BMB Weekly #18: May 2, 2025

 

"Eric Hegg honored with IMPACT award"   "Eric Hegg, dean of the College of Natural Science and BMB faculty, recently received The Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA) 2025 IMPACT Award — an honor recognizing Hegg's significant contributions to scientific understanding and practical applications in alternative energy research and bioenergetics." Read the full article here.   Student Spotlight: Sarah Marei Sarah Marei is a first year PhD student in MSU's Cell and Molecular Biology program where she conducts research in the Andrechek Lab, studying lymph node metastasis of breast cancer. Before joining MSU, Marei completed her bachelor's and master's degrees at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, which is where she spent the majority of her life. An advocate for open science and research communication, she's been a part of the Early Career Advisory Group for eLife journal. Outside of research, she enjoys reading, watching TV shows, hiking or anything in a sunny weather. Read the full article here.

 

 

 

 

The CTLI welcomes you to our second all-day Grade-a-thon on May 5th in the Main Library. Enjoy coffee and dedicated time to finish your grading the day before MSU grades are due, with available consultations for all your D2L and grade submission questions. We will celebrate our day of grading in community with a pizza lunch. Educators are welcome to attend for the whole or part of the day. Learn more and register here.

The MSU Genetics and Genome Sciences Program is pleased to announce GGS Day 2025! This event is open to all MSU faculty, staff, and students, as well as members of neighboring institutions and the greater community. This year’s GGS Day will feature various talks, panels, workshops, poster sessions, and lunch provided by Barrio – East Lansing. The full agenda can be viewed here. Learn more here and register using this link.

We are pleased to host a virtual talk by Dr. Kale Kundert, currently a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of George Church at Harvard. Kale's presentation is titled “Deep learning for designing protein/non-protein ligand interactions“. We encourage everyone with an interest in deep learning, protein structure, and synthetic biology to attend. Learn more here.

Join this seminar on Zoom.

Are you having a hard time getting things off your to do list? Would you benefit from a dedicated space and being around others to find motivation and productivity? If so, please join us in a structured community space for supporting goal achievement. We will start at 9:30 with a brief time of connecting and sharing goals. We will then have two sessions of about 60 minutes where everyone will work on their individual goals with a 10-minute break in between. Learn more here.

Dive into an evening with pianist Benjamin Grosvenor, tracing Beethoven's adventurous path through music's evolving landscape. The concert opens with Jared Miller’s innovative composition Under Sea, Above Sky, setting the stage for a transformative artistic journey. Grosvenor’s interpretation of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 “Emperor" encapsulates the transition from the refined elegance of the 18th century to the impassioned expressiveness of Romanticism, underscoring the composer’s pivotal role in musical evolution. The evening reaches its zenith with Dvořák’s "Symphony No. 8," a vibrant celebration of Romantic drama and passion, perfectly capturing the evening's exploration of music's potent emotional trajectory. Learn more here.

The ASBMB Breakthroughs webinar series offers a window into the cutting-edge biochemistry and molecular biology research driving discovery. Plants are remarkable chemical factories, producing specialized metabolites like phenolic compounds that aid in environmental adaptation and act as major carbon sinks. This presentation focuses on the biosynthesis and regulation of flavonoids and phenylpropanoids (two phenolic compound classes) in maize and other plants. Grotewold will explore how natural variation in metabolite accumulation drives pathway discovery and discuss gene regulatory mechanisms linked to variations in metabolite levels. Finally, he will highlight unexpected biological activities of flavonoid pathway intermediates, offering new insights into their roles beyond the conventional functions of the resulting flavonoid pigments. Registration is required. Learn more and register here.

Should people trust science more? In the face of political attacks on scientific institutions, many leaders in science education have called for a renewed focus on “trusting science.” In this talk, Dr. Weeth Feinstein will take a closer look at the idea of 'trust in science', starting with an appraisal of the context: What cultural and historical factors define the social atmosphere in which science education is done today? Please consider presenting a poster of your work! Learn more and register here.

 

 

Students seeking a career in pharmacological sciences require training in chemistry, molecular biology, biochemistry, cellular and integrative physiology, biostatistics, and interpretation of complex data sets. The IPSTP is committed to bringing these disciplines together in one cohesive training program reflecting the broad scope of knowledge required in pharmacology and drug discovery.

IPSTP students will participate in three week-long intensive boot camps on critical themes of the program (in vivo pharmacology, drug discovery, and computational pharmacology/big data). Students will also be provided non-classroom opportunities for career development planning, to develop critical thinking skills, grant writing experience, and a strong understanding of rigor and reproducibility and research ethics. The application process includes a form for the student to complete outlining how their proposed project fits into the fields of in vivo pharmacology or drug discovery and how they believe being part of the IPSTP will improve their training. The IPSTP Executive Committee completes a holistic review of the application packets every year. Learn more here and register here.

 

MSU IT Educational Technology is offering a lineup of resources in May that highlight D2L Brightspace and educational tips. Additionally, save the date for the MSU Campus Technology Summit, held June 2-5, 2025. This event aims to familiarize instructors, staff, and students with campus technologies supporting teaching and learning. Interested in attending? You can register for the MSU Educational Technology Summit here.

You can find the latest department news over on LinkedIn and BlueSky. Give us a follow and be sure to tag us with research updates, publications, and lab updates to help spread the word!

Hot off the press! The second University Health and Wellbeing Annual Report is now available! Explore the latest insights on how health and wellbeing was advanced on campus and delivered positive impact for the Spartan community in 2024.

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.

 

 

 

Hayes, N., Wei, X., Feng, H., Merkurjev, E., & Wei, G. W. (2025). Persistent Sheaf Laplacian Analysis of Protein Flexibility. The journal of physical chemistry. B, 10.1021/acs.jpcb.5c01287. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcb.5c01287

Jiang, J., Chen, L., Zhu, Y., Shi, Y., Qiu, H., Zhang, B., Zhou, T., & Wei, G. W. (2025). Proteomic Learning of Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid (GABA) Receptor-Mediated Anesthesia. Journal of chemical information and modeling, 65(7), 3655–3668. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jcim.5c00114

Jiang, J., Zhang, C., Ke, L., Hayes, N., Zhu, Y., Qiu, H., Zhang, B., Zhou, T., & Wei, G. W. (2025). A review of machine learning methods for imbalanced data challenges in chemistry. Chemical science, 10.1039/d5sc00270b. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1039/d5sc00270b

Sahu, A., Mostofa, M. G., Xu, Y., Serda, B. M., O'Keefe, J., & Sharkey, T. D. (2025). Isoprene deters insect herbivory by priming plant hormone responses. Science advances, 11(16), eadu4637. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adu4637

Tortorelli, G., Rosset, S. L., Sullivan, C. E. S., Woo, S., Johnston, E. C., Walker, N. S., Hancock, J. R., Caruso, C., Varela, A. C., Hughes, K., Martin, C., Quinn, R. A., & Drury, C. (2025). Heat-induced Stress Modulates Cell Surface Glycans and Membrane Lipids of Coral Symbionts. The ISME journal, wraf073. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1093/ismejo/wraf073

Vidossich, P., Manathunga, M., Götz, A. W., Merz, K. M., Jr, & De Vivo, M. (2025). Aliphatic Polyester Recognition and Reactivity at the Active Cleft of a Fungal Cutinase. Journal of chemical information and modeling, 10.1021/acs.jcim.5c00739. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jcim.5c00739

Xue, B., Prado, K., Rhee, S. Y., & Stata, M. (2025). UnigeneFinder: An Automated Pipeline for Gene Calling From Transcriptome Assemblies Without a Reference Genome. Plant direct, 9(4), e70056. https://doi.org/10.1002/pld3.70056

 

 

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College of Natural Science | BMB Weekly | Vol. 58, No.18