The Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences (MCB) congratulates three investigators who recently received distinguished awards in recognition of their contributions to science. Each investigator has been supported in part by MCB’s Molecular Biophysics program.

Dr. Gary Pielak received the 2016 Carl Brändén Award from the Protein Society. Dr. Pielak is the Kenan Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, Biochemistry, and Biophysics and Vice Chair of Facilities with a joint appointment at the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Carl Brändén Award honors “an outstanding protein scientist who has made exceptional contributions in the areas of education and/or service to the science.”  The service part of the Award reflects, in part, Gary’s stint with us as a MCB Program Director. Dr. Pielak works with his research group to study the equilibrium thermodynamics of proteins under crowded conditions and in living cells using high-resolution in-cell NMR and other methods. His research is supported in part by MCB and NSF’s Division of Chemistry.

Dr. Martin Gruebele was awarded the 2017 Nakanishi Prize by the American Chemical Society. Dr. Gruebele is a 2013 National Academy of Sciences fellow, James R. Eiszner Endowed Chair in Chemistry, Professor of Physics at the Center for Biophysics and Quantitative Biology, and full-time faculty member in the Beckman Institute Nanoelectronics and Nanomaterials group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Much like MCB places high priority on cross-disciplinary research (using computational, physical, mathematical, and engineering tools, technologies, or methodologies to address major biological questions), the Nakanishi prize celebrates “significant work that extends chemical and spectroscopic methods to the study of important biological phenomena.” The Gruebele group uses lasers, microscopy, and computational approaches to explore complex biochemical processes such as transport of unfolded proteins within a cell. This work was supported in part by MCB and NSF’s Division of Chemistry, Division of Materials Research, Division of Undergraduate Education, and the Office of International Science and Engineering.

Dr. Dave Thirumalai received the 2016 Award in Theoretical Chemistry from the Division of Physical Chemistry of the American Chemical Society during the Fall ACS National Meeting in Philadelphia. Dr. Thirumalai is currently Chair of the Department of Chemistry in the College of Natural Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin. As noted on the awards web page, Dr. Thirumalai was recognized for his “outstanding contributions to physical and biophysical chemistry, especially work on protein and RNA folding, protein aggregation, and effects of molecular crowding in cells.” The work of Dr. Thirumalai and his research team when we was at the University of Maryland was supported in part MCB and NSF’s Division of Chemistry, Division of Physics, and the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure.

Please join MCB in congratulating Drs. Pielak, Gruebele, and Thirumalai on their awards!