The National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health has awarded the UW a four-year grant totaling $18.8 million for a Structural Genomics of Pathogenic Protozoa (SGPP) Consortium. The principal investigator is protein crystallographer Wim G.J. Hol, professor of biochemistry and biological structure.
The consortium will develop methods and technologies for determining protein structures in protozoan species that cause such tropical diseases as malaria, sleeping sickness, leishmaniasis and Chagas' disease. The resultant protein structures will also aid in cracking the protein-folding problem.
The grant is part of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences’ Protein Structure Initiative. This initiative has emphasized structural genomics, the determination of large numbers of protein structures by high-throughput experimental techniques. Structural genomics researchers hope to increase knowledge about protein function. Their work may also lead to the design of new therapeutics.
The award to SGPP involves the UW investigators David Baker, Erkang Fan, Ethan Merritt, Christophe Verlinde, Michael Gelb, Fred Buckner, Wes Van Voorhis and Stan Fields. In addition, the SGPP consortium includes Peter Myler and Ken Stuart from the Seattle Biomedical Research Institute, George DeTitta from Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute in Buffalo, New York, Thomas Earnest from UC Berkeley, Peter Kuhn from SSRL, Stanford, Eric Phizicky and Mark Dumont from University of Rochester, NY.
