chemistry

Naomi Chayen

Naomi Chayen is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Naomi Chayen rather than just read about it. In short: Naomi Chayen is a biochemist and structural biologist. She is a professor of Biomedical Sciences at Imperial College London, where she leads the Crystallization Group in Computational and Systems Medicine.

Key takeaways

Naomi Chayen belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Naomi Chayen to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Naomi Chayen from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Naomi Chayen is a biochemist and structural biologist. She is a professor of Biomedical Sciences at Imperial College London, where she leads the Crystallization Group in Computational and Systems Medicine. She is best known for developing the microbatch method and inventing novel nucleants for protein crystallization which have been applied to high-throughput screening for rational drug design.

Education and career Chayen earned her first degree in pharmacy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. During her undergraduate studies, she visited the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology to learn histochemistry. She subsequently pursued MSc and PhD research at the Kennedy Institute. In 1983, Chayen submitted her thesis on stimulus-response coupling in smooth muscle cells and received a PhD from Brunel University London. Chayen began her first postdoctoral fellowship at Imperial College London, where she studied the biophysics of muscle proteins. When her grant was not renewed, she joined the lab of David Mervyn Blow to develop novel protein crystallization techniques. There, she began her influential work of utilizing phase diagrams to optimize conditions for crystal growth. Currently, Chayen is a professor of Biomedical Sciences and head of the Crystallization Group in Computational and Systems Medicine at Imperial College London.

Research Chayen is best known for her invention of novel protein crystallization methods. In 1990, she first published a method of suspending droplets of protein solution and precipitant solutions in low-density paraffin oil to prevent evaporation during the microbatch crystallization process. The microbatch process can be suitable for membrane proteins, which are ordinarily difficult to crystallize. Chayen's method has since been applied towards the analysis of many biomolecules that are relevant to human diseases such as cancer, HIV, diabetes, and heart disease. In addition to her work on microbatch methods, Chayen invented a novel gel-glass nucleant now known as "Naomi's Nucleant." Naomi's Nucleant has been used to crystallize more than 20 proteins, the most of any single nucleant. In 2015, she collaborated with Subrayal Reddy at University of Central Lancashire to develop the first non-protein nucleant, a semi-liquid molecularly imprinted polymer designed for high-throughput screening. The nucleant was commercialized as "Chayen Reddy MIP." Chayen's current research interests include protein crystallization, structural biology, and structural genomics and proteomics.

Awards and honors Chayen holds nine patents and has launched several commercial products for protein crystallization, such as "Chayen Reddy MIP" and "Naomi's nucleant." In addition, she has won the following awards:

Women of Outstanding Achievement for Innovation and Entrepreneurship Commendation, WISE Campaign (2012) Investigator of the Year, Select Biosciences Life Sciences Awards (2011) Innovator of the Year, CWT everywoman in Technology Awards (2011) Chayen was the Sterling Drug Visiting Professor of Pharmacology at Yale School of Medicine in 2009. She was formerly the president of the International Organization for Biological Crystallization.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Naomi Chayen

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Naomi Chayen claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Naomi Chayen before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Naomi Chayen ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Naomi Chayen

In research: Naomi Chayen appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Naomi Chayen in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Naomi Chayen is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Academics of Imperial College London, Alumni of Brunel University London, Biochemists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Naomi Chayen outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Naomi Chayen in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Naomi Chayen means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Naomi Chayen out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Naomi Chayen in simple terms?

Why does Naomi Chayen matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Naomi Chayen?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Naomi Chayen.