Benjamin A. Garcia, presidential professor of biochemistry and biophysics in the Perelman School of Medicine, has been awarded the Biemann Medal by the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS). The early-career award recognizes significant achievement in basic or applied mass spectrometry.

Dr. Garcia’s lab has developed and refined mass spectrometry analysis techniques for analyzing proteins that are considered state of the art and used world-wide by researchers. Dr. Garcia was recognized for contributions to better understanding of the histone code, the set of modifications in histone proteins that are crucial for regulating gene expression. Dr. Garcia’s lab has developed a number of experimental and computational methods to detect histone post-translational modifications, quantify their relative abundance, monitor their intercellular activities and pinpoint the modifications on specific genome locations.

In particular, Dr. Garcia has pioneered high-throughput, “bottom-up” methods for detecting post-translational histone modifications and quantitative comparison of multiple cellular states. His expertise also includes “middle-down” approaches that enable detailed analysis of histone proteoforms.

In recognizing Dr. Garcia the Society said: “These methods have made unique impact in chromatin [chromosome] biology and epigenetics research [the study of biological mechanisms that switch genes on and off], and have been fully embraced by a growing number of research groups from all over the world.”