February 25, 2015

Stefan Stoll wins NSF CAREER Award

Assistant Professor Stefan Stoll has received a CAREER (Faculty Early Career Development) Award from the National Science Foundation. The CAREER Program is a Foundation-wide program that “offers the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations.”

Stoll uses an experimental biophysical approach to pursue a deeper understanding of the molecular structure and dynamics of protein-protein and protein-ligand interactions that underlie the mechanisms of all chemical processes in life. His NSF CAREER Award research proposal, “CAREER: Elucidating conformational landscapes in proteins using high-sensitivity pulse EPR spectroscopy,” will use high-sensitivity double electron-electron resonance (DEER) spectroscopy—a pulsed electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) technique that measures nanometer-scale distances between spin labels attached to proteins, allowing the determination of conformational distributions and flexibility in a manner unattainable by other methods—to quantitatively elucidate the conformational distributions in a model protein and in an ion channel.

Stoll’s project will advance understanding of the dynamics of protein host and ligand interactions and the regulation thereof on a molecular level. The foundational knowledge gained through this work is a key prerequisite to the rational design of new drugs and therapies, and the experimental insights will inform ongoing efforts to develop models of protein-protein interactions. The innovative EPR spectroscopic techniques being developed by Stoll are transformational, and will open up a broad range of new possibilities for probing molecular structure and dynamics.

For more information about the NSF CAREER Award program, please visit the program website.

For more information about Professor Stoll and his research, please visit his faculty page and research group website.