Early career, Dreyfus awards provide funds for He’s protein studies

Chuan He, Assistant Professor in Chemistry and the College, has received a $500,000 CAREER (Faculty Early Career Development) award from the National Science Foundation, and a $75,000 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award from the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation of New York City.

CAREER awards support young teacher-scholars who most effectively integrate research and education. With his award, He will incorporate graduate, undergraduate and high-school students into his research program on the microbe Ralstonia metallidurans, which is uniquely effective in its resistance to toxic lead.

The research could help lead to the design of chelators, which are used to neutralize toxic poisonous metals in a variety of medical and chemical applications.

The CAREER award will provide five years of support for He’s study of proteins that the microbe Ralstonia metallidurans uses to identify and defend against toxic lead(II) ion.

He will use the Dreyfus award to extend the increasingly important role that chemistry plays in modern biological research. Specifically, his laboratory will apply chemical methods to the study of DNA repair (which plays a role in preventing cancer and other diseases) and DNA modification (changes that DNA undergoes following replication). ,p>The Dreyfus Foundation established the Teacher-Scholar Awards in 1969 to support the teaching and research careers of talented young faculty in the chemical sciences.