Professor Juli Feigon receives the prestigious 2022 McCoy Award, which recognizes the researchers in the department who have made the greatest contribution of the year to the science of chemistry and biochemistry.
This year two faculty members received the 2022 Chemistry & Biochemistry Herbert Newby McCoy Award for their important research projects. Feigon and Professor Xiangfeng Duan (read about his research here) were recognized at our annual departmental awards ceremony on May 13, 2022.
Feigon is being recognized for her group’s recent pioneering work to elucidate the structural and mechanistic details of the telomerase complex.
“The recent work by the Feigon lab represent the most detailed views yet of this biomedically crucial enzyme and is undoubtedly among the most significant contribution to science this year made by our department,” said nominator Professor Joseph Loo.
Telomerase is a DNA polymerase that extends the 3′ ends of chromosomes by processively synthesizing multiple telomeric repeats. It is a unique ribonucleoprotein (RNP) containing a specialized telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) and telomerase RNA (TER) with its own template and other elements required with TERT for activity (catalytic core), as well as species-specific TER-binding proteins important for biogenesis and assembly (core RNP); other proteins bind telomerase transiently or constitutively to allow association of telomerase and other proteins with telomere ends for regulation of DNA synthesis. Telomerase maintains genomic integrity, and its activity or dysregulation are critical determinants of human longevity, stem cell renewal and cancer progression.
In a 2021 paper published in Nature, the Feigon group report the cryo-electron microscopy (EM) structures of active telomerase with telomeric DNA at different steps of nucleotide addition.
Interactions between telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT), TER and DNA reveal the structural basis of the determination of the 5′ and 3′ template boundaries, handling of the template–DNA duplex and separation of the product strand during nucleotide addition. Their work here provides molecular insights into telomerase assembly, the mechanism of telomeric repeat synthesis, telomerase recruitment and telomeric DNA handling with unprecedented detail. (A companion commentary article can be viewed here.)
And in a recent 2022 paper published in Nature, the Feigon lab report on the structure of active human telomerase with the telomere shelterin protein, TPP1.
Telomerase is recruited to telomeres and activated for telomere repeat synthesis by TPP1. They report cryo-EM structures of the human telomerase catalytic core of telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) and telomerase RNA (TER or hTR) at 3.3Å and the first structure with TPP1 at 3.5Å resolution. Their structures define the determinants of telomerase recruitment to telomeres by TPP1, reveal the unique TERT–TER interactions that regulate telomerase activity, assembly, and template–DNA handling. Moreover, because numerous mutations leading to telomeropathies are located at the TERT–TER and TEN–TRAP–TPP1 interfaces, their work provides a basis for structure-guided telomerase-targeted drug discovery and a deeper understanding of disease mutations leading to telomere biology disorders.
About the Herbert Newby McCoy Award
The Herbert Newby McCoy Award was established in 1964 by Mrs. Ethel Terry McCoy, also a chemist, in honor of her husband who was an American chemist who taught at the University of Chicago and the University of Utah and was the vice-president of Lindsay Light & Chemical Company. Each year the award is given to the researcher(s) in the department who made the greatest contribution of the year to the science of chemistry and biochemistry. The selection of the winner(s) is made by the full professors of the department and the Chancellor. Nobel Laureate Donald Cram was the recipient of the first McCoy Award in 1965.
- 2022 Xiangfeng Duan, Juli Feigon
- 2020-21 Ellen Sletten
- 2019-20 Ohyun Kwon
- 2018-19 Jose Rodriguez & Hosea Nelson
- 2017-18 Hosea Nelson, Elena Grintsevich
- 2016 Anastassia Alexandrova, Ankur Gholkar, Patrick Harran
- 2015 Anne Hong-Hermesdorf, Kendall Houk, Neil Garg
- 2014 Jeffrey Zink
- 2013 Janette Kropat, Heather Maynard, Thi Nguyen
- 2012 Maher El-Kady, Jorge Torres
- 2011 Xiangfeng Duan, Neil Garg
- 2010 Carla Koehler, Beth Marbois, Benjamin Schwartz
- 2009 Juli Feigon, Mike Jung, Kenneth Stabe, Shiho Tanaka, Todd Yeates
- 2008 Timothy Deming, Saeed Khan, Thomas Mason
- 2007 Richard Kaner, Max Kopelevich, Sarah Tolbert
- 2006 David Eisenberg, Rebecca Nelson, Michael Sawaya, Eric Scerri, Omar Yaghi
- 2005 Dmitri Kudryashov, Emil Reisler, Michael Sawaya, M. Jane Strouse, Todd Yeates
- 2004 Sabeeha Merchant
- 2003 Alex Evilevitch, William Gelbart, Charles Knobler, Laurence Lavelle
- 2002 Andrea Liu
- 2001 Fred Wudl
- 2000 J. Fraser Stoddart
- 1999 Miguel Garcia Garcia-Garibay, Yves Rubin
- 1998 James Bowie
- 1997 Rafael Levine
- 1996 Joan Valentine
- 1995 Robin Garrell, James Heath, David Myles, Todd Yeates
- 1994 Ken Houk, X. Zhang
- 1993 Emily Carter, Juli Feigon, M. Jane Strouse, H. Xie
- 1992 Peter Felker, Richard Kaner, Flint Smith
- 1991 Michael Jung, David Sigman
- 1990 Steven Clarke, François Diederich, R.L. Whetten, M. Anderson, B. Mattes
- 1989 Charles Knobler, R.S. Williams
- 1988 William Gelbart, Z. Xue
- 1987 Douglas Rees, M. Miller
- 1986 Charles West, F. Jensen
- 1985 Jeffrey Zink, T. Smith
- 1984 Malcom Nicol
- 1983 Orville Chapman, W.D. Harris
- 1982 Richard Dickerson, David Eisenberg
- 1981 Eric Heller
- 1980 Charles Knobler
- 1979 Charles Strouse
- 1978 John McTague
- 1977 Christopher Foote
- 1976 Paul Boyer
- 1975 Donald Cram
- 1974 Howard Reiss
- 1973 Verne Schumaker
- 1972 M. Fredrick Hawthorne
- 1971 Daniel Kivelson
- 1970 D.A. Harris, R.B. Gillespie
- 1969 M.A. El-Sayed
- 1968 Frank Anet
- 1967 Daniel Atkinson
- 1966 Saul Winstein
- 1965 Donald Cram
Penny Jennings, UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, penny@chem.ucla.edu.
