LSI Researcher Honored for Significant Contribution to the Study of Proteins

University of Michigan Life Sciences Institute researcher Anna Mapp, Ph.D. has been awarded the 2015 Emil Thomas Kaiser Award from the Protein Society. The award recognizes a recent, highly significant contribution in applying chemistry to the study of proteins.



Mapp, who is the director of the Program in Chemical Biology, moved her lab to the LSI in May 2013.



In announcing the award, the Protein Society notes that Mapp’s innovative research provides molecular-level insight into how genes are regulated at the transcriptional level. 



The announcement continues: “Her work has captured the molecular detail of transcriptional activators interacting with the transcriptional machinery in vivo, defining the resulting complexes kinetically and thermodynamically, work that is regarded as a landmark accomplishment. Small molecules developed in her pioneering work are deployed not only as mechanistic probes, but also as first-generation, transcription-targeted therapeutics.  



“Her research provides a quintessential example of successful scientific reductionism — distilling a complex biological problem into the realm of chemistry.”