BMB Weekly #7: February 17, 2023

 

Crisis Support and Updates In light of the tragic events that took place in our Spartan community on the evening of February 13th, please visit this link for a list of support resources for our community members to utilize.

 

 

Jodi Hadden-Perilla from the University of Delaware will be presenting "Icosahedral viruses through the computational microscope."

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

The Spring BMB Seminar Series will run through the end of April. The complete schedule is available on the BMB Spring 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.

 

The unimaginable tragedy that occurred on campus has us all reeling. Right now our collective hearts are with the victims, and their families and loved ones. We stand with the entire MSU Community in grief and solidarity.

The GAC Committee will be planning a rescheduled event for later this semester. All of our presenters have worked hard on their presentations and we are committed to providing this opportunity. New information, as we are able to confirm, will be posted here, advertised, and emailed to all current registrants. We thank you for your understanding.

The Exchange is the weekly Tuesday morning event for graduate students. Please join us for the following:
Brooke Jeffrey: Introducing the Graduate Student Accessibility and Support Network (GSASN)

Join us for this informative virtual program, presented by the WorkLife Office and Higher Education Recruitment Consortium (HERC). 
Do you feel stuck where you are now in your career in higher ed? In this webinar, we will review the current higher education job market and share four strategies for moving up in your career, including concrete steps that you can take. We’ll also discuss how to assess if an institution is committed to internal advancement. 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 showing just for 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 for FREE! 

Featured show: Living in Balance: Anishinaabe Star Knowledge highlights Anishinaabe stories of constellations and moons in relation to contemporary insights about environmental changes. Teachings shared by Native Skywatchers Carl Gawboy, William Wilson, and Dr. Annette S. Lee are narrated by Aarin Dokum with Anishinaabemowin translations by Alphonse Pitawanakwat set to art by Elizabeth LaPensée.

Show time is approximately 1 hour and starts at 7pm. Event is free of charge. No pre-registration is required, but admittance will be first-come, first-served if capacity (140) is reached. Event is exclusively for MSU Graduate & Professional Students (and their accompanied guests).

The purpose of the Summit is to discuss and develop recommendations to present to Michigan State University's administration on what must be done throughout campus to achieve equity for Black faculty, staff, and students (undergraduate and graduate/professional) by the year 2030. This town hall will begin on Thursday, February 23 at 7 p.m. in the Kellogg Center Auditorium and continue with a plenary breakout session on Friday, February 24, 2023, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Henry Center. Learn more here. 

 

Awarded to three AWIS members whose dissertation research project is judged likely to make important and original contributions to their field. This $10,000 award is intended for a pre-doctoral student in Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, Behavioral Sciences, Mathematics or Engineering who is a woman expecting to graduate within 2 years of the application deadline. Learn more and apply here. 

The Intelligence Community (IC) Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program offers scientists and engineers from a wide variety of disciplines unique opportunities to conduct research in a wide range of topics relevant to the Intelligence Community. The research is conducted by the Postdocs, while working in partnership with a Research Advisor and collaborating with an advisor from the Intelligence Community. Learn more and apply here. 

Michigan State University graduate students, who are performing research related to the sustainability of fish, wildlife, or water resources using an integrated or joint approach that links humans with their natural environment, are encouraged to apply for the William W. and Evelyn M. Taylor Endowed Fellowship for International Engagement in Coupled Humans and Natural Systems fellowship. Learn more here. 

The primary goals of this program are to provide opportunities for a diverse group of students to have mentored teaching experiences and gain familiarity with materials on teaching and assessment techniques during this academic year long program. This is for doctoral students with interests in teaching, learning, and assessment in higher education who are enrolled in programs associated with the Colleges of Natural Science, Agriculture and Natural Resources, Engineering, Social Science, Human Medicine, Nursing, Osteopathic Medicine, and Veterinary Medicine. Learn more here. 

The Fulbright-Hays Act was designed to contribute to the development and improvement of the study of modern foreign languages and area studies in the US. This competitive grant program enables PhD candidates to do dissertation research abroad for 6 to 12 months. Awards typically provide airfare, maintenance allowance, research-related expenses, and more. Learn more here. 

 

CAPS Connect consists of in-person confidential meetings (up to 20 mins in length) that are intended to provide students with brief and accessible support/advice. These meetings are scheduled online in advance, up to an hour before the appointment time. CAPS Connect might be helpful for the student who is a little wary of counseling due to stigma or cultural expectations/values. It is a nice way to meet a mental health professional without committing to anything. If a student already knows they need counseling/psychiatric services, it is best for them to sign up for an initial consultation with CAPS online (https://caps.msu.edu/schedule/) rather than use CAPS Connect.

Our CAPS clinician is Abigail Waller https://caps.msu.edu/general_info/profiles/AbigailWaller.html - the CAPS Connect meetings will be held in-person only, in 1312 Biomedical and Physical Sciences Bldg – (Physics and Astronomy student affairs office) every Monday from 9:00a – 11:00a, except the last Monday of each month. 

You will need to schedule a meeting @ https://caps.msu.edu/services/CAPSConnect.html or via the QR code that will be on the office door.

The ITA Program is currently scheduling advising appointments for international graduate teaching assistants interested in taking ITA support courses in Spring 2023. Learn more 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 Kaguni lab at Michigan State University seeks a talented and highly motivated postdoctoral researcher to determine the cryo-EM structure of a protein-DNA complex formed in the process of replication initiation using Escherichia coli as a model system (https://bmb.natsci.msu.edu/directory-pages/faculty/jon-m-kaguni/current-research.aspx). The individual will also obtain training in nucleic acid enzymology, and molecular genetics. The postdoc is expected to participate in seminars, journal clubs, weekly lab meetings, and prepare and submit manuscripts to peer-reviewed journals. Learn more about this MSU Careers posting and apply at this link.

The Kroos lab in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Michigan State University is seeking a postdoctoral research associate to work on mechanisms of signaling and gene regulation in bacteria. A highly motivated individual is sought to conduct biochemical, genetic, and microscopic experiments on mechanisms of signaling and gene regulation in Bacillus subtilis and Myxococcus xanthus. Learn more about this MSU Careers posting and apply at this link. 

The Research Associate will be using molecular modeling and molecular simulation to investigate ligand binding and release processes. Analysis of these transition paths will yield valuable information to further collaborative drug design projects. Duties include: conducting and analyzing molecular simulations, communicating research in conference presentations and manuscripts, and serving as a mentor to undergraduate and graduate students. Learn more about this MSU Careers posting and apply at this link. 

 

Chaturvedi, S. S., Thomas, M. G., Jaber Sathik Rifayee, S. B., White, W., Wildey, J., Warner, C., Schofield, C. J., Hu, J., Hausinger, R. P.,
         Karabencheva-Christova, T. G., & Christov, C. (2023). Dioxygen Binding is Controlled by the Protein Environment in Non-Heme Fe(II)
         and 2-Oxoglutarate Oxygenases - A Study on Histone Demethylase PHF8 and an Ethylene Forming Enzyme. Chemistry (Weinheim
         an der Bergstrasse, Germany), 10.1002/chem.202300138. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.202300138

Chen, D., Liu, J., Wu, J., Wei, G. W., Pan, F., & Yau, S. T. (2023). Path Topology in Molecular and Materials Sciences. The journal of physical
         chemistry letters, 14(4), 954–964. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.2c03706

Doherty, J. H., Cerchiara, J. A., Scott, E. E., Jescovitch, L. N., McFarland, J., Haudek, K. C., & Wenderoth, M. P. (2023). Oaks to arteries:
         The Physiology Core Concept of flow down gradients supports transfer of student reasoning. Advances in physiology education,
         10.1152/advan.00155.2022. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1152/advan.00155.2022

Janson, G., Valdes-Garcia, G., Heo, L., & Feig, M. (2023). Direct generation of protein conformational ensembles via machine learning. 
         Nature communications, 14(1), 774. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-36443-x

Liu, R., Hirn, M., & Krishnan, A. (2023). Accurately modeling biased random walks on weighted networks using node2vec. Bioinformatics
         (Oxford, England), 39(1), btad047. https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btad047

Lundquist P. K. (2023). Chromoplast differentiation: a central role for plastoglobule lipid droplets comes into focus. The New phytologist, 
         237(5), 1483–1485. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.18700

Manathunga, M., Aktulga, H. M., Götz, A. W., & Merz, K. M., Jr (2023). Quantum Mechanics/Molecular Mechanics Simulations on NVIDIA
         and AMD Graphics Processing Units. Journal of chemical information and modeling, 63(3), 711–717.
         https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jcim.2c01505

Mancuso, C. A., Liu, R., & Krishnan, A. (2023). PyGenePlexus: a Python package for gene discovery using network-based machine
         learning. Bioinformatics (Oxford, England), 39(2), btad064. https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/btad064

Medeiros, H. C. D., Yang, C., Herrera, C. K., Broadwater, D., Ensink, E., Bates, M., Lunt, R. R., & Lunt, S. Y. (2023). Phosphorescent
         Metal Halide Nanoclusters for Tunable Photodynamic Therapy. Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany), 29(7),
         e202202881. https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.202202881

Nault, R., Saha, S., Bhattacharya, S., Sinha, S., Maiti, T., & Zacharewski, T. (2023). Single-cell transcriptomics shows dose-dependent
         disruption of hepatic zonation by TCDD in mice. Toxicological sciences : an official journal of the Society of Toxicology, 191(1),
         135–148. https://doi.org/10.1093/toxsci/kfac109

Raicu, A. M., Kadiyala, D., Niblock, M., Jain, A., Yang, Y., Bird, K. M., Bertholf, K., Seenivasan, A., Siddiq, M., & Arnosti, D. N. (2023).
         The Cynosure of CtBP: Evolution of a Bilaterian Transcriptional Corepressor. Molecular biology and evolution, 40(2), msad003.
         https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msad003

Raza, S., Miller, M., Hamberger, B., & Vermaas, J. V. (2023). Plant Terpenoid Permeability through Biological Membranes Explored
         via Molecular Simulations. The journal of physical chemistry. B, 127(5), 1144–1157. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcb.2c07209

Stallknecht, E. J., Herrera, C. K., Yang, C., King, I., Sharkey, T. D., Lunt, R. R., & Runkle, E. S. (2023). Designing plant-transparent
         agrivoltaics. Scientific reports, 13(1), 1903. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-28484-5

Weraduwage, S. M., Sahu, A., Kulke, M., Vermaas, J. V., & Sharkey, T. D. (2023). Characterization of promoter elements of
         isoprene-responsive genes and the ability of isoprene to bind START domain transcription factors. Plant direct, 7(2), e483.
         https://doi.org/10.1002/pld3.483

 

To provide feedback or submit content, please email bmb.web@msu.edu. Don't forget to follow us on social media!

College of Natural Science | BMB Weekly | Vol. 56, No. 7