Postdoctoral scholar Green Ahn, PhD, has been named a 2024 Jane Coffin Childs-HHMI Fellow! She joins 25 postdocs in other labs who are advancing research into the causes and treatment of cancer. Each fellow will receive three years of support.

Green is developing a library of de novo effectors against key cell surface proteins and investigating how they impact downstream cellular functions. Her studies seek to provide fundamental insight into membrane protein signaling, setting the stage for future drug development.

“Technologies like protein design allow us to ask and answer fundamental biological questions. I believe that the more we learn to speak the language of cells, the better our cancer treatments will be,” she said.

Green’s expertise in targeting membrane proteins stems from her graduate studies in the Bertozzi Lab at Stanford University. There she developed the first degraders to target extracellular and membrane proteins and went on to discover cellular factors required for targeted membrane protein degradation. In collaboration with this lab, she also helped develop the first de novo designed proteins that trigger membrane protein degradation.

The Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund (JCC) was created in 1937 to honor the memory of Jane Coffin Childs who died of cancer. The JCC, together with partner organizations such as the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), has supported over 1,300 JCC Fellows across North America, Europe, Japan, and Australia.

“I’m thrilled to join the vibrant JCC community, where I can engage with other fellows and scientific advisors across diverse biomedical fields,” Green said.

Applications for 2025 open in October. Learn more at jccfund.org.