BMB Weekly #50: December 15, 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.

 

The College of Human Medicine’s Student Council and the Student National Medical Association will host a fashion runway show to benefit Care Free Medical, a clinic that provides quality and compassionate health care to people in Lansing. Cost is $30 per ticket. Learn more 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.

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.

 

This award is given to graduate and professional students who:

1. Embody and clearly demonstrate DEI work through addressing, challenging, or dismantling forms of discrimination, sexism, racism, and prejudice in or through their program, unit, or department at MSU; or by creating a more equitable environment in or through their program, unit, or department at MSU.
2. Clearly demonstrate what work they did and the extent of that work, demonstrate the outcomes of that work, and display their commitment to furthering DEI in or through their program, unit, or department at MSU.

Learn more and make a nomination here.

This award is given to graduate and professional students who have clearly demonstrated leadership in their respective disciplines and/or professional societies at the local, state, regional, national, or international levels while a student at MSU. Nominators/recommendations should come from a faculty member (at MSU or in the disciplinary society) with knowledge of the student’s leadership activities and who is familiar with the impacts of their leadership activities. Learn more and make a nomination 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.

 

The MSU Department of Police and Public Safety has released an online Active Violence Incident Awareness Training program that is available for students, faculty, and staff. This training includes a presentation explaining how to respond during an active violence situation. Throughout the training, knowledge checkpoint questions will appear on screen to evaluate participants’ understanding of the content. In addition, a video is in development, which will be included in the training at a later time. Learn more 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.

 

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.

 

Palande, S., Kaste, J. A. M., Roberts, M. D., Segura Abá, K., Claucherty, C., Dacon, J., Doko, R., Jayakody, T. B., Jeffery, H. R., Kelly, N.,
         Manousidaki, A., Parks, H. M., Roggenkamp, E. M., Schumacher, A. M., Yang, J., Percival, S., Pardo, J., Husbands, A. Y., Krishnan, A., Montgomery, B. L.,            … VanBuren, R. (2023). Topological data analysis reveals a core gene expression backbone that defines form and function across flowering plants. PLoS              biology, 21(12), e3002397. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002397

Rance N. (2023). How single-cell transcriptomics provides insight on hepatic responses to TCDD. Current opinion in toxicology, 36, 100441.
         https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cotox.2023.100441

Shiroda, M., Doherty, J. H., Scott, E. E., & Haudek, K. C. (2023). Covariational reasoning and item context affect language in undergraduate mass
         balance written explanations. Advances in physiology education, 47(4), 762–775. https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00156.2022

Sudhakaran, M., Navarrete, T. G., Mejía-Guerra, K., Mukundi, E., Eubank, T. D., Grotewold, E., Arango, D., & Doseff, A. I. (2023). Transcriptome
         reprogramming through alternative splicing triggered by apigenin drives cell death in triple-negative breast cancer. Cell death & disease, 14(12), 824.                     https://doi.org/10.1038/s41419-023-06342-6

Thompson, K. D., Suber, W., Nicholas, R., & Arnosti, D. N. (2023). Long-range repression by ecdysone receptor on complex enhancers of the
         insulin receptor gene. Fly, 17(1), 2242238. https://doi.org/10.1080/19336934.2023.2242238

Weraduwage, S. M., Whitten, D., Kulke, M., Sahu, A., Vermaas, J. V., & Sharkey, T. D. (2023). The isoprene-responsive phosphoproteome provides
         new insights into the putative signalling pathways and novel roles of isoprene. Plant, cell & environment, 10.1111/pce.14776. Advance online publication.              https://doi.org/10.1111/pce.14776

 

 

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College of Natural Science | BMB Weekly | Vol. 56, No.50