Meet The Winners of the 2025 DBC Young Investigator Award
The Division of Biochemistry and Chemical Biology is pleased to announce the winners of the 2025 DBC Young Investigator Award! Established in 2024, the award is intended to recognize early career trainees that are performing mentored research in biochemistry or chemical biology and have accomplished significant innovation and achievement in research as well as contributions to the scientific community or society at large.
The 2025 recipients are Evan J. Burke (Pennsylvania State University), Angel Gonzalez-Valero (Princeton University), Frank Tucci (Northwestern University), and Meg Sheih (Brown University). The DBC will host an awards symposium for these young investigators in the Fall 2025 ACS National Meeting in Washington, D.C. in August. Stay tuned for more information on this event and keep scrolling to learn more about our outstanding winners!
Evan J. Burke
Graduate Student, Pennsylvania State University
Carsten Krebs & Marty Bollinger Lab
About Evan’s Research: I study mechanisms of enzymatic catalysis and control in the iron and 2-oxoglutarate dependent oxygenase enzyme family. I work on the ethylene-forming enzyme (EFE) to characterize, using a variety of spectroscopic methods, how it avoids the canonical conversion to succinate and instead fragments 2OG to ethylene.
You can find Evan on LinkedIn!
Angel Gonzalez-Valero
Graduate Student, Princeton University
Christopher Chang Lab
About Angel’s Research: Proteins are commonly regulated by chemical modifications on their residues. Methionine, one of only two sulfur amino acid congeners, is highly susceptible to reversible modification through redox processes resulting in the addition or removal of a single oxygen atom to the protein scaffold. I focus on identifying single-atom modifications across the proteome and characterizing the biological consequences concomitant with oxidation-reduction cycles at methionine.
You can find Angel on X/Twitter!
Frank Tucci
Graduate Student, Northwestern University
Amy Rosenzweig Lab
About Frank’s Research: Particulate methane monooxygenase (pMMO) and ammonia monooxygenase (AMO) are copper-dependent membrane enzymes that oxidize methane and ammonia, chemically challenging but environmentally crucial chemistries. We visualize these remarkable enzymes directly in the native membrane milieu where they form hexagonal arrays, shedding light on key details that inform climate change mitigation strategies.
You can find Frank on LinkedIn!
Meg Sheih
Graduate Student, Brown University
Ming Xian Lab
About Meg’s Research: Development of methods and small molecule chemical tools to detect and modulate reactive sulfane sulfur species in biological systems that play key regulatory roles in the physiology and pathology of diseases.