2021 Annual Report

Van Andel Institute Principal Investigators
Department of
Structural Biology
Imagine standing on the moon and having eyes so
powerful that you can clearly watch a tennis match on
Earth. Now imagine that same visual power packed
into a high-tech microscope, and you have cryo-EM — a
groundbreaking technology that allows scientists to study
the smallest components of life in exquisite detail.
Determining the shape of these critical molecules is
vital for understanding their function in health and
disease. Scientists in Van Andel Institute’s Department of
Structural Biology harness cryo-EM and other state-ofthe-art
techniques to visualize molecules that may serve
as treatment targets for cancer, neurological disorders,
metabolic diseases, infectious diseases and more.
They’re revealing groundbreaking new insights into the
most fundamental aspects of biology, from parsing the
ways cells sense and respond to the environment to
illuminating the intricacies of DNA replication. And they’re
laying the foundations for new therapies by revealing how
a drug molecule disables its target protein.
Huilin Li, Ph.D.
Chair and Professor; Director,
Cryo-EM Core
Dr. Huilin Li uses cryo-electron
microscopy (cryo-EM) to reveal
the most basic building blocks
of DNA replication and other
systems vital for life. He has been at the vanguard of
cryo-EM for more than 20 years, and his research has
implications for some of the world’s most critical public
health concerns, including tuberculosis, cancer, mental
illness, and many more.
Juan Du, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Dr. Juan Du seeks to
understand the brain’s intricate
communication systems using
state-of-the-art structural
biology approaches, such as cryo-
EM. Her work has revealed new insights into critical
processes such as temperature regulation in the human
body, which has implications for development of new
medications for neurological disorders.
Wei Lü, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Dr. Wei Lü is working to unravel
how brain cells communicate
with each other. Using techniques
such as cryo-EM, his work
has contributed to the field’s
understanding of molecules that play crucial roles in the
development and function of the nervous system.
Evan Worden, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Dr. Evan Worden leverages VAI’s
powerful suite of cryo-electron
microscopes to explore the
complex molecular interactions
that give rise to cancer. To date,
his research has revealed novel insights into poorly
understood regulatory elements in the genetic code
and illuminated how aberrations in these processes can
transform healthy cells into malignant ones.
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