Assistant Professor Luis R. Cruz-Vera received a 3-year $403,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for a project entitled "Role of the nascent TnaC Peptide in the Inhibition of the Ribosome Function by tryptophan". This project will reveal which molecular components of the ribosome, the molecular machines that build proteins in all cells, are involved in detecting cellular products and which functions of the ribosome are regulated for quality control of protein production and gene expression.