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James Shorter, Ph.D.
James Shorter, Ph.D. Receives the Michael S. Brown New Investigator Award
James Shorter, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, is the winner of this year’s Michael S. Brown New Investigator Award. Dr. Shorter’s independent research focuses on the mechanisms by which protein-remodeling factors, molecular chaperones and small molecules antagonize amyloid fibers and preamyloid oligomers. It provides a superb and unique link between detailed quantitative analyses of protein folding and the diseases that arise when it goes awry. This work has enormous significance for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, in which amyloid structures play an important role. Already Dr. Shorter’s views are sought across the field, and his research generates a great deal of excitement; it has been the subject of press releases not just by Penn Medicine, but by the NIH, the Boston Biomedical Research Institute, the Alzheimer’s Research Foundation, and others. Dr. Shorter’s colleagues described him as “exceptional” and “insightful”, and praise him for being a “very conscientious citizen of Penn”. His work addresses crucially important biomedical questions, and will have a significant impact on developing innovative strategies to attack diverse neurodegenerative disease problems.