Beckman Coulter award enables two scientists to attend Advanced Analytical Ultracentrifugation Workshop and Symposium

Beckman Coulter Life Sciences continues its collaboration with one of the nation’s leading Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers (I/UCRC), by awarding scholarships to two young scientists using analytical ultracentrifugation in their research.

The award enables the researchers to attend the prestigious Advanced Analytical Ultracentrifugation Workshop and Symposium, an initiative from New Hampshire’s Biomolecular Interaction Technology Center (BITC). The Advanced AUC workshop is a leading scientific event for promoting training, collaboration, and innovation in the field of protein interaction science and technology. It will be held in Danbury, Connecticut, from October 16-19, 2016.

BITC was founded as a National Science Foundation (NSF) I/UCRC by Prof Tom Laue at the University of New Hampshire. It has since become a stand-alone industry-university research consortium, involving leading biotechnology companies and the Universities of New Hampshire and Delaware.

“Beckman Coulter is pleased to collaborate with the Biomolecular Interaction Technology Center in encouraging the next generation of young scientists,” said Beckman Coulter Life Sciences AUC Product Manager, Dr. Chad Schwartz. “The award enables two promising researchers, already familiar with the power of analytical ultracentrifugation, to expand their knowledge so that they can fully exploit its potential in their research.”

By attending the symposium, they will have the opportunity to discuss advanced analytical ultracentrifugation topics and specialized methods with experts. They will learn to characterize macromolecular interactions and complex mixtures, expanding their understanding of the latest experimental approaches and data analysis methods.

Beckman Coulter has always been at the leading edge of centrifuge innovation and commercialized the first analytical ultracentrifuge in 1954. It has just launched the Optima AUC, a next generation analytical ultracentrifuge with many enhanced capabilities. Although analytical ultracentrifugation is a recognized technique for protein characterization, researchers have realized the technology’s value for characterizing a wide array of particles including peptides, polymers, metallic nanoparticles, liposomes and other non-biological materials. The new Optima AUC allows molecules to float free and unbound so that researchers are able to characterize them in their native state. For more information: beckman.com/centrifuges/analytical-ultracentrifuges/optima-auc

BITC committee members selected Stephen Hessler and Tyler Daman for the award. The work of both candidates demonstrated great potential for using analytical ultracentrifugation in their future research careers. Stephen is a PhD. graduate student studying in the lab of James Cole at the University of Connecticut. For his thesis research, he intends to pursue some fundamental questions regarding the mechanism of activation of PKR, an important protein involved in the innate immune response and the body’s response to viral infection.  Tyler Daman is a PhD graduate student studying in the lab of Victoria Robinson at the University of Connecticut.  He is studying the intrinsically disordered features of Drosophila Nucleostemin using SAXS and various biophysical techniques, including AUC.