STONY BROOK, N.Y., October 26, 2006—Nicole S. Sampson, Professor of Chemistry at Stony Brook University, has been warded a $750,000 Faculty Development Grant from the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research (NYSTAR). The NYSTAR grant was awarded to support the development of molecular-based treatments and diagnostics for cancer, tuberculosis, and fertility that have potential for commercialization within New York State.
Dr. Sampson’s work focuses on the relationship between protein structure and protein function, which is a critical aspect of post-genomic biomedical research. Professor Sampson has elucidated the function of different protein systems using chemical methods. Her work has defined the mechanisms of protein catalysts that are important for clinical diagnostic tests of serum cholesterol and that bacteria utilize during infection of their human host. She has identified what types of biological entities these proteins target, an important step for developing inhibitors of these proteins’ function to provide new anti-bacterial therapies.
Her work using synthetic peptides and polymers has identified protein-protein interactions that occur during mammalian fertilization; discoveries that will be used to develop egg-specific inhibitors of fertilization. Most recently, through the Institute of Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery at Stony Brook University, she has initiated research collaborations focused on regulating cell migration in cancer metastasis.
Professor Sampson joined the faculty at Stony Brook University in 1993 and is currently a Professor of Chemistry and a founding member of the Institute of Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery, as well as a member of graduate programs in Pharmacology, Biochemistry & Structural Biology, and Biophysics. She earned her B.S. degree in chemistry at Harvey Mudd College in 1985, her Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 1990, and then she was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University. Prof. Sampson’s honors and awards include the Camille and Henry Dreyfus New Faculty Award, a National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award and the Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry, both from the American Chemical Society, and the Research Foundation of SUNY Research and Scholarship Award. She has received more than $7 million in research support from Federal and private agencies that include the National Institutes of Health, the Petroleum Research Fund, the National Science Foundation, the American Heart Association, the Dreyfus Foundation, Biogen, and Bristol-Myers Squibb.
