Assistant Professor Brian Paegel Will Receive $1.5 Million.

Brian Paegel

In September, assistant professor Brian Paegel of the Jupiter campus of The Scripps Research Institute won a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s New Innovator Award with $1.5 million in research funding over five years.

Paegel, a member of the Scripps Research Department of Chemistry, will use his award to evolve new molecular tools for protein sequencing.

“Imagine being asked to take apart a sophisticated race car with a single Phillips-head screwdriver,” said Paegel. “This is basically where we are today with protein sequencing technology. We will evolve a suite of custom-tailored molecular tools that will allow us to identify all sites of protein modification, and to correlate those changes with normal cellular function and disease. Our approach integrates the institute’s strengths in chemistry and high-throughput screening with my laboratory's expertise in microfluidic technology development and evolution.”

Winners of the NIH Director's New Innovator Award are selected on the basis of individual creativity, the innovativeness of his or her research approaches, and the potential of the proposed project, if successful, to have a significant impact on an important biomedical or behavioral research problem. More information on the New Innovator Award is at http://commonfund.nih.gov/newinnovator, including information on this year's awardees.