Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences

George Parra

Ph.D. Student

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.  

Education

B.S., Biochemistry, Texas State University-San Marcos

Awards

Greehey Graduate Fellowship in Children’s Healt, 2020

Publications

English LR, Voss SM, Tilton EC, Paiz EA, So S, Parra GL, Whitten ST. Impact of Heat on Coil Hydrodynamic Size Yields the Energetics of Denatured State Conformational Bias. J Phys Chem B. 2019 Nov 27;123(47):10014-10024. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.9b09088. Epub 2019 Nov 14. PMID: 31679343; PMCID: PMC7278112.