# Tom Grant, University at Buffalo - Predicting Protein Movements to Speed Up Drug Discovery

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-academic-minute-1102038/tom-grant-university-at-buffalo-predicting-protein-movements-to-speed-up-drug-discovery
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-academic-minute-1102038/tom-grant-university-at-buffalo-predicting-protein-movements-to-speed-up-drug-discovery.md
Podcast: [The Academic Minute](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-academic-minute-1102038)
Published: 2026-06-19T04:01:00+00:00
Episode link: https://www.academicminute.org/p/tom-grant-university-at-buffalo-predicting
Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/201778569/ed70a4bf93e38e5eff5b370615ce7105.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-academic-minute-1102038/episodes/tom-grant-university-at-buffalo-predicting-protein-movements-to-speed-up-drug-discovery
Duration seconds: 150

## Resource

On University at Buffalo Week: Speeding up drug discovery will have many benefits. Tom Grant , assistant professor in the Department of Structural Biology in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, looks into doing so. Faculty Bio: Thomas Grant is a structural biologist whose research focuses on developing innovative analytical methods to uncover the structure and dynamics of biological macromolecules. Trained at the University at Buffalo, where he earned a BS in Mathematical Physics (2007) and a PhD in Structural and Computational Biology (2013), Grant’s research combines rigorous quantitative training with experimental expertise in X-ray crystallography, small-angle scattering, and X-ray free electron laser methodologies. His work integrates advanced computational algorithm development with cutting-edge experimental tools to generate high-resolution structural models and time-resolved “molecular movies,” illuminating how proteins and nucleic acids function within the cell and informing rational drug design. In 2025, he was awarded a $2.18 million grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health, to create a new artificial intelligence-powered tool that improves scientists’ understanding of how proteins move and change shape within the human body. Transcript: In the United States, it often takes 10 to 15 years to develop a new drug from its initial discovery to market approval. In my lab, we’re working on an artificial intelligence-driven project called SWAXSFold that we hope will dramatically speed up this process. So let me explain what SWAXSFold is. A few years ago, Google DeepMind released an algorithm called AlphaFold. It has had a major impact in biomedical research, winning the 2024 Nobel Pr…

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