BMB Weekly #45: November 15, 2024

 

MSU iGEM 2024 Wins Silver at Global Competition! The MSU iGEM team presented their work at the iGEM Giant Jamboree in Paris last week and were rewarded with a silver medal for their achievements. This year they worked toward engineering a bacterium that could break down a plant-based plastic, polylactic acid (PLA), and produce electricity as a byproduct. The team hopes that their results can eventually be used to help treat microplastics in wastewater or even create in-home plastic recycling systems. Congrats to MSU iGEM 2024! Fishing for biochemistry’s ‘dark matter' Featuring Skirycz Lab. Read the full article here. MSU researchers leverage cryo-EM for decades-in-the-making breakthrough Featuring Ben Orlando and Lee Kroos. Read the full article here.

 

 

Shradda Pai from University of Toronto will be presenting "Genomics of human hindbrain development and relevance to childhood brain cancer".

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

The Fall BMB Seminar Series will run through December 5, 2024. The complete schedule is available on the BMB Fall 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 MSU Swing Dance Society is hosting their Fall Fling 2024 in the Dem Hall Ballroom on Saturday, November 16th. We'll have a live band at the event, and EVERYONE is welcome- no partner & no experience necessary! Beginner lesson starts at 8PM and open dance starts at 9PM. Try something new! Join the fun! (Optional $10 suggested donation at the door.)

Do you have questions regarding formatting your thesis or dissertation? Stop in during one of our help sessions to talk to Graduate School staff about any specific formatting questions you may have. These are walk-in sessions. No registration is required.

Join us for MPS speaker David Des Marais from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The seminar will be held at 4:00PM in room BCH 101.

David’s talk is titled “The physiological causes & consequences of resource allocation in grasses”. We would like to invite graduate students and postdocs to join the speaker for a lunch and discussion on Monday, November 18. Lunch will be provided at 12:00PM in PBL 168. This is a great opportunity to meet our outside speaker in an informal environment. If you would like to participate in the luncheon, please RSVP to Keri Morris at morrisk@msu.edu with any dietary restrictions by Friday November 15, 2024 at noon. All students and post docs who are interested in this week’s seminar topic are welcome to attend. You do not need to be in the MPS program or affiliated with an MPS faculty member.

To attend the lecture on Zoom, click here. Passcode: 028299

In this workshop, we will walk you through the process of recognizing your identities and positionality, and the role of DEI in your teaching, research, service, and community efforts. At the end of this session, you will have a working draft to tailor according to your respective needs and to continue your efforts toward DEI. Learn more and register here.

Do you feel overwhelmed by the environmental crises? Worry about biodiversity loss? Feel anger towards the slow pace of climate action? Or maybe you are awe-inspired by technological advances and local action that make a difference? The Graduate School’s Office of Wellbeing is hosting a series of Climate Cafés- safe spaces to express and process emotions around climate change and environmental crises more broadly. Trained facilitators will guide a small group conversation, allowing all reactions that come up to be expressed in a safe space. Learn more and register here.

Write Winning Grants comprehensively covers practical and conceptual aspects essential to the proposal-writing process. Learn how to tailor your content to relevant agencies, develop strategies for each section of the application, and to articulate your proposal in a way that makes reviewers want to read it. The Graduate School and COGS will pay $75 of the $95 fee for a limited number of doctoral students to attend. To have the Graduate School/COGS pay the $75 registration fee, please complete the registration form by Wednesday, December 11. Learn more and register here.

 

Nominations are being accepted for the 2025 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, effective mentoring skills, and commitment to teaching professional development. Learn more here.

 

A 2-credit “Metals in Biology” special topics course will be taught by Bob Hausinger, Eric Hegg, and other guest lecturers during Spring of 2025. The course will cover the roles of metals in biological systems, including metalloenzymes, metallocenter biosynthesis, metal transport, metal toxicity, and metalloregulation. Student presentations will be an important emphasis in this class. Undergraduate students must obtain permission to enroll from Dr. Hausinger (hausinge@msu.edu) and submit the online Biochemistry course override request form. The class will meet in room 502 Biochemistry at 9:10 am on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

This one credit seminar course will examine the mechanistic role of the immune system in disease conditions. Spring 2025 the course will be focusing on the role of the immune system in inflammatory diseases, including cancer, obesity, and neuro-immunology. Different topics will be discussed through student presentations of key journal articles and seminars by distinguished guest speakers. The contribution of key immunoregulatory networks and associated molecular mechanisms will be covered. The impact of these mechanisms on the development of therapeutics and clinical applications will also be discussed. Learn more about this MSU course offering here.

Looking for a meaningful way to give back during the holidays- or anytime? The MSU Student Food Bank supports over 300 individuals and families every week who are facing food insecurity. Contact us at foodbank@msu.edu for more information or to get started on your own drive! Let's make a difference together!

The MSU Student Food Bank is a resource available to students and scholars who may be experiencing food insecurity. The Food Bank provides free food and other essential items to those in need within our MSU community. Learn more here.

 

Three Cornell Interdisciplinary Education Research (CIDER) postdoc positions have been announced. The CIDER postdocs will have at least two research mentors who span disciplines, allowing them to approach questions about student learning and experiences across disciplinary boundaries and use techniques and approaches from multiple fields. The CIDER postdocs will also engage in a comprehensive professional development program that includes research mentoring and development, network building, leadership, teaching opportunities, and career planning. Learn more and apply here.

The Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology invites applications and nominations for a tenured or tenure-track faculty position at the Associate or Full Professor level to serve as Co-Director of the nascent Center for Cancer Health Equity Research (CCHER). CCHER is a developing initiative in partnership with the Colleges of Human Medicine and Osteopathic Medicine and the Henry Ford Health System, with a mission to advance cancer health equity through innovative research, collaboration, and community engagement.

We seek an experienced and motivated leader with an established research program in cancer biology, cancer health disparities, or related fields, who is committed to playing a key role in shaping the Center's future and contributing to a growing initiative that addresses cancer disparities in underserved populations. Learn more about this MSU Careers posting here.

The Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Michigan State University (MSU) invites applications for a tenure-track faculty position at the rank of Assistant Professor. We seek an innovative scientist who will establish an outstanding, independent research program in cancer biochemistry, focusing on biochemical mechanisms underlying cancer development, progression, and treatment.

Areas of interest include but are not limited to:

• Cancer Metabolism
• Signal Transduction Pathways
• Epigenetics and Gene Regulation
• DNA Damage and Repair Mechanisms
• Protein-Protein Interactions
• Biochemical Approaches to Cancer Therapeutics

Learn more about this MSU Careers posting here.

The laboratory of Dr. Polly Hsu at Michigan State University has an opening for a Laboratory Technologist to investigate gene expression and RNA biology in Arabidopsis and crops. Candidates with experience in molecular biology and plant genetics are encouraged to apply. To learn more about the lab: https://sites.google.com/view/polly-hsu-lab.

Duties Include:

• 70% support research, perform and document project-specific experiments, e.g. generating/identifying/characterizing mutants and transgenic Arabidopsis, DNA/RNA/protein-extraction, qRT-PCR, protoplast isolation, luciferase assays, and western blot, etc.
• 15% prepare lab reagents and maintain cell cultures
• 15% assist in lab organization (ordering, organizing/updating chemical inventory and lab materials) and in training future lab members on basic procedures

Learn more about this MSU Careers posting here.

 

Hoang, Y., Franklin, J., Dufour, Y. S., & Kroos, L. (2024). Short-range C-signaling restricts cheating behavior during Myxococcus xanthus development. mBio, 15(11), e0244024. https://doi.org/10.1128/mbio.02440-24

Liu, Y., Liu, Y., Zhu, Y., Hu, D., Nie, H., Xie, Y., Sun, R., He, J., Zhang, H., & Lu, F. (2024). KDM2A and KDM2B protect a subset of CpG Islands from DNA methylation. Journal of genetics and genomics = Yi chuan xue bao, S1673-8527(24)00286-8. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jgg.2024.10.012

Wu, H., Guzior, D. V., Martin, C., Neugebauer, K. A., Rzepka, M. M., Lumeng, J. C., Quinn, R. A., & de Los Campos, G. (2024). Longitudinal analyses of infants' microbiome and metabolome reveal microbes and metabolites with seemingly coordinated dynamics. Communications biology, 7(1), 1506. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-024-07015-6

Zhang, Y., Jafari, M., Zhang, T., Sui, D., Sagresti, L., Merz, K. M., Jr, & Hu, J. (2024). Molecular insights into substrate translocation in an elevator-type metal transporter. Nature communications, 15(1), 9665. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-54048-w

 

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College of Natural Science | BMB Weekly | Vol. 57, No.45