Emily S. Wang
Palo Alto, CA
Grade: 12
The discovery and development of fluorescent proteins, recognized by the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, enabled a revolution in biological imaging and sensing. Biosensors employing energy transfer between fluorescent proteins are powerful tools to non-invasively report biochemical events at the molecular level. I engineered a new fluorescent protein Clover3, which is the brightest monomeric fluorescent protein to date. To understand mechanisms of illnesses, researchers can use Clover3 as a biological tool to illuminate cancer and neurological disease pathways. With its superior optical characteristics, Clover3 can benefit diverse medical applications, such as visualizing cancer metastases and imaging neural structures.