Professor Danielle Schmitt, an assistant professor of biochemistry, is one of 22 UCLA junior faculty members selected to receive the prestigious UCLA Society of Hellman Fellows award.
The UCLA Hellman Fellows Program was established in 2011 through the generosity of the Hellman Fellows Fund to support promising assistant professors in their research and creative endeavors, with the goal of promoting career advancement and enhancing their progress toward tenure.
Schmitt’s $20,000 award will support an ongoing undergraduate-led project in her lab that investigates the mechanisms for compartmentalized AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) activity. Her research focuses on the development of fluorescent protein-based genetically encoded reporters for metabolites and kinases. These microscopy-based tools allow her team to study the spatial and temporal organization of metabolism in single cells, ultimately aiming to understand how metabolism is regulated in healthy cells and how its disruption contributes to disease.
Schmitt joined the UCLA faculty as an assistant professor of biochemistry in July 2022. Earlier this year, she received a $77,800 Strategic Plan Aligned Project Seed Grant from the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (JCCC) for her project entitled “iGlo: A Novel Molecular Biosensor for Imaging Glutamine Dynamics Across Scales.”
In 2023, Schmitt and collaborator Professor Tara TeSlaa (UCLA Molecular and Medical Pharmacology), were awarded $250,000 from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to investigate why diets deficient in choline and methionine can cause liver damage. The same year, Schmitt also received a prestigious $1.5 million New Innovator Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) High-Risk, High-Reward Research program.
Penny Jennings, UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, penny@chem.ucla.edu.
