Today the Human Frontier Science Program has announced the list of the awardees in the latest 2020 call, among which featured our Sílvia Osuna (ICREA) with a research project on “the evolution of conformational and kinetic ensembles during functional transitions” (RGP0054/2020). The team of the project is composed by Prof. Tokuriki (grant coordinator, University of British Columbia, CAN), Prof. Fraser (University of California, San Francisco, US), Prof. Noji (University of Tokyo, JP), and Prof. Osuna (IQCC, UdG). Their application was ranked 7th among 20 awards made from 60 full applications received for Program Grants (from an initial total of 549 letters of intent). The HFSP grant is 450.000 USD per year for a period of three years for the whole collaborative team (in total 1.350.000 USD). In this project, a detailed resolution picture of conformational and catalytic changes across the evolutionary transitions between divergent enzyme functions will be achieved via the integration of diverse cutting-edge approaches, including: directed evolution (DE), single-molecule enzyme kinetics, dynamic structural biology, and computational simulations.
Congratulations Sílvia!!