Thirty-one UChicago faculty members receive named, distinguished service professorships in 2024. Two of them are CON faculty members: Eduardo Perozo and Yamuna Krishnan. Congratulations!
Eduardo Perozo has been named the Lillian Eichelberger Cannon Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the College
Perozo is a molecular neurobiologist whose lab seeks to define the molecular principles that drive the conversion of different forms of energy, such as electric fields and mechanical forces, into protein motion. He is particularly interested in protein dynamics, which link structure to function. His lab uses a combination of functional measurements at the single molecule and ensemble levels, biochemistry, and molecular biology, performing structural analyses through a combination of X-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy of single particles. These structural techniques help them understand biological functions like mechanosensitivity in hearing and balance, and how proteins sense changes in the electric field across membranes of neurons and other excitable tissues.
He is the director of the newly formed Center for Mechanical Excitability, a senior fellow of the UChicago Institute for Integrative Physiology, and is affiliated with the Institute for Biophysical Dynamics and the Neuroscience Institute. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the Biophysical Society.
Yamuna Krishnan has been named the Louis Block Professor of Chemistry and the College
Krishnan is a groundbreaking chemist who crafts tiny “machines” out of DNA that can be used to monitor and explore how cells work at the microscopic level. Such knowledge can help us better understand diseases and disorders, develop drug targets, and check whether a drug is reaching its intended target in a cell. She investigates the structure and dynamics of nucleic acids, nucleic acid nanotechnology, cellular and subcellular technologies.
She has received numerous awards, including the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, the Infosys Prize for Physical Sciences, the Sun Pharma award for Basic Medical Sciences and the Bhatnagar Award for Chemical Sciences, and the Scientific Innovations Award from the Brain Research Foundation. She has been named one of Lo Spazio Della Politica’s Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2014 and to research journal Cell Press’s “40 Under 40.”