Cheryl Arrowsmith

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cheryl Arrowsmith is a noted Toronto-based structural biologist and the Chief Scientist at the Toronto lab of the Structural Genomics Consortium. Her contributions to protein structural biology includes the use of NMR and X-ray crystallography.

Dr. Arrowsmith received her PhD in chemistry at the University of Toronto and post-doctoral training at Stanford University. One of her areas of interest is the tumour suppresor p53 and related proteins.

While most structural biologists pursue structures of individual proteins or protein groups, specialists in structural proteomics, such as Dr. Arrowsmith, pursue structures of proteins on a proteome wide scale. This implies large scale cloning, expression and purification. One main advantage of this approach is economy of scale. On the other hand, the scientific value of some resultant structures is at times questioned. Put another way, while the average cost of a protein structure is less than that incurred in a lab pursuing a small number of proteins, the balance in accounting shifts if only significant structures are counted. In short, the field of structural genomics has a significant number of supporters. An interesting Science article from January 2006 analyzes the structural genomics field.

Dr. Arrowsmith was a co-founder of Toronto-based biotech company Affinium Pharmaceuticals.