Greg Merz received his PhD from Cornell University under the direction of Prof. Brian Crane. During his graduate work, Greg used copper-based pulsed dipolar EPR spectroscopy, as well as other biophysical techniques, to observe small conformational changes in proteins. He applied this to various systems involved bacterial chemotaxis, circadian rhythms, and disease.

Greg joined the Prusiner lab as a postdoctoral scholar. He will be using cryo-EM to determine high-resolution structures of alpha-synuclein from human MSA patients as well as mouse models. A major goal of this project is to determine how well model systems, which are used for the development of imaging agents and therapeutics, are mimicking structures found in human patients.