Federal Grant Award Summary

The University of Virginia received a $1,708,682 Project Grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) under the Biomedical Research and Research Training program (CFDA 93.859), awarded July 15, 2026, with completion targeted for March 31, 2031. The award supports fundamental research investigating the paralipidome—the selective patch of lipids that accumulates around integral membrane proteins—to advance understanding of how local lipid nano-environments regulate membrane protein structure and function. The research directly probes the chemical and physical environment surrounding membrane proteins in biological membranes using recent technical advances, with the overarching objective of demonstrating how these localized lipid compositions and biophysical properties control protein conformational dynamics and cellular physiology.

This basic biomedical research initiative addresses a significant gap in membrane biology by explaining why mammalian cells produce hundreds of distinct lipid species and how these lipids are selectively organized around individual proteins rather than distributed uniformly throughout cellular membranes. The work builds on forty years of structural biology insights into lipid-protein interactions while leveraging contemporary experimental methods to characterize functional paralipidomes from authentic cellular membranes. The research outputs will contribute foundational knowledge applicable to understanding disease mechanisms and developing targeted therapeutic interventions that exploit membrane lipid-protein relationships.