The Ralph W. and Grace M. Showalter Trust was established in 1975 to support research in the areas of:  environmental research, biochemistry and molecular biology, disease diagnosis and treatment, technologies for food development, and medical instrumentation.  Kinzer-Ursem, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, researches protein-bound surfaces, which are used by biomolecular technologies to detect and quantify protein interactions with pathogens, toxins, drug targets, protein biomarkers, or cellular signaling molecules in a wide range of ecological, medical and pharmaceutical applications. 

The objective of this project is to quantify the impact that surface treatments have on minimizing non-specific protein interactions and maximizing protein function. The results will be used by Kinzer-Ursem and colleagues to develop new platforms for: screening kinase and phosphatase inhibitors, measurement and quantification of protein-protein interactions, imaging protein structure via cryo-electron microscopy, and novel protein-nanoparticle biosensors.