News item posted on 2017-07-17

CSB receives funding for TIPs intiative

Vanderbilt University has awarded funding to the Center for Structural Biology (CSB) Trans-Institutional Programs (TIPs) initiative: “A Reinvestment in Cryo-Electron Microscopy at Vanderbilt – VRA.” Initiative participants include CSB faculty and School of Medicine clinical faculty.

The project will reinvest in the CSB by acquiring a new microscope that will enable the laboratory to remain on the cutting-edge of research. The Titan Krios will replace an aging microscope that is insufficient to support the high-resolution cryo-EM needs of Vanderbilt faculty.

The 2017 awards market the midpoint of the $50 million TIPs initiative, launched by Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos in 2015, which serves as a foundation of the university’s Academic Strategic Plan. The awards also support projects and groups that collectively aim to answer big questions and address grand challenges.

Vanderbilt has a thriving group of highly productive researchers who share the goal of using molecular structure to understand cellular function, including 22 structural biology faculty experts in the CSB. These and many other investigators on campus are working on biologically compelling and structurally challenging problems that have become accessible to structural analysis as a result of the revolution in the capabilities of modern cryo-EM instrumentation.

TIPs awards are either Vanderbilt Initiative Awards (ViAs), seed grants that serve as incubators for exciting new ideas, or Vanderbilt Reinvestment Awards (VRAs), which are larger grants for existing initiatives, centers or institutes. The CSB initiative received a VRA award.

Collaborating CSB faculty include: Teru Nakagawa, Tina Iverson, Walter Chazin, Yi Ren, Borden Lacy, Brandt Eichman and Lauren Jackson.

To learn more about this and the other projects awarded funding, read the article online at Vanderbilt News.

Author: Karen D. Davis