Professor Lisa Olshansky will receive the Paul Saltman Young Investigator Award at the 2024 Metals in Biology Gordon Research Conference in January.

The award is given each year to a young investigator who has made outstanding contributions to the field of bioinorganic chemistry and includes an Award Lecture at the Metals in Biology Gordon Research Conference, which will take place Jan. 21-26, 2024, in California. The theme is "Understanding and Exploiting Protein-Bound Metal Centers in Energy, the Environment, Cellular Biology, and Medicine."

This prestigious award is given in honor of Paul Saltman, a biologist and pioneer in understanding the roles of metals in human health. He was instrumental in developing the Gordon Research Conference “Metals In Biology” (MIB), which has had a major impact on the international growth and development of bioinorganic chemistry. The MIB GRC is regarded as the pre-eminent forum for cutting-edge research in bioinorganic chemistry.

Olshansky's work focuses on examining the interplay between protein conformational changes and metallocofactor activation. This interplay critically underlies function in many metalloproteins. Olshansky and her team are creating simplified systems in which triggered structural rearrangements result distinct changes in the properties of embedded metal centers. These switchable molecular systems are then employed to unveil the fundamental energetic and kinetic consequences of such mechanisms, and also in the development of new systems for solar energy conversion, biosensing, and catalysis.