FORT COLLINS - A Colorado State University professor will receive $674,000 to study a potentially disease-causing protein.

The National Institutes of Health awarded Robert Cohen the two-year grant to study ubiquitin, a cellular protein that can lead to major disease depending on its interaction with enzymes. Cohen's grant was one of 19 awarded to professors in 12 states totaling $16.5 million. It is part of the NIH Challenge Grant initiative aimed at encouraging a range of research projects.

"What we don't know is the protein targets that these enzymes select," Cohen said in the grant announcement. "My approach will be to modify the enzyme in a way that, when it finds its target, it will leave a unique tag that will allow us to fish the protein out of a cell and identify it chemically. The trick will be to accomplish this tagging in vivo and to make it specific. The identities of the targets is the biggest missing piece in understanding more about how ubiquitin functions."

Cohen joined CSU this year, coming from Johns Hopkins University. He plans to hire two full-time staff members to assist in the research.