Zygmunt Derewenda, a graduate of the University of Lódz in Poland, is a
structural biologist whose contributions include numerous crystallographic
investigations of structure-function relationships in hemoglobin, insulin,
hydrolytic enzymes and more recently proteins involved in the regulation of
cytoskeleton. He is currently a Professor of Molecular Physiology and
Biological Physics at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. One of his
current projects supported by NIGMS focuses on the development of rational and
effective protocols for the crystallization of cytosolic proteins which do not
form crystals in the wild-type form. The approach used by his laboratory
involves mutagenic creation of suitable epitopes which mediate intermolecular
interactions and consequently crystal contacts. The method has already found
application in both academic and industrial research and allowed for
crystallization of new proteins as well as preparation of crystals of drug
targets diffracting to very high resolution.