UCLA biochemistry professor Sabeeha Merchant wins prestigious rese...( ildren and a dog and not enough food t...)

ildren and a dog, and not enough food to feed them all, you might choose to give all the food to your kids; that's apparently what happens in our bodies -- prioritized allocation of nutrients like copper. This happens not just in algae, but in humans as well. Some copper enzymes in humans are more important than others, such as those involved in respiratory metabolism. The human body has mechanisms to preferentially allocate copper enzymes to where they are needed most."

Copper nutrition is not a big human health problem, except in cases of malnutrition and with premature infants, Merchant said.

Her research in Chlamydomonas may reveal mechanisms that work in humans and animals, as well.

"I want to know how nature works, and also hope our research has an impact on human nutrition," she said.

Merchant was chosen to receive the Gilbert Morgan Smith Medal "for her pioneering discoveries in the assembly of metalloenzymes and the regulated biogenesis of major complexes of the photosynthetic apparatus in green algae," the National Academy of Sciences said.

The medal has been presented every third year since 1979.

The National Academy of Sciences is a nonprofit society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Since 1863, the National Academy of Sciences has served to "investigate, examine, experiment, and report upon any subject of science or art" whenever called upon to do so by any department of the government.

Merchant has been awarded research grants from the National Institutes of Health within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

She was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science last year, and is presently associate director of UCLA's Molecular Biology Inst
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Contact: Stuart Wolpert
swolpert@support.ucla.edu
310-206-0511
University of California - Los Angeles
10-Feb-2006

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