Ivette Perez wins Karpay Award

Posted by daviskd2 on Friday, November 18, 2022 in News.

Congratulations to Ivette Perez, of the Iverson Lab, for being named the 2023 recipient of The Karpay Award in Structural Biology. “I am honored to have been selected for this award,” Ivette said.

Ivette joined the Iverson lab in the spring 2019, but she was first exposed to various biophysical techniques and structural biology as an undergraduate in the lab of Carrie Partch at UC Santa Cruz, where she was also an ISMD Scholar. During her time in the Partch lab, she fell in love with proteins and their ability to regulate vital life processes while studying the regulation of circadian rhythms.

Ivette’s current research focuses on the structural basis of arrestin mediated kinase activation and how this leads to signal initiation and amplification. She uses various biochemical assays and cell-based assays to study arrestin function. She also uses x-ray crystallography and cryo-EM to determine arrestin-kinase complex structures. As a member of the Iverson lab, Ivette maintains research collaborations with the Guverich and Sanders labs at Vanderbilt as well as the Dalby lab at UT Austin. She is currently completing an internship with Eli Lilly.

Outside the lab, Ivette loves to hike, dance, work out and spend time with friends and family.

Ivette presents Arrestin Development, next episode? on Tuesday, January 24, 2023, as part of the MBTP/CSB Seminar Series. The seminar begins at 12:20pm in 1220 MRB3 with the award presentation to follow.

“I’m very happy to be this year’s Karpay winner” said Ivette. “It’s truly an honor.”

The Karpay Award was established in 2010 to honor the memory of Dr. Anne Karpay, who died after a four-year battle with breast cancer. It is funded entirely by donations to an endowment managed through the Development Office of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Donate to the fund online.