Brown and Wan win NIH New Innovator Awards

Posted by daviskd2 on Thursday, October 14, 2021 in News.

Breann Brown and Will Wan, both assistant professors of biochemistry and CSB faculty, have been awarded NIH Director’s New Innovator Awards. They are among three Vanderbilt researchers to receive an award for their high-risk, high-reward research.

The award will support Breann’s project, Off the beaten path(way): Spatiotemporal investigation of protein assemblies controlling mitochondrial metabolism, where her lab uses structural biology and enzymology to understand mechanisms of macromolecular assembly necessary for mitochondrial signaling and metabolism.

Will’s award will help his lab to determine the mechanisms that drive viral infection by characterizing these molecular processes in cellular environments with his project, Elucidating the mechanisms of viral life cycles under near-native conditions.

The NIH Director’s New Innovator Award is presented to exceptionally creative early career investigators who propose innovative, high-impact projects in the biomedical, behavioral or social sciences within the NIH mission.