Dr. Kiana Aran Receives Prestigious NSF Career Award

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has granted its most prestigious award in support of junior faculty, the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award, to Keck Graduate Institute (KGI) Assistant Professor Dr. Kiana Aran.

The NSF CAREER award is given to promising scientists early in their careers and recognizes “outstanding research, excellent education, and the integration of education and research.” This award will support Aran’s research and education activities at KGI.

Aran’s project, “High bandwidth nano-transistors to understand the kinetic basis for CRISPR/CAS enzymes to enhance their applications for diagnostics and therapeutics,” will receive $549,509 in funding over five years.

The goal of Aran’s CAREER project is to develop a single-molecule high-speed nano-electronic platform to better understand the function of CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats)-associated enzymes known as “molecular scissors.” These enzymes allow gene editing and have revolutionized many basic and applied research areas. The knowledge gained will be beneficial for many applications in CRISPR engineering, pharmaceutical drug discovery, clinical diagnostics, and agricultural science.

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