Suruchi Singh Receives Travel Grant from American Crystallographic Association

Congratulations to Dr. Suruchi Singh, a postdoc at IBBR in the Hasan Lab, on being awarded a prestigious Travel Grant by the American Crystallographic Association (ACA) to give a talk at their upcoming 74th annual meeting. This year’s theme is “A Golden Future for Structural Science,” with aims to highlight advancements, foster collaboration, and share knowledge through a week in July in Denver, Colorado. Dr. Singh will present her talk, "Secretory Biogenesis and Design of a Next-generation Coronavirus Genetic Vaccine," in the Structural Biology in Pharma/Biotech - Part 1 session at the meeting.

Dr. Singh has been working on this research project for over three and a half years. Little is known about how the spike protein in COVID-19 mRNA vaccines matures as it moves along the cell of a vaccine recipient. Dr. Singh and her colleagues used cryo-electron microscopy, mass spectrometry, and molecular dynamics simulations to study this process, focusing on a new spike construct designed to avoid disrupting normal cellular transport, which is otherwise linked to inflammation and heart problems. This work is important for creating safer COVID-19 vaccines, especially with new variants emerging.

For more information about ACA and their annual meeting, please click here.