BMB Weekly #49: December 8, 2023

 

Congratulations to BMB Undergraduate Award Winners! Professor Richard L. Anderson Endowed Undergraduate Research Prize: Matthew Gagea Dr. James K. Billman, Jr., Undergraduate Research Award: Caroline Downes Curtis Chen Adannaya (Dana) Nzerem Michael Burdick Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Scholarship: Anika Babel Pamela J. Fraker Undergraduate Scholarship: Natali Gonzalez Moore-Billman Scholarship in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology: Nina Aitas Outstanding Undergraduate Student Award: Tuan Kiet (Kyle) Trinh Nikita Nel BMB Undergraduate Research Fellowship: MacKenzie Brasseur Alexandria (Allie) Collier CompBioAsia: An international summit bringing computational biology students together "For a small field like computational biology, joining an international workshop is a once in a lifetime opportunity to learn from, collaborate with, and talk to professionals and students from around the world. This is how Duncan Boren of the Vermaas Lab felt when he learned about the CompBioAsia program." Read the full article here.

 

 

The speaker list for the Spring 2024 BMB Colloquium Series will be available soon.

 

At the heart of what you do as a scholar is to produce data and or other creative products. The gathering, use of and ownership of data and creative products are critical to understand. This session will discuss the diversity of what data can be, and who controls, owns and can share such data. We will also discuss practical means to protect your data and creative products. Learn more and register here.

As the semester ends, we are caught in many tasks and projects, we would like to invite you to take part in mindful activities to empty our full minds and holistically engage with ourselves and one another. Drop in anytime between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. for tea, snacks, arts and crafts, and practices that ground you during this busy time of year. The Graduate School staff welcomes you connect with us and with one another. Sit back with ambient music, essential oils, and nurture yourself with tea and snacks and connect with fellow graduate students. Learn more and register here.

David MacMillan, who won a share of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2021, will be discussing his groundbreaking work and its impact on science and society. MacMillan is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Chemistry at Princeton University and will be sharing this public lecture while visiting Michigan State University. He is also presenting a scientific seminar on Dec. 15 in the Department of Chemistry and will be speaking at a commencement ceremony on Dec. 16. Learn more here.

In this two-day NIH-focused webinar designed for faculty members, postdoctoral researchers, graduate students, and administrative staff who have some exposure to writing grant applications, Write Winning Grants comprehensively covers practical and conceptual aspects essential to the proposal-writing process. The Graduate School and COGS will pay for 50 doctoral students to attend. Preference will be given to those students who have not previously attended. Learn more and register here.

Hosted by the WorkLife Office, this session delves into the Surgeon General’s report on the pervasive issues of loneliness and isolation. We will discuss the impact of these challenges on mental and physical health, emphasizing their relevance in academic and workplace settings. Participants will learn about effective strategies and best practices to address these concerns, enhancing community and connectedness within their environments. This session aims to equip attendees from diverse roles with the knowledge and tools to effectively confront and mitigate the epidemic of loneliness and isolation in their communities. Learn more and register here.

 

The Henry Ford Cancer (HFC) Cancer Epidemiology Prevention and Control research program invites applications for a postdoctoral fellow to begin a 1-2-year fellowships to start in 2024. The successful candidate will join a team of over 100 cancer researchers conducting studies across the cancer continuum and become part of the Henry Ford Health + Michigan State University (HFH + MSU) dynamic research community. Learn more and apply here.

The Henry Ford Cancer (HFC) Translational Oncology research program invites applications for a post-doctoral fellow to begin a 1-2-year fellowship to start in 2024. The successful candidate will join a team of over 100 cancer researchers conducting studies across the cancer continuum and become part of the Henry Ford Health + Michigan State University (HFH + MSU) dynamic research community. Learn more and apply here.

Nominations are being accepted for the 2024 MAGS Excellence in Teaching Award competition. This Teaching Award is very competitive, so we are looking for exceptional PhD and Master’s students with great demonstration of teaching competence and knowledge of pedagogy, innovative teaching/instructional design, and effective mentoring skills and commitment to teaching professional development. If you intend to nominate a Graduate Student who meets the criteria above, please contact Dr. Stefanie Baier at stbaier@msu.edu by December 30, 2023. Learn more and make a nomination here.

 

MSU student researchers who are interested in sharing their work on the radio can reach out to WDBM to be featured on The Sci-Files. The goal of this segment is to increase scientific literacy and showcase research interests from MSU graduate students to Impact 89 FM’s global audience. If you are interested in being interviewed or have any questions, please email thescifileswdbm@gmail.com.

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.

 

The College of Natural Science (NatSci) invites applications for a twelve-month Academic Specialist position in the fixed term system focused on students in NatSci graduate programs. The position duties will include administrative, outreach, and advising roles (roughly one-third each). This position is situated primarily in the NatSci Dean’s Office and the selected candidate will join a growing team of diverse and committed professionals who work collaboratively to support graduate student engagement and success. The individual hired for this position will report to the NatSci Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and will collaborate with partners across NatSci and MSU units to support the recruitment and retention of graduate students, and especially students from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds. Learn more about this MSU Careers posting and apply at this link.

Two academic-year tenure-track assistant professor positions in Plant Biology are available at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana. We invite applications from outstanding basic or translational scientists interested in contributing to the advancement of fundamental or applied plant biology research. Individuals who study biochemical processes in plants, particularly those who are using computational tools in their research, are encouraged to apply. Exceptional candidates working in non-plant systems but with an interest in collaborating with the broader plant community will also be considered. A successful applicant with these interests will be offered a position in the Department of Biochemistry. We also seek candidates addressing important questions in plant biology; for example, scientists with a focus on plant responses to changing environment or climate, or those who use computational tools and predictive modeling of fundamental processes, are particularly encouraged to apply. Individuals who use molecular, biochemical, genomic, and cell biological approaches in model plant and/or crop systems will be considered for this position. A successful applicant with these interests will be offered a position in the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology. Learn more and apply here.

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.

 

Bose, S., Lotz, S. D., Deb, I., Shuck, M., Lee, K. S. S., & Dickson, A. (2023). How Robust Is the Ligand Binding Transition State?. Journal of the
         American Chemical Society, 145(46), 25318–25331. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.3c08940

Favor, O. K., Rajasinghe, L. D., Wierenga, K. A., Maddipati, K. R., Lee, K. S. S., Olive, A. J., & Pestka, J. J. (2023). Crystalline silica-induced
         proinflammatory eicosanoid storm in novel alveolar macrophage model quelled by docosahexaenoic acid supplementation. Frontiers in immunology, 14,              1274147. https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2023.1274147

Heo, L., & Feig, M. (2023). One bead per residue can describe all-atom protein structures. Structure (London, England : 1993), S0969-2126(23)00401-X.
         Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.str.2023.10.013

Kaste, J. A. M., & Shachar-Hill, Y. (2023). Model validation and selection in metabolic flux analysis and flux balance analysis. Biotechnology progress,
         e3413. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1002/btpr.3413

Lei, L., & Burton, Z. F. (2023). The 3 31 Nucleotide Minihelix tRNA Evolution Theorem and the Origin of Life. Life (Basel, Switzerland), 13(11), 2224.                                 https://doi.org/10.3390/life13112224

Parent K. N. (2023). The phage fought the cells, and the phage won: a satellite symposium at the ASV 2023 annual meeting. Journal of virology,
         e0142023. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1128/jvi.01420-23

Raicu, A. M., Suresh, M., & Arnosti, D. N. (2023). A regulatory role for the unstructured C-terminal domain of the CtBP transcriptional corepressor.
         The Journal of biological chemistry, 105490. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbc.2023.105490

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, 19(21), 7533–7541. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jctc.3c00188

Siew, J. J., Chen, H. M., Chiu, F. L., Lee, C. W., Chang, Y. M., Chen, H. L., Nguyen, T. N. A., Liao, H. T., Liu, M., Hagar, H. T., Sun, Y. C., Lai, H. L.,
         Kuo, M. H., Blum, D., Buée, L., Jin, L. W., Chen, S. Y., Ko, T. M., Huang, J. R., Kuo, H. C., … Chern, Y. (2023). Galectin-3 aggravates microglial activation            and tau transmission in tauopathy. The Journal of clinical investigation, e165523. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI165523

Wang, R., Feng, H., & Wei, G. W. (2023). ChatGPT in Drug Discovery: A Case Study on Anticocaine Addiction Drug Development with Chatbots. Journal
         of chemical information and modeling, 63(22), 7189–7209. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jcim.3c01429

 

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College of Natural Science | BMB Weekly | Vol. 56, No.49