Jamie Spangler, an associate professor in chemical and biomolecular engineering and biomedical engineering and the William R. Brody Faculty Scholar has been selected to receive two awards: the 2025 Protein Science Young Investigator Award and the American Society for Engineering Education’s Curtis W. McGraw Research Award.
The Protein Science Young Investigator Award, sponsored by Wiley, recognizes scientists within their first 8 years of an independent career who have made an important contribution to the study of proteins. Spangler will be honored at The Protein Society Annual Symposium in June.
The Curtis W. McGraw Research Award was established in 1957 to recognize outstanding early achievements by academic researchers in engineering disciplines and to encourage the continuance of such productivity. The annual award is sponsored by the Engineering Research Council (ERC) with the initial assistance of the McGraw-Hill Book Company. The award was presented at the ERC Annual Business Meeting at the ASEE ERC Research Leadership Institute in March 2025.
Spangler’s research aims to expand the repertoire of protein therapeutics by redesigning naturally occurring proteins and engineering new molecules to overcome the deficiencies of existing drugs. Integrating cutting-edge tools from structural biophysics, biomolecular engineering, and translational immunology, her research focuses on developing innovative platforms for the discovery and design of proteins that recruit novel mechanisms for disease therapy.
Spangler’s lab is particularly interested in engineering antibody-based molecules that reshape immune cell behavior for targeted treatment of cancer, infectious diseases, and autoimmune disorders. The overarching goal of her interdisciplinary research program is to establish new insights into protein behavior and the extent to which proteins can be manipulated for medically relevant applications.
Spangler earned her BS in biomedical engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 2006 and her PhD in biological engineering from MIT in 2011. After completing postdoctoral training at Stanford University School of Medicine, she joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins in 2017.