Melinda Diver

Melinda Diver, Ph.D. Assistant Member Structural Biology Program Sloan Kettering Institute Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Melinda is Canadian, born and raised in London, Ontario. She earned her B.Sc. Honours in Biochemistry at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and her Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Structural Biology from the Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences, where she trained with Stephen Long at the Sloan Kettering Institute. Her studies focused on the membrane-embedded Ras-modifying enzyme isoprenylcysteine carboxyl methyltransferase (ICMT). Motivated by finding novel treatments for cancer, she determined the X-ray crystallographic structure of ICMT and used complementary biochemical techniques to gain a more complete appreciation of its molecular function. She then did a postdoctoral fellowship with David Julius and in close collaboration with Yifan Cheng at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Her research focused on TRPM8, a cold- and menthol-activated ion channel, that plays an essential role in the detection of environmental temperatures and chronic pain. To explore the molecular principles underlying channel pharmacology, gating, and regulation, she exploited recent advances in single particle cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM). Melinda joined the faculty in the Structural Biology Program at the Sloan Kettering Institute in September 2021.