{"id":3054,"date":"2021-09-28T16:49:37","date_gmt":"2021-09-28T16:49:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medschool.prd.vanderbilt.edu\/mpb\/?p=3054"},"modified":"2021-09-28T16:49:37","modified_gmt":"2021-09-28T16:49:37","slug":"teru-nakagawa-received-the-stanley-cohen-innovation-fund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/mpb\/2021\/09\/28\/teru-nakagawa-received-the-stanley-cohen-innovation-fund\/","title":{"rendered":"Teru Nakagawa receives the 2021 Stanley Cohen Innovation Fund"},"content":{"rendered":"

https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/basic-sciences\/2021\/09\/28\/cohen-innovation-fund-awards-announced-supporting-two-high-risk-high-reward-projects\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Cohen Innovation Fund Awards Announced Supporting Two High-Risk, High-Reward Projects<\/h1>\n

Posted by\u00a0dostersm<\/a>\u00a0on Tuesday, September 28, 2021 in\u00a0Discoveries<\/a>\u00a0.<\/small><\/p>\n

By Aaron Conley<\/em><\/p>\n

\"News
Stanley Cohen and Vanderbilt Chancellor Joe Wyatt (1986).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Houra Merrikh<\/strong>, professor of biochemistry, and\u00a0Teru Nakagawa<\/strong>, associate professor of molecular physiology and biophysics, have both been selected to receive one-year research awards from the\u00a0Stanley Cohen Innovation Fund<\/a>. The awards will support groundbreaking and paradigm-shifting research, including Merrikh\u2019s study of the molecular drivers of evolution that enables cancer to develop resistance to drugs and Nakagawa\u2019s study of the biological significance of lipids associated with membrane proteins.<\/p>\n

\"Headshot
Larry Marnett<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Established through philanthropy in 2019 and named after the late Nobel laureate\u00a0Stanley Cohen<\/strong>, emeritus professor of biochemistry, the Cohen fund annually supports innovative early-phase research projects that are high risk yet potentially high reward. These awards honor Cohen\u2019s curiosity-driven seminal discoveries in growth factor signaling, which laid the groundwork for our understanding of embryonic and cancer development and led to the invention of\u00a0numerous anticancer drugs that are still used today. \u201cWe\u2019ve arrived at a moment of celebration,\u201d said\u00a0Larry Marnett<\/strong>, dean of the School of Medicine Basic Sciences. \u201cThe Cohen fund has reached our initial goal thanks to contributions from donors and matching institutional investment. This model of co-investment\u2014where donors and departments come together\u2014is propelling some very exciting work here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Teru Nakagawa \u2013 Biological Significance of Lipids Associated with Membrane Proteins<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Headshot
Nancy Carrasco<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cMembrane-embedded proteins play numerous critical roles in cell physiology,\u201d said Dr. Nancy Carrasco, chair of the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics and holder of the Joe C. Davis Chair in Biomedical Science. \u201cMoreover, mutations in and other dysfunctions of membrane proteins are often associated with human disease.\u201d Nakagawa seeks to determine the biological significance of lipids surrounding membrane proteins, as this \u201ccould create a paradigm-shifting leap beyond conventional structural biology of membrane proteins.\u201d His work may fill an elusive gap in scientific knowledge, which is highly relevant to health as a foundational aspect of how the body functions.<\/p>\n

Nakagawa, a recipient of NARSAD\u2019s Young and Independent Investigator Awards and the Kazato Prize in Electron Microscopy, has been at the forefront of structural biology, specifically through the use of cryo-electron microscopy, throughout his career. Cyro-EM is a technique that uses electrons to obtain images of a given sample; because of the physical properties of electrons, electron microscopes yield images with a higher resolution than conventional light microscopes. The downside of using electrons, however, is that the high-energy beam can damage samples. This is where the \u201ccryo\u201d part comes in: to protect them, researchers must freeze the samples on scaffolds called grids. Nakagawa has been making discoveries using cryo-EM since 2005, including work leading to a solo-authored paper in\u00a0Science<\/em>, a rarity in any field of science, in 2019 on a very high-resolution structure of a recombinant glutamate receptor complex.<\/p>\n

\"Headshot
Teru Nakagawa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cNakagawa\u2019s project was born of his recognition of a fundamental problem: that membrane proteins reside in a lipid bilayer, and that the potential structural and functional influences of protein-lipid interactions within the bilayer have largely been ignored,\u201d said Carrasco. \u201cThis high-impact project will open a new frontier, with the potential to bring about a paradigm shift in our understanding of all membrane proteins, which will affect future discoveries all along the spectrum of biomedical research.\u201d Carrasco believes that the project echoes the revolutionary impact of Stanley Cohen\u2019s career.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Supporting the Cohen Innovation Fund<\/strong><\/p>\n

With the rapid advancement of research and computational technologies, we are at an exciting time in science, ready to make leaps toward managing or curing many diseases. The faculty and research labs in the School of Medicine Basic Sciences are at the vanguard of these advances while simultaneously training the next generation of discovery scientists. The Cohen fund plays a key role in enabling our faculty to pursue curiosity-driven questions at the forefront of science to impact human health.<\/p>\n

To support the Cohen Innovation Fund,\u00a0online gifts can be submitted here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/basic-sciences\/2021\/09\/28\/cohen-innovation-fund-awards-announced-supporting-two-high-risk-high-reward-projects\/ Cohen Innovation Fund Awards Announced Supporting Two High-Risk, High-Reward Projects Posted by\u00a0dostersm\u00a0on Tuesday, September 28, 2021 in\u00a0Discoveries\u00a0. By Aaron Conley Stanley Cohen and Vanderbilt Chancellor Joe Wyatt (1986). Houra Merrikh, professor of biochemistry, and\u00a0Teru Nakagawa, associate professor of molecular physiology and biophysics, have both been selected to receive one-year research awards from the\u00a0Stanley Cohen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":586,"featured_media":3057,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","post_format-post-format-link"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/t2-main\/medschool-prd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2021\/09\/Nakagawa_2020_headshot-273x300-1.jpg","ACF":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/mpb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/mpb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/mpb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/mpb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/586"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/mpb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/mpb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/mpb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/mpb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/mpb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medschool.vanderbilt.edu\/mpb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}