Stephen G. Sligar

Stephen G. Sligar received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Illinois in 1975. Dr. Sligar served on the faculty in the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University and returned to the University of Illinois in 1982 where he was the I. C. Gunsalus Professor of Biochemistry, the William and Janet Lycan Professor and Director of the School of Chemical Sciences. He now holds the University of Illinois Swanlund Endowed Chair and was Director of the School of Molecular and Cellular Biology for ten years. He is also a faculty member in the Department of Chemistry and the Center for Biophysics and Quantitative Biology. Dr. Sligar holds affiliate appointments in the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, the Institute for Genomic Biology and the Micro and Nano Technology Laboratory on the Illinois campus.

Dr. Sligar is an elected Fellow of the Biophysical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was an Academic Leadership Program Fellow with the Committee on Institutional Cooperation. Awards include the 2020 Christian Anfinsen Award from the Protein Society, the 2016 Sober Award from the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, a Fulbright Research Scholarship, Senior Fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, NIH Merit and MIRA Awards and the Bert L. and Kuggie Vallee Visiting Professorship in Inorganic Chemistry at Oxford where he was a Fellow of Queens College. He is also a Fellow in the Jerome Karle Nobel Laureate World Innovation Foundation.

Dr. Sligar’s research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the Human Frontiers Program. His research centers on understanding the structure and mechanistic function of membrane proteins, including those metalloenzymes involved in human drug metabolism and steroid hormone biosynthesis, the molecular mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases and cancer signaling pathways. His work uses a combination of experimental and theoretical methods with a goal of revealing structural and functional information of value in developing new methods of therapeutic intervention. He is the founder of several start-up companies and was recognized by the Champaign County Economic Development Corporation’s 2014 Innovation Celebration.