McGinty Awarded Damon Runyon Fellowship Award

Robert McGinty, a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in the Eberly College of Science at Penn State University, has recently been awarded a three-year Damon Runyon Fellowship Award. This prestigious fellowship is given by the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation and is the Foundation’s oldest and most well recognized award.

The Fellowship is one of the highest accolades an early career scientist can receive. The grant gives the recipient the ability to perform theoretical and experimental cancer research and explore their own innovative ideas, while working with mentors in top universities and cancer research centers. McGinty’s research focuses on the structural and functional characterization of histone methyltransferase complexes and their nucleosomal recognition. As these enzymes are commonly misregulated in human leukemias, an understanding of their normal function may provide insight into novel platforms for drug development.

McGinty obtained his Ph.D. from Rockefeller University in 2009 for his groundbreaking thesis research using semisynthetic protein chemistry to study chromatin biology under the mentorship of Tom Muir.

McGinty has published 10 papers from his thesis research, including a first author publication in Nature, Chemically Ubiquitylated Histone H2B Stimulates hDot1L-mediated Intranucleosomal Methylation; a middle author Nature paper, Histone H2A deubiquitinase activity of the Polycomb repressive complex PR-DUB; and two middle author Cell papers, RAD6-Mediated Transcription-Coupled H2B Ubiquitylation Directly Stimulates H3K4 Methylation in Human Cells and Recognition of a Mononucleosomal Histone Modification Pattern by BPTF via Multivalent Interactions.

McGinty earned his M.D. from Weill Cornell Medical College in 2011. Currently, McGinty is a member of the Tan Lab at Penn State where he works alongside Song Tan, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, researching the structural biology of gene regulation.

Since its founding in 1946, the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation has invested over $230 million and funded more than 3,250 young scientists, providing them with financial support for their research. This year, it will invest approximately $10 million in the most outstanding young investigators in the nation.