many areas of science." The grant, part of the NIH EUREKA (for Exceptional, Unconventional Research Enabling Knowledge Acceleration) program, is designed to help investigators test novel, often unconventional hypotheses or tackle major methodological or technical challenges.

Chang is interested in the structural basis of the transport of substrate across the cell membrane by ion channels and transporters; he determines the structures of such integral membrane proteins through high-resolution x-ray crystallography. This project develops a new technology to aid in the formation of tight-binding protein scaffolds to chaperone the formation of integral membrane protein crystals. Chang's EUREKA project is titled, "Affinity Maturation Via in vitro Evolution at the Lab Bench-Top."

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