I am pleased to announce that Alex Kreutzberger, co-mentored by David Castle and Lukas Tamm, is the winner of the Biophysics Student of the Year Award. Alex received his BS in Chemistry and Biochemistry in 2011 from UNC Wilmington where he worked with Antje Pokorny and Paulo Almeida. He joined the BIMS program in the summer of 2011 and decided the next year to carry out his thesis work in the Castle and Tamm labs to work to understand the molecular mechanism of calcium sensitivity of regulated exocytosis. His thesis is focused on devolving a purification of secretory vesicles from a neuroendocrine cell line and reconstituting their fusion into a single vesicle fusion assay. This work led to understanding the roles of several proteins that regulate exocytosis by blocking fusion in the absence of calcium but allowing fusion to occur rapidly in response to elevated calcium levels. He has published four papers from his graduate work including two first author papers in Biophysical Journal. His other papers are in Chemistry and Physics of Lipids and PNAS. Alex was also won the Student Research Achievement Award at the Biophysical Society Annual Meeting in New Orleans last month.
Please join me in congratulating Alex on winning this award. It is well deserved.
Bob Nakamoto
Robert K. Nakamoto, Ph.D.
Professor
Department of Mol. Physiology & Biol. Physics