Striegel and Spence Receive Lilly Awards

The recipients of Eli Lilly & Co.'s annual Analytical Chemistry Grantee Award are André Striegel, an assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Florida State University, Tallahassee, and Megan Spence, an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh.

The award is given to new professors who have distinguished themselves as leaders in the field of analytical chemistry. Each winner receives a one-year $35,000 unsolicited, unrestricted grant that can be renewed for a second year.

Striegel's research focuses on separation science of both natural and synthetic polymers, as well as on using polymers to probe fundamental mechanisms, biases, and relative advantages of various separation methods and detection techniques.

Striegel and his colleagues use separation science to probe areas as dissimilar as the measurement of parameters directly related to docking and binding, biomolecular recognition, and mimicry, as well as to study the influence of polymeric architecture and dilute solution conformation on macromolecular behavior and degradation. Their principal tool is size-exclusion chromatography coupled to a multiplicity of detection methods.

Spence is studying peripheral and integral membrane proteins with nuclear magnetic resonance techniques. She is looking at a group of neurotoxins isolated from tarantula venom whose mechanism of toxicity involves inhibiting transmembrane ion channels. NMR structural studies of the toxins in the membrane, as well as solid-state NMR studies of the membrane itself, could offer insight into the molecular mechanism of this ion channel inhibition.