The National Institutes of Health has awarded a five-year, $19.2 million grant to University of Utah biochemist Wesley I. Sundquist, Ph.D., for an HIV research center to study the structural biology of the virus.
Centers grants are different because they are split among different institutions that are collaborating to reach a common goal. Sundquist will serve as principal investigator of a team that includes five researchers from the U. and six from four other institutions: the California Institute of Technology; the Scripps Research Institute; Northwestern University and the University of Virginia.
Together, they will study the molecular structure of HIV to understand how the virus interacts and functions in the cell, said one of the U. senior investigators, Chris Hill, Ph.D., a professor of biochemistry.
Three multi-million-dollar grants were awarded to establish HIV centers. The others went to the University of California San Francisco and the University of Pittsburgh, which will each tackle different HIV-related research projects with their collaborating partners.
The U. investigators are: Christopher P. Hill, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry; Dr. Michael S. Kay, Ph.D., assistant professor of biochemistry; David G. Myszka, Ph.D., research associate professor of biochemistry; Jill Trewhella, Ph.D., adjunct professor of chemistry; and Gregory A. Voth, Ph.D., distinguished professor of chemistry.
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