Development of the Center for Structural Biology at Wake Forest University (CSBWFU):

Three major commitments by WFU Health Sciences (WFUHS) and the Department of Biochemistry (WFU School of Medicine, WFUSM) in 2001-2002 led to:

• The recruitments of 3 crystallographers (Dr. Tom Hollis, Dr. Todd Lowther, Dr. Conn Mallett) from premier laboratories at Harvard, University of Oregon, and Osaka University.
• The recruitment of Dr. David Horita, an NMR spectroscopist from the Structural Biophysics Laboratory, NCI-Frederick.
• Purchase and installation of the initial in-house X-Ray Diffraction Laboratory and the Bruker Avance 600 MHz NMR spectrometer.

In parallel, several exciting developments on the WFU Reynolda Campus in 2002-2003, involving the Departments of Chemistry, Physics, and Computer Science, led to:

• The recruitment of Dr. Bernie Brown (Protein Crystallography, Chemistry) from the laboratory of Prof. Alex Rich, MIT.
• The recruitment of Dr. Fred Salsbury (Biophysics, Physics) from the laboratory of Prof. Charles Brooks at Scripps.
• The recruitment of Dr. Jacque Fetrow as Reynolds Professor of Computational Biophysics (Computer Science and Physics) from GeneFormatics, Inc., in San Diego, where she served as CSO and Director.

In August, 2002, WFUHS initiated a lease for 8,800 ft² of newly-renovated laboratory space at the Bowman Gray Technical Center (BGTC); this space had previously been occupied by Targacept, Inc., a Winston-Salem based pharmaceutical research and development company. The proposal for establishing the interdisciplinary CSBWFU at the BGTC site, including a 5-year business plan, was approved by WFUHS in April, 2003, and relocation of the 7 Biochemistry faculty to the BGTC site was completed in August. The BGTC laboratories now anchor the CSBWFU in a convenient location just over 1 mile from the WFU Reynolda Campus (Chemistry, Physics, and Computer Science) and adjacent to the new (fall, 2003) location of the Center for Nanotechnology at Wake Forest University.

The entire CSBWFU-BGTC project budget has been supported by WFUHS and WFU, and by an NIH Shared Instrumentation Grant. This includes a new capital equipment budget of $2 million, renovation and relocation costs of $700,000, and a recurring annual costs budget of $200,000, which includes 4 Graduate Fellowships in Structural Biology. The new capital equipment includes expanded Protein Crystallography and Computational facilities, new Protein/Peptide Mass Spectrometry facilities, and enhanced Biomolecular Resource facilities, as well as new general laboratory equipment.

Three central research themes involve the 16 current CSBWFU faculty:  Redox Biology, Nucleic Acid Modification/Repair, and Computational Biophysics. Through its research and educational activities, CSBWFU is poised to fulfill a major role in new biotechnology and translational research initiatives within Winston-Salem and the regional Piedmont Triad Research Community.