Winston-Salem, N.C. – The Center for Structural Biology at Wake Forest University has received an Institutional Development Grant from the North Carolina Biotechnology Center’s Science and Technology Development Program to assist in the development of an integrated facility to study genetically modified proteins and the related chemical processes that support all life.
The one-year grant is for $232,331. “This funding, combined with generous matching support from WFU Health Sciences, will enable researchers from the center, from WFU, and from the Piedmont Triad research community to more effectively carry out cutting-edge investigations into protein structures and functions, which are fundamentals of biotechnology,” said Al Claiborne, Ph.D., center co-director.
Mark Lively, Ph.D., center co-director, added, “Funds provided by the grant will also help extend the capabilities of the proteomics laboratory at the Center for Structural Biology. The proteomics laboratory will now have the capability to perform advanced analyses of complex mixtures of proteins, which are of importance to investigations in many areas of biomedical research.”
Headquartered in Research Triangle Park, the Biotechnology Center (www.ncbiotech.org) is a private, non-profit corporation supported by the North Carolina General Assembly. Its mission is to provide long-term economic and societal benefits to North Carolina by supporting biotechnology research, business, and education statewide. Gwyn F. Riddick is the director of the Biotechnology Center’s Piedmont Triad satellite office, located in downtown Winston-Salem’s Piedmont Triad Research Park (www.ptrp.org).
“This grant is an example of the efforts of the North Carolina Biotechnology Center to strengthen the state’s infrastructure for biotechnology research,” said Riddick. “Advanced integrated research facilities are essential prerequisites for scientific advances leading to new products and applications in the marketplace.”
The Center for Structural Biology (http://csb.wfu.edu) is an interdisciplinary research and educational organization established in 2003 by Wake Forest and the university’s Health Sciences division. Programmatic research focuses on three areas: redox (oxidation-reduction) biology, nucleic acid modification and repair, and computational biophysics. The center is based at the Bowman Gray Technical Center, 950 Reynolds Boulevard, in Winston-Salem.
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Media Contacts: Name and email address of author; Shannon Koontz, shkoontz@wfubmc.edu, or Karen Richardson, krchrdsn@wfubmc.edu, at 336-716-4587.