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Madison, WI
The University of Wisconsin – Madison’s Biochemistry professor Vatsan Raman has been selected as a 2025-2026 Vilas Associate, awarded by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research. The Vilas Associates Competition recognizes “new and ongoing research of the highest quality and significance.”
His laboratory takes a systems and synthetic biology approach to understanding and designing different biological systems: biomolecules, regulatory pathways, and organisms. Helping to understand and design allosteric proteins, synthetic bacteriophages with new host range and regulation, and developing high-throughput functional assays to predict the effect of variants in disease-relevant genes.
“I am honored to receive the Vilas Associate award and I thank the Vilas Foundation for this generous support and recognition,” says Raman. “This award is truly meaningful, as it enables us to ask bigger, bolder questions and push the boundaries of science and technology.”
Raman, who joined the department in 2015, uses systems and synthetic biology to understand and engineer biomolecular and cellular systems at protein-wide and genome-wide scales. His research lies at the intersection of biochemistry, computation, and engineering.
Raman’s areas of expertise include Biomolecular Folding & Interactions; Chemical Biology & Enzymology; Quantitative Biology; Structural Biology; Systems & Synthetic Biology.
Award recipients are chosen competitively by divisional research committees, based on a detailed proposal. Winners receive research salary support during the summers of 2025 and 2026, in addition to $25,000 flexible research funds over the two years. The award is funded by the William F. Vilas Estate Trust.
Raman earned his B.S. from Baroda University, India; M.S. from Missouri University of Science and Technology; Ph.D. from University of Washington, Seattle; and Postdoctoral research from Harvard Medical School – Wyss Institute for Biologically inspired Engineering.
