BMB Weekly #43: October 27, 2023

 

MSU’s Orlando and Hamberger invested as James K. Billman Jr., M.D. Endowed Professors Michigan State University professors Ben Orlando and Bjoern Hamberger were honored as James K. Billman Jr., M.D. Endowed Professors at an investiture ceremony held Oct. 12. The Billman Professorships were established by MSU alumnus Dr. James Billman to support exceptional researchers in the College of Natural Science’s Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Professor Hamberger is a leading expert on plant-derived bioactive diterpenoids, while Professor Orlando utilizes cryoEM to examine the structure, dynamics, and function of membrane protein complexes. Read the full article here. BMB Club Visits East Lansing’s Donley Elementary School for Science Night The Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Club traveled to East Lansing’s Donley Elementary School to participate in their science night. Undergraduates led hands-on experiments exploring pH levels in household liquids and plant coloration. Read the full article here.

 

 

Dr. Matthias Heyden from Arizona State University will be presenting "Translating anharmonic molecular vibrations into information"

To join us on Zoom, click this link. Password: bmbseminar

The Fall BMB Seminar Series will run through December 7, 2023. The complete schedule is available on the BMB Fall Seminar Series website. If you are interested in meeting with any of these speakers please email Leslie Williams, glady@msu.edu. Many speakers are planning to visit in-person. A zoom option will continue to be offered for all seminars.

 

Join us for MPS speaker Eliana Gonzales-Vigil from the University of Toronto. The seminar will be held at 4:00 p.m. in MPS room 1200.

Eliana’s talk is titled “Alkenes in the cuticle of Populus trichocarpa wax and wane during development”. We would like to invite graduate students and postdocs to join the speaker for a lunch and discussion. Lunch will be provided at 12:00 p.m. in PLB 168. This is a great opportunity to meet our outside speaker in an informal environment. If you would like to participate in the luncheon, please RSVP to Keri Morris (morrisk@msu.edu) with any dietary restrictions by Friday, October 27, 2023 at noon. All students and post docs who are interested in this week’s seminar topic are welcome to attend. You do not need to be in the MPS program or affiliated with an MPS faculty member.

Many academic positions require a teaching philosophy statement as one of the application materials to learn about a candidate’s teaching beliefs, values, and use of evidence-based teaching and assessment practices for effective instruction. In this workshop you will learn how to document your teaching and/or teaching professional development experiences to start crafting your teaching philosophy statement with the help of a rubric. At the end of this session, you will have a working draft of your teaching statement, which will encourage you to continue your efforts toward intentional and effective teaching and instruction. Learn more and register here.

COGS presents: A Night Under The Stars! Discover the wonders of Abrams Planetarium, located in the center of MSU’s campus, with a special free show just for MSU graduate and professional students and their accompanied guests. The planetarium hosts a wide range of public programming throughout the year for all ages. This is your chance to check it out! Show is approximately 1 hour long. Learn more here.

The Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) at Michigan State University (MSU) was started with funding from the National Science Foundation. MSU AGEP supports recruitment, retention, and graduation of underrepresented U. S. minorities in doctoral programs of the natural and social sciences, mathematics, and engineering. The MSU AGEP Learning Community is an informal environment where students from varying disciplines can gather, share their research in a 10-minute presentation, or discover that their graduate toils are not unusual. Those in attendance are privy to information regarding fellowships, career opportunities, even summer internships, pertaining to the group. Learn more and register here.

Attention MSU Grad Students: Need RCR hours? All of these sessions will count for one hour of refresher training or one hour of discussion-based training. All discussions will take place in the Plant Biology Building, room 168.

Statistical analysis of high-dimensional biomedical data: a gentle introduction to analytical goals, common approaches, and challenges

Presented by: Lara Lusa, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia

RCR eligible for students with a focus in quantitative sciences, e.g. working with omics data, but is open to all. Learn more and register here.

The Women*s Initiative for Leadership Development (or WILD) is a student leadership conference facilitated by a committee of engaged students in collaboration with the Office of Women*s Student Services and Women*s Council at Michigan State University. All Spartans (students, faculty, staff) who are interested in gender equity, empowerment, and leadership development are encouraged to attend! Learn more and register here.

 

University Outreach and Engagement recognizes and shines a light on exemplary high-quality community-engaged scholarship and outreach activities through its awards programs. There are four separate awards that are accepting nominations:

• Community Engagement Scholarship Award
• Graduate Student Award for Community Engagement Scholarship
• Graduate Student Award for Science Communication and Outreach
• Institutional Champion Award for Community Engagement Scholarship

Learn more and make a nomination here.

 

The MSU Science Festival is seeking presenters to share what excites you about your field with communities across Michigan! Learn more and submit a proposal here.

It's National Cybersecurity Awareness Month and MSU IT is putting Spartans' cybersecurity knowledge to the test to #SecureState! Join MSU IT each week in October as they launch a new episode of MSU IT Street Trivia. Learn more here.

Eligible to undergraduates, graduates, and professional students enrolled in Fall/Spring semester and without a dining plan. Fruits, soups, pasta, rice, protein, cereal, bread, and fresh produce available year-round! To learn more about visiting the MSU Foodbank, or to donate, visit here.

To help field questions, Global Safety has developed a guide with recommended steps and resources. This is available as a PDF and on the Global Safety website at www.globalsafety.msu.edu/positive-COVID-19. The first step is to call ISOS for guidance.

 

Applications are invited for a Research Associate (Postdoc) position in the Hegg lab. The project will focus on our patented Cu-AHP process for fractionating woody biomass into clean sugar and lignin streams suitable for biofuels and bioproducts. The global pulp and paper market is valued at over $165 B, and the US is one of the largest producers of pulp and paper products. Our Cu-AHP pretreatment technology effectively and economically fractionates woody biomass to generate clean lignin and sugars streams. The goal of this project is to: (a) optimize the process for treating wood chips to generate pulp and lignin-rich streams, (b) evaluate the prepared pulp for specific applications, (c) conduct technoeconomic analyses to identify key factors contributing to the production cost, and (d) collaborate with various companies for potential scale-up and commercialization of the technology. Learn more about this MSU Careers posting and apply at this link.

The selected candidate will work with members in the Kuo lab to perform drug discovery and disease mechanism studies of Alzheimer’s disease. Responsibilities include preparing recombinant proteins for in vitro and animal (mouse) studies. Experiments include, but not limited to, protein aggregation assays, cell viability quantification, mouse primary neuron isolation, mouse intracerebral injection and behavioral analysis, and immunohistological examination of mouse brain sections. Learn more about this MSU Careers posting and apply at this link.

A Postdoctoral Research Associate position is available in the laboratory of Melanie Balbach in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. The Research Associate will focus on the metabolic changes and underlying regulatory pathways in the male germ cell during activation and during zygote development. Opportunities for professional development include participation in grant proposal writing, attending and presenting at scientific research symposiums and conferences, networking with other scientists within and outside MSU as well as mentoring of undergraduate and graduate students. Learn more about this MSU Careers posting and apply at this link.

 

 

Case, D. A., Aktulga, H. M., Belfon, K., Cerutti, D. S., Cisneros, G. A., Cruzeiro, V. W. D., Forouzesh, N., Giese, T. J., Götz, A. W., Gohlke, H.,
         Izadi, S., Kasavajhala, K., Kaymak, M. C., King, E., Kurtzman, T., Lee, T. S., Li, P., Liu, J., Luchko, T., Luo, R., … Merz, K. M., Jr (2023). AmberTools.
         Journal of chemical information and modeling, 63(20), 6183–6191. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jcim.3c01153

Chatterjee, S., Nevarez, J. L., Rankin, J. A., Hu, J., & Hausinger, R. P. (2023). Structure of the LarB-Substrate Complex and Identification of a
         Reaction Intermediate during Nickel-Pincer Nucleotide Cofactor Biosynthesis. Biochemistry, 10.1021/acs.biochem.3c00242. Advance online publication.
         https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.biochem.3c00242

Jiang, Y., Li, Z., Sui, D., Sharma, G., Wang, T., MacRenaris, K., Takahashi, H., Merz, K., & Hu, J. (2023). Author Correction: Rational engineering
         of an elevator-type metal transporter ZIP8 reveals a conditional selectivity filter critically involved in determining substrate specificity. Communications
         biology, 6(1), 1082. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-023-05460-3

Kulke, M., Kurtz, E., Boren, D., Olson, D. M., Koenig, A. M., Hoffmann-Benning, S., & Vermaas, J. V. (2023). PLAT Domain Protein 1 (PLAT1/PLAFP)
         Binds to the Arabidopsis thaliana Plasma Membrane and Inserts a Lipid. Plant science: an international journal of experimental plant biology, 111900.
         Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plantsci.2023.111900

Liu, X., Rao, S., Chen, W., Felix, K., Ni, J., Sahasrabudhe, A., Lin, S., Wang, Q., Liu, Y., He, Z., Xu, J., Huang, S., Hong, E., Yau, T., Anikeeva, P.,
         & Zhao, X. (2023). Fatigue-resistant hydrogel optical fibers enable peripheral nerve optogenetics during locomotion. Nature methods, 10.1038/s41592-023
         02020-9. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-023-02020-9

Raza, S., Sievertsen, T. H., Okumoto, S., & Vermaas, J. V. (2023). Passive permeability controls synthesis for the allelochemical sorgoleone in sorghum
         root exudate. Phytochemistry, 113891. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.phytochem.2023.113891

Shajan, A., Manathunga, M., Götz, A. W., & Merz, K. M., Jr (2023). Geometry Optimization: A Comparison of Different Open-Source Geometry Optimizers.
         Journal of chemical theory and computation, 10.1021/acs.jctc.3c00188. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jctc.3c00188

 

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College of Natural Science | BMB Weekly | Vol. 56, No.43