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headshot of Sozanne Solmaz

Sozanne Solmaz

Associate Professor

Chemistry

Background

Dr. Solmaz received her M.S. degree in Biochemistry from the Leibniz University of Hannover, Germany in 2001, and performed her M.S. thesis work with Nobel laureate Robert Huber, Ph.D., at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried, Germany. She received her Ph.D. degree in 2006 from the Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, for which she was a Ph.D. student with Nobel laureate Hartmut Michel, Ph.D. at the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics, supervised by Carola Hunte, Ph.D. As a Postdoctoral Researcher with Nobel laureate Gunter Blobel, Ph.D., at Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the Rockefeller University in New York, she has investigated the structure of the transport channel of the nuclear pore complex. In fall 2014, she started as an Assistant Professor in Biological Chemistry at Binghamton University and was promoted in fall 2020 to Associate Professor.

Education

  • MS, Leibnitz University
  • PhD, Goethe University and Max Planck Institute of Biophysics

Research Interests

  • Structural biology, x-ray crystallography, cryo-electron microscopy
  • Roles of nuclear pore complexes in brain development
  • Human brain and muscle developmental diseases
  • Cytoskeletal motors
  • Positioning of the cell nucleus by motors

Research Profile