BMB Weekly #8: February 24, 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.

 

 

Ian Maze from the School of Medicine at Mount Sinai will be presenting "Protein monoaminylation in brain: novel mechanisms of neural development, plasticity and disease."

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:
Guest speaker Dr. Amanda Schalk, Enzyme by Design discussing start-up culture and careers

Sunday, March 19th - 2-4PM @ Munn Ice Arena  - Exclusively for MSU graduate/professional students and their accompanied guests. FREE – Skate rental included. No experience required - just come out and have fun!

 

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 Leadership Fellowship is a year-long, cohort-based program housed in the office of Graduate Student Life & Wellness. It was created to build a stronger and more connected graduate student community at MSU by supporting and providing space for graduate and professional student leaders to engage in change-oriented projects. Fellows aim to increase belonging and community within their colleges or specific populations of students, and their projects increase graduate student well-being, inclusion, and ultimately success. Learn more here. 

This interdisciplinary program will provide professional training in natural science collections curation and management to MSU graduate students during the summer of 2023 (May 15 – August 18). Training will be structured to encompass both theory and practice. Students will be assigned to a collection that matches their background. Participation in the bi-weekly seminars is required of student interns and open to other interested members of the university community. Meetings will rotate among campus natural science collections and student interns will work in one of the campus collections. The last meeting of the term will focus on student presentations, providing students with an opportunity to describe their summer collections work to the group. 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. 

This annually awarded national scholarship is designed to support the educational goals of a graduate student from an underrepresented group who is pursuing a master’s or doctoral degree in mathematics education or a STEM discipline. The individual should also have a commitment to civic engagement. 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. 

 

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

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

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

Tefft, N. M., Ford, K., & TerAvest, M. A. (2023). NADH dehydrogenases drive inward electron transfer in Shewanella oneidensis MR-1. 
         Microbial biotechnology, 16(3), 560–568. https://doi.org/10.1111/1751-7915.14175

Wang, Q., Sun, L., & Lundquist, P. K. (2023). Large-scale top-down proteomics of the Arabidopsis thaliana leaf and chloroplast proteomes. 
         Proteomics, 23(3-4), e2100377. https://doi.org/10.1002/pmic.202100377

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

 

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College of Natural Science | BMB Weekly | Vol. 56, No. 8