Professor Naomi Chayen

Naomi Chayen is Head of the Crystallization Group in Computational and Systems Medicine

Research Interests: 

Structural biology and structural genomics/proteomics.

- 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

• Women of Outstanding Achievement for Innovation & Entrepreneurship Commendation (2012) 
• Innovator of the Year (2011)
• Investigator of the Year (2011)

 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.