91PORN

George Parra received a Greehey Graduate Fellowship in Children’s Health to support his research aimed at understanding the structural underpinnings of how the EWS-FLI1 oncogenic fusion protein, responsible for Ewing sarcoma, mediates it interactions with a multitude of proteins and nucleic acids. The physical properties of EWS-FLI1 make it a challenging target to study but he is proposing a unique multidisciplinary approach encompassing proteomics and cutting-edge structural biology techniques to understand its function with atomic level detail. His research will provide insight into how this single fusion protein coordinates the transformation, development, and proliferation of Ewing sarcoma and other closely related tumors.