BMB Professor Michael Matunis Receives 2024 Shikani/El-Hibri Prize for Discovery and Innovation

The 2024 Shikani/El-Hibri Prize for Discovery and Innovation was awarded to Michael Matunis, PhD, professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. The prize recognizes a basic science investigator at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health for a major scientific contribution with significant potential for public health or clinical impact.

Matunis’ research focuses on SUMO, the small ubiquitin-related modifier. Protein modification by SUMO can affect numerous cellular pathways, impacting key activities such as stress response and DNA repair. The Shikani/El-Hibri prize recognizes his lab’s recent discovery of a role for SUMO in protein quality control, a process wherein cells use surveillance mechanisms to identify and degrade misfolded proteins. 

The research, published last year in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, showed that a SUMO protein is required for the timely turnover of a particular type of misfolded protein in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as well as in humans. The accumulation of misfolded proteins can damage cells and is associated with multiple human diseases, and these findings may lead to a better understanding of the role of sumolyation in those diseases.

 “This insight into how SUMO1 works could lead to new treatments for diseases caused by protein misfolding like cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer's,” said Ashani Weeraratna, E.V. McCollum Chair of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.