The university established the endowed chair to support a university faculty member whose research is making strides at combating cancer and who is mentoring young scientists in biological fields that advance cancer research.
A Rutgers faculty member since 1989, Montelione is an expert in using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), X-ray crystallography, and computational methods to determine three-dimensional protein structures. This knowledge helps scientists understand protein interactions that cause or promote diseases such as cancer, and it helps scientists devise therapies that may be useful in combating these diseases.
Montelione has pioneered methods to automate the analysis of three-dimensional protein structures and has made those methods available to the scientific community in software packages. He is applying NMR to the emerging areas of functional genomics and structural bioinformatics, fields which he helped pioneer.
“Guy Montelione’s contributions are of tremendous value in understanding basic biology and for developing new generations of medicines to treat a range of human diseases,” said Richard L. McCormick, president of Rutgers University. “His leadership and collaboration exemplify Rutgers’ role in advancing knowledge that benefits the citizens of New Jersey and beyond.”
Montelione is a resident member of the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine (CABM), a research and teaching institute jointly administered by Rutgers and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. He is also a member of the Cancer Institute of New Jersey and director of the Northeast Structural Genomics Consortium (NESG), a large multi-institutional project. The NESG has solved more than 900 three-dimensional structures of proteins involved in a wide range of biology from influenza virus infection to human cancer biology.
“Our research center is proud of the honor that Rutgers has bestowed on Guy Montelione,” said CABM Director Aaron Shatkin. “His fundamental contributions to structural biology and the techniques that reveal three-dimensional protein structures have lead to important discoveries that will combat cancer and other life-threatening diseases.”
Montelione earned his doctoral degree from Cornell University in 1987 and joined Rutgers and CABM in 1989. He has published more than 200 scientific papers and serves on several international committees and as associate editor of three scientific journals. He was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2006. He has trained more than 45 undergraduate students in his laboratory at Rutgers over the past 20 years.
Montelione’s distinguished awards include the Searle Scholar Award, the Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, the Johnson & Johnson Research Discovery Award, the American Cyanamid Award in Physical Chemistry, the Procter and Gamble Young Investigator Award, the National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award and the Michael and Kate Barany Award of the American Biophysical Society.
The chair is supported by a $3 million contribution made by Jerome and Lorraine Aresty in 2008. The couple has provided generous support to Rutgers over the years, including a $5 million gift in 2004 to promote research opportunities for undergraduate students. Jerome Aresty, a 1951 Rutgers College alumnus, passed away in 2009.
Media Contact: Carl Blesch
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