James Hutchison wins Karpay Award

Posted by daviskd2 on Monday, December 21, 2020 in News.

Congratulations to James Hutchison for being named the 2021 recipient of The Karpay Award in Structural Biology. “I am honored to receive this award,” James said.

James has been a member of the Sanders Lab for over five years, allowing for a multitude of collaborations from all over. Significant collaborations include work with the Mu-Ping Nieh Lab at University of Connecticut, the James Bowie Lab at UCLA, the Bio-SANS team at ORNL and the Daniel Huster Lab at Leipzig University. He believes that having both personal and professional collaborators not only enhances the science, but also a scientist’s quality of life, which is very important in the stressful times of the past year.

Most of his time in the lab has been spent trying to understand the impact of cholesterol and sphingomyelin on the structure of C99, the precursor to amyloid beta. His research can be broadly characterized as developing methods to study membrane protein structure and function.

Among his outside the lab hobbies are heirloom gardening, reading science fiction and enjoying nature with his family.

The Karpay Award was established in 2010 to honor the memory of Dr. Anne Karpay who died after a four-year battle with breast cancer. It recognizes one senior graduate student who is a well-rounded colleague and scientist, who is collaborative and collegial and who has performed exceptional research in the field of structural biology. Dr. Karpay exemplified each characteristic and demonstrated a passion for science, for friendship and for life.

“I look forward to the Karpay Award Seminar every year because it’s always full of personality and great science,” said James. “While I didn’t know Anne personally, the respect and warmth of this seminar series is a part of her great legacy.”

James presents “We’re All in This Together: Choosing the Right RAFTing Partners” on Tuesday, January 19, 2021, as part of the MBTP/CSB Seminar Series. The seminar begins at 12:00pm on Zoom with the award presentation to follow.

The Karpay Award is funded entirely by donations to an endowment managed through the Development Office of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Donate to the fund online.