Professor Naomi Chayen

 Naomi Chayen is Head of the Crystallization Group in Biomolecular Medicine

Research Interests:  Structural biology and structural genomics/proteomics    

  The research involves:

• Crystallization of proteins and other biological molecules of medical interest for the purpose of 3-D structure determination for rational drug design
• Crystallization of proteins related to cancer therapy  
• Analytical studies in order to gain an a fundamental understanding of the crystallization process and apply this knowledge to solve crystallization problems
• Design of new, non-standard methodology for production of high-quality crystals for X-ray crystallography
• Design and application of smart and nano materials for crystallization
• Automation and miniaturization to nano-scale crystallization in high throughput mode

 Recent Awards

• Innovator of the Year
• Investigator of the Year

 Selected recent publications  

1. Saridakis, E., Khurshid, S., Govada, L., Phan, Q., Hawkins, D., Crichlow, G. V., Lolis, E., Reddy, S. M. and Chayen, N. E. (2011) Protein crystallization facilitated by molecularly imprinted polymers. PNAS 108, 11081-11086.
2. Macromolecular Crystallization and Crystal Perfection (2010) N.E. Chayen, J.R. Helliwell, and E.H. Snell. Oxford University Press, UK
3. Saridakis, E. and Chayen, N.E. (2009) Towards a ‘Universal’ Nucleant for Protein Crystallization Trends in Biotechnology 27, 99-106.
4. Chayen, N. E. & Saridakis, E. (2008). Protein crystallization: from purified protein to diffraction-quality crystal. Nature Methods 5, 147-153.
5. Helliwell, J. R. & Chayen, N. E. (2007). Crystallography - A down-to-Earth approach. Nature 448, 658-659.
6. Chayen, N. E., Saridakis, E. & Sear, R. P. (2006). Experiment and theory for heterogeneous nucleation of protein crystals in a porous medium. PNAS 103, 597-601.