LaGuardia CC professor admitted to prestigious group

A professor at LaGuardia Community College recently became the first community college professor admitted to the New York Structural Biology Group (NYSBG). Chemistry professor Dr. Ivan Rivera-Torres, who is researching structural study of a membrane protein, hopes to uncover how the organism is able to adapt and populate in apparently inhabitable places.
“This inclusion represents an exciting challenge and opportunity to help advance my biomedical research program,” Rivera-Torres said. “It will provide me with a special opportunity to participate in an exchange of scientific ideas with fellow researchers and to collaborate on research projects.”
The NYSBG is a forum for structural biologists, protein chemists and molecular biophysicists from the main universities and research facilities in New York where members can discuss the latest research findings, experimental techniques and scientific challenges that are relevant to the advancement of structural biology.
However, it will not just be Rivera-Torres who will benefit from being admitted into the group - LaGuardia students will also have a role. A number of LaGuardia science majors will help Rivera-Torres with his research and contribute to the group.
“This will be an invaluable experience for my research students who are interested in engaging in serious biomedical investigation,” Rivera-Torres said. “It will expand their horizons by giving them the opportunity to join collaborative research efforts between LaGuardia and Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the College of Staten Island.”
Other scientists in the group represent such prestigious medical centers and institutions of higher education as Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, Sloan Kettering Institute, Rockefeller University, Columbia University and City College.