BMB Weekly #16: April 19, 2024

 

Bjoern Hamberger receives MSU Innovation Center's 2024 Innovation of the Year Award Watch the video here. Read the full article here. "Illuminating the source-sink balancing act of photosynthetic ‘tiny green bacteria’" Featuring Daniel Ducat. Read the full article here.

 

 

 

COGS & the offices of GROW and Graduate Teaching have teamed up to offer a finals-week Monday line-up of mindful activities and opportunities to holistically engage with ourselves and one another. Drop in anytime between 10 AM and 4 PM for tea, snacks, arts and crafts, and activities that ground you during this busy time of year. We’ll be on hand throughout the day to welcome you and help you to 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 & professional students. Learn more here.

Grab a bite to eat and help support our work creating community for graduate students and conducting outreach throughout the community. Make sure to mention GWIS when you order! 

This Microbiology, Genetics, and Immunology Seminar featuring Dr. Clayton Small from the University of Oregon is titled "Host genomic variation as a driver of microbiome diversity in teleost fishes." For more details and any questions regarding the seminar, interested individuals can contact MGI.Seminars@campusad.msu.edu.

Attend the seminar at 9am in BPS 1425 or by Zoom with this link. Passcode: MGI

The PRL Tuesday Noon Seminar on April 23, 2024 will feature a talk from Anne Steensma from Walker Lab. The seminar is titled “How can Cyanidioschyzon merolae concentrate carbon? Ongoing studies of carbon assimilation in an extremophilic microalga”.

Please join us at 12pm in PLB 168 or by Zoom with this link. Passcode: 420205

Join us on April 23rd for an extra special coffee hour and check out MSU's own award-winning Impact Radio Station! Drop in and connect with your fellow grad/professional students over coffee and treats. And then get a tour of the station! Learn more here.

Graduate Women in Science is starting its annual election process. If you are interested in taking on a leadership role with a great group of people, consider a role in GWIS! If you are interested in running for a position or know someone that does, fill out this form by Friday, May 3rd. Check out our website to learn about the different leadership positions available, and reach out to us if you have any questions about what these roles entail. 

 

This endowed award program seeks to advance the work of an MSU graduate student whose research has the potential to contribute to economic and scientific improvements in society, with a promise of practical applications that benefit U.S. economic interests. Applicants must be graduate students in good standing who have successfully passed their preliminary exam, have a track record of research accomplishment, and a project that is ripe for translation to impact through a commercialization/dissemination pathway. Learn more and apply here.

The Department of Energy Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) program provides supplemental awards to outstanding U.S. graduate students to conduct part of their graduate thesis research at a DOE national laboratory or facility in collaboration with a DOE laboratory scientist. The goal of the program is to prepare graduate students for scientific and technical careers critically important to the mission of DOE’s Office of Science. The research opportunity is expected to advance the graduate students’ overall graduate theses while providing access to the expertise, resources, and capabilities available at the host DOE laboratories. Learn more and apply here.

Application Deadline:

• Outstanding Graduate Program Community Award: May 15, 2024
• Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award: May 15, 2024

Nominations for this year’s Graduate School Outstanding Mentoring Awards are now open. These awards recognize graduate programs, faculty, and doctoral students who exemplify mentoring best practices. Learn more about the various awards and how to nominate a person or program by following this link.

 

Whether students are feeling overwhelmed due to academic, social, or personal pressures or just need to connect, Togetherall is available 24/7 to remind them they are not alone. This free, anonymous, waitlist free, peer-to-peer mental health support community is monitored and moderated 24/7 by licensed clinicians and empowers students to give and receive support for a full range of concerns. Many students do not seek out campus in-person/virtual mental health treatment. Togetherall provides an alternative option for students seeking mental health support, offering an additional resource for students who are looking for an outlet to share and process their emotions. Learn more 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.

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.

 

Dr. Xiaosa (Jack) Xu Lab in the Department of Plant Biology at the University of California, Davis is seeking a highly motivated and independent individual who is interested in pursuing an academic career in plant developmental genetics and single-cell genomics research. The postdoctoral scholar who secures this position will use cutting-edge single-cell genomics, spatial transcriptomics, and genome editing approaches to identify and characterize key genes in plant development and evolution, and inform crop improvement. The successful applicant will be responsible for conducting single-cell genomics and spatial transcriptomics experiments and data analysis, followed by genome editing validation. The applicant will work closely with a team in the Xu lab, as well as with collaborators at UC Davis and other institutions. They will have the opportunity to mentor graduate and undergraduate students, participate in the preparation and writing of manuscripts and grants. The candidate will also have opportunities to attend workshops/courses as required by ongoing and future research projects, such as the Frontiers and Techniques in Plant Science course at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Contact Dr. Xiaosa Xu for further information. Learn more about this listing by following this link.

The College of Osteopathic Medicine is seeking a highly motivated and productive chemical biologist/biochemist to conduct daily research on exciting recently funded projects to 1) investigate how lipid metabolites affect neurodegeneration and 2) discover novel molecules to treat diseases with no effective intervention. 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. The Research Associate will focus on the metabolic changes and underlying regulatory pathways in the male germ cell during activation and during zygote development. The position requires the development and application of advanced omics tools in combination with sperm motility, capacitation and fertilization read-outs as well as high-throughput screening assays. Research findings are expected to be reported in the form of written publications as well as oral presentations within MSU and at scientific meetings. 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.

 

Chatterjee, S., Fellner, M., Rankin, J., Thomas, M. G., J S Rifayee, S. B., Christov, C. Z., Hu, J., & Hausinger, R. P. (2024). Structural, Spectroscopic, and Computational Insights from Canavanine-Bound and Two Catalytically Compromised Variants of the Ethylene-Forming Enzyme. Biochemistry, 10.1021/acs.biochem.4c00031. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.biochem.4c00031

Cottrell, S., Wang, R., & Wei, G. W. (2024). PLPCA: Persistent Laplacian-Enhanced PCA for Microarray Data Analysis. Journal of chemical information and modeling, 64(7), 2405–2420. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jcim.3c01023

Hozumi, Y., Tanemura, K. A., & Wei, G. W. (2024). Preprocessing of Single Cell RNA Sequencing Data Using Correlated Clustering and Projection. Journal of chemical information and modeling, 64(7), 2829–2838. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jcim.3c00674

Jin, H., & Merz, K. M., Jr (2024). Modeling Zinc Complexes Using Neural Networks. Journal of chemical information and modeling, 10.1021/acs.jcim.4c00095. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jcim.4c00095

Su, Z., Tong, Y., & Wei, G. W. (2024). Hodge Decomposition of Single-Cell RNA Velocity. Journal of chemical information and modeling, 10.1021/acs.jcim.4c00132. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jcim.4c00132

Weraduwage, S. M., Whitten, D., Kulke, M., Sahu, A., Vermaas, J. V., & Sharkey, T. D. (2024). The isoprene-responsive phosphoproteome provides new insights into the putative signalling pathways and novel roles of isoprene. Plant, cell & environment, 47(4), 1099–1117. https://doi.org/10.1111/pce.14776

Xu, Y., Schmiege, S. C., & Sharkey, T. D. (2024). The oxidative pentose phosphate pathway in photosynthesis: a tale of two shunts. The New phytologist, 10.1111/nph.19730. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.19730

 

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College of Natural Science | BMB Weekly | Vol. 57, No.16