John Kuriyan is currently Chancellor's Professor at the University of California Berkeley in the departments of Molecular and Cell Biology (MCB) and Chemistry. He is also a Faculty Scientist in Berkeley Lab's Physical Biosciences Division, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Howard Hughes Medical Institute is a United States non-profit medical research organization based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. It was founded by the American businessman Howard Hughes in 1953. It is one of the largest private funding organizations for biological and medical research in the United...

 investigator, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences

United States National Academy of Sciences

The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...

. Kuriyan received his B.S. in chemistry from Juniata College

Juniata College

Juniata College is a private liberal arts college located in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. It is named after the Juniata River — one of the principal tributaries of the Susquehanna River. In 1876 it became the first college founded by the Church of the Brethren and has been co-educational since...

 in Pennsylvania, followed by his PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

 under Gregory Petsko

Gregory Petsko

Gregory A. Petsko is an American biochemist and member of the National Academy of Sciences. He is currently the Gyula and Katica Tauber Professor of Biochemistry & Chemistry at Brandeis University.-Education:Petsko was an undergraduate at Princeton University...

 and Martin Karplus

Martin Karplus

Martin Karplus is an Austrian-born American theoretical chemist. He has been Theodore William Richards Professor of Chemistry at Harvard University since 1979...

. He did postdoctoral work for one year under Karplus at Harvard before becoming an assistant professor at the Rockefeller University

Rockefeller University

The Rockefeller University is a private university offering postgraduate and postdoctoral education. It has a strong concentration in the biological sciences. It is also known for producing numerous Nobel laureates...

.

Research

Kuriyan's laboratory studies the structure and mechanism of enzymes and other proteins that transduce cellular signals and perform DNA replication

DNA replication

DNA replication is a biological process that occurs in all living organisms and copies their DNA; it is the basis for biological inheritance. The process starts with one double-stranded DNA molecule and produces two identical copies of the molecule...

. The laboratory primarily uses x-ray crystallography

X-ray crystallography

X-ray crystallography is a method of determining the arrangement of atoms within a crystal, in which a beam of X-rays strikes a crystal and causes the beam of light to spread into many specific directions. From the angles and intensities of these diffracted beams, a crystallographer can produce a...

 to determine 3-D protein structures as well as biochemical, biophysical, and computational techniques to uncover the mechanisms used by these proteins.

Awards

In 1989, Kuriyan was named a Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences, a program supporting promising young researchers in the areas of basic and clinical sciences relevant to human health advancements. Kuriyan was the recipient of the 2005 Loundsbery Award by the National Academy of Sciences

United States National Academy of Sciences

The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...

, a recognition presented annually to a single scientific investigator, under the age of 45, who has made significant contributions to medicine or biology. Additional awards include the Cornelius Rhoads Memorial Award from the American Association for Cancer Research

American Association for Cancer Research

The American Association for Cancer Research is the world's oldest and largest professional association to advancing cancer research. Based in Philadelphia, AACR focuses on all aspects of cancer research including basic, clinical and translational research into the etiology, prevention, diagnosis,...

 (1999), the Eli Lilly Award of the American Chemical Society

American Chemical Society

The American Chemical Society is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 161,000 members at all degree-levels and in all fields of chemistry, chemical...

 (1998), the Dupont-Merck Award of the Protein Society (1997), and the Schering-Plough Award of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology is a learned society that was founded on December 26, 1906 at a meeting organized by John Jacob Abel...

(1994). In 2009 he received the ASBMB Merck award for his contributions to structural biology.

External links

• http://www.hhmi.org/research/investigators/kuriyan_bio.htmlHHMI Investigators bio)
• http://chem.berkeley.edu/faculty/kuriyan/index.htmlUC-Berkeley Chemistry Department bio)
• http://jkweb.berkeley.edu/Laboratory website)