Blair Pyne Fund Awarded to Nieng Yan

This year, the J. Insley Blair Pyne Fund was awarded to Nan Yao, a senior research scholar and lecturer with the rank of professor at the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials (PRISM), and Nieng Yan, Princeton’s Shirley M. Tilghman Professor of Molecular Biology. Building on previous collaborative work, Yao and Yan plan to invent a new device and novel approaches to study the structures of voltage-gated ion channels, which are responsible for generating and propagating electrical signaling in the nervous system. Understanding the structures and mechanisms of these channels at atomic-level resolution could inform the development of new therapies for conditions such as chronic pain, epilepsy and autism.