BMB Weekly #21: May 23, 2025

 

Micro metal-movers: MSU biochemists are one step closer to better cancer treatments   Featuring Hu and Merz Groups. Read the full article here.

 

 

 

 

Meet us at Strange Matter at the Union and order a beverage on us at 3.30pm. Then we’ll walk to the Beal Botanical Gardens for some fun activities. If you arrive after 4pm, please join us at Beal directly. Feel free to bring a blanket, snacks, or anything else to make it a relaxing hang out at the Gardens.

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. Learn more and register here.

Whether you are working on the competencies for your Certification in College Teaching, your Diversity Statement, or your Teaching Philosophy Statement, join us for an in-person writing session. Please come to this working and scaffolding session prepared with questions, identify your needs so you can set goals to complete your work or make progress on your ongoing documents (e.g., teaching philosophy), and provide resources and feedback. Learn more and register here.

Casual questions in randomized trials can be answered by randomizing participants to treatment and defining a clear follow-up period. Emulating a target trial is an approach to answer a causal question in observational studies through careful consideration of inclusion criteria, confounding bias, and index time (=start of follow-up period).

In this presentation, we introduce concepts, discuss challenges in both scenarios (randomized trial or observational study), including the “immortal time bias” and approaches to statistical analyses in an example regarding efficacy of a drug treatment. Learn more and register here.

PCA is excited to host the Plant Cell Identity Webinar Series! This series of talks brings together experts around the world to discuss the wonders of plant cell identity. From working out how cells develop their identity to uncovering how cell states change through development and from stress, these webinars will cover how plant cell types and states are defined quantitatively and qualitatively using single-cell and spatial omics approaches. Learn more and register here.

 

Dear NatSci Community, we're excited to invite you to join the NatSci Summer Writing Challenge, running from June 1-August 1. This challenge is open to all NatSci graduate students, postdocs, and faculty who want to build sustainable writing habits, boost motivation, and connect with colleagues through a bit of friendly competition. 

Here's how it works: 

• Form a team and register by June 1.
• Every week, you'll log your own individual writing progress, contributing to your team's overall achievement.
• Celebrate progress together and stay motivated with prizes. Prizes will be disbursed for top point earners (top individual, top team, and top department). 

Whether you're working on a manuscript, dissertation, grant, or other writing project, the challenge is a great way to stay on track this summer. Bonus-We will be offering optional write-ins and workshops throughout the summer. Stay tuned for the full calendar.

Register your team here. Check out the flyer and explore the breakdown here.

The CTLI supports educators broadly, promoting professional growth in teaching, learning, and student success. Fellows will work in innovative environments, developing skills in design, facilitation, and collaboration, and contributing to impactful campus outcomes. Learn more and apply here.

 

This four-day virtual event highlights the technologies that enhance teaching and learning and promote student success. In addition to demos from partner vendors, MSU educators and support staff will present and discuss the use of educational technology available at MSU.

Sessions will take place each day in the morning and afternoon. Attend and engage in as many sessions as you wish. Visit the D2L learning community to enroll and visit the course home page to find the complete schedule and register for the sessions you plan to attend. Learn more and enroll 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.

 

 

 

Babineau, N., Dien Nguyen, L. T., Mathieu, D., McCue, C., Schlecht, N., Abrahamson, T., Hamberger, B., & Busta, L. (2025). A molecular representation system with a common reference frame for analyzing triterpenoid structural diversity. Plant communications, 6(5), 101320. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xplc.2025.101320

Chen, D., Jiang, J., Hayes, N., Su, Z., & Wei, G. W. (2025). Artificial intelligence approaches for anti-addiction drug discovery. Digital discovery, 10.1039/d5dd00032g. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1039/d5dd00032g

Cross, M. C. G., Aboulnaga, E., & TerAvest, M. A. (2025). A small number of point mutations confer formate tolerance in Shewanella oneidensis. Applied and environmental microbiology, 91(5), e0196824. https://doi.org/10.1128/aem.01968-24

Dang, D., Deogharkar, A., McKolay, J., Smith, K. S., Panwalkar, P., Hoffman, S., Tian, W., Ji, S., Azambuja, A. P., Natarajan, S. K., Lum, J., Bayliss, J., Manzeck, K., Sweha, S. R., Hamanishi, E., Pun, M., Patel, D., Rau, S., Animasahun, O., Achreja, A., … Venneti, S. (2025). Isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 primes group-3 medulloblastomas for cuproptosis. Cancer cell, S1535-6108(25)00172-2. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccell.2025.04.013

Mateusz Wagner, Jieun Kang, Catherine Mercado, Venkatesh P. Thirumlaikumar, Michal Gorka, Hanne Zillmer, Jingzhe Guo, Romina I. Minen, Caroline F. Plecki, Katayoon Dehesh, Frank C. Schroeder, Dirk Walther, Aleksandra Skirycz,
Mapping protein-metabolite interactions in E. coli by integrating chromatographic techniques and co-fractionation mass spectrometry, iScience, Volume 28, Issue 6, 2025, 112611, ISSN 2589-0042, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2025.112611.

Minen, R. I., Camalle, M. D., Schwertfeger, T. J., Abdulhakim, F., Reish, H., De Souza, L. P., Moreno, J. C., Schilmiller, A., Thirumalaikumar, V. P., Agarwal, P., Plecki, C. F., Fernie, A. R., Hirt, H., Schroeder, F. C., & Skirycz, A. (2025). Characterization of the cyclic dipeptide cyclo(His-Pro) in Arabidopsis. PLANT PHYSIOLOGY. https://doi.org/10.1093/plphys/kiaf174

Subramanian, S., McGuffin, H., Passage, R., Dover, J. A., & Parent, K. N. (2025). Complete genome sequence of Shigella phage Moonfish isolated from Mid-Michigan. Microbiology resource announcements, e0125524. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1128/mra.01255-24

Susanto, F. A., Jones, A. D., Donnelly, S. L., & Lundquist, P. K. (2025). Cyanoglobule lipid droplets are a stress-responsive metabolic compartment of cyanobacteria and the progenitor of plant plastoglobules. The Plant cell, koaf127. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1093/plcell/koaf127

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, 65(9), 4662–4673. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jcim.5c00739

Wozniak, S., Janson, G., & Feig, M. (2025). Accurate Predictions of Molecular Properties of Proteins via Graph Neural Networks and Transfer Learning. Journal of chemical theory and computation, 21(9), 4830–4845. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jctc.4c01682

 

 

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College of Natural Science | BMB Weekly | Vol. 58, No.21