BMB Weekly #31: August 8, 2025

 

Critical mass: core upgrades pave way for Spartan science   A revamped facility space, installation of advanced instruments, and the vision of a new director are providing Spartan scientists with the tools they need to achieve cutting-edge science at MSU’s Mass Spectrometry and Metabolomics Core. Read the full article here.

 

 

 

 

Throughout August, incoming graduate students are invited to participate a Fall Welcome Scavenger Hunt sponsored by the MSU Graduate School and the Council of Graduate Students! Participants will explore Michigan State University's campus while searching for key landmarks and locations. Complete the checklist for a chance to win some swag and prizes from the MSU Graduate School. Participants must be enrolled for the upcoming semester. Learn more here.

What can art tell us about the relationship between plants and humans? Join us for the summer garden edition of this popular tour series as we gather at the Beal Botanical Garden with Maeve Bassett, Applied Ethnobotanist and Education Director. Together, we’ll unearth the historical, social, and political narratives growing within plants in the garden and artworks from the MSU Broad Art Museum’s collection. Registration for this free tour is encouraged. Learn more here.

Each semester has a final deadline where documents have been accepted and delivered for publishing, all required paperwork has been turned in, all milestones have been completed, and all degree audits have been completed. Your document must be accepted and delivered to the publisher, ProQuest, by 5:00PM ET on the final deadline date. Learn more here.

All new and returning graduate students are invited to attend the annual welcome program for graduate students of Michigan State University.

• The resource fair will include student organizations, campus groups, and community businesses – all ready to provide you with valuable information!
• Dean of the Graduate School Pero Dagbovie will address the attendees.
• Participate in giveaways from both vendors and The Graduate School.

No RSVP is necessary! Learn more here.

To celebrate the recently completed cryo-EM facility upgrades, please join us for an open house on Tuesday, August 26th, 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM. This will be a chance to tour the core, see our new instruments, and ask any questions about the facility, which is starting to take new samples.

The cryo-EM facility is located in the Engineering Research Complex (ERC building) just south of IQ. A map can be found here: https://cryo-em.natsci.msu.edu/sites/_cryoem/assets/File/Map.pdf. If you have any questions, please contact Kristin Parent (kparent@msu.edu).

This conference will bring together plant scientists and students to push the boundaries of plant science, promote collaborations, and empower the next-generation plant science leaders. This conference is organized by 10 universities in the states and provinces around the Great Lakes and open to anyone in the world. The 1st Great Lakes Plant Science Conference 2025 is hosted by Michigan State University (MSU) in collaboration with the Plant Resilience Institute at MSU. Learn more and register here.

ComSciCon is a nationally recognized 501(c)(3) organization that empowers the next generation of science communications through workshops organized by STEM graduate students. Each year, we select 40-60 participants to engage in a program featuring professional development seminars, panels with professional science communications, writing workshops with peer and expert feedback, and “pop talks” for sharing science outreach projects and building collaborations. Thanks to the generous support of our sponsors, attendance is free for all participants. Learn more and apply here.

 

The Office of the President, in partnership with the Office of the Provost and the Office of Research and Innovation, invites proposals for Graduate Student and Faculty Research Continuity Support, to help offset specific funding disruptions due to executive orders, grant cancellations, and stop-work orders. This initiative is designed to provide strategic, targeted, time-limited assistance to graduate students nearing degree completion and to faculty experiencing disruptions in research funding. A total of up to $5 million annually will be allocated for this purpose over each of the next three years. There are three categories of funding that can be requested. A single proposal could request from more than one category. If faculty have access to discretionary funds (e.g. startup accounts), they must provide a strong justification for why they are seeking support from the Jenison funds.

Support Categories:

1. Graduate Student Completion Support
2. Pre-Tenure Faculty Funding Recovery and Retooling Support
3. Support to complete, partially complete, or paused research

Learn more and apply here.

NatSci Excellence-in-Teaching Citation and Undergraduate Learning Assistant packets are due September 1, 2024 to natsci.dean@msu.edu. Excellence-in-Teaching citation awards lead to nominations for corresponding MSU university-wide awards. The descriptions of each award and nomination information can be found here. Please feel free to contact Teri Compeau or Angela Wilson with any questions.

 

MSU IT Educational Technology is excited to offer a variety of valuable resources this August, including expert guidance on using Zoom, MediaSpace, and D2L Brightspace. Join us for virtual workshops on accessibility, course design, and instructional videos to enhance your teaching methods and create inclusive, engaging content. Don't miss out on these opportunities to improve your digital content and course usability. Learn more here.

As part of our health and wellbeing efforts, the NatSci Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, in collaboration with MSU Food Bank, is pleased to share a free resource for all students and employees. No Sign up needed. For questions and inquiries about this resource, please get in touch with Nick Goldblatt (natsci.dei@msu.edu). 

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!

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.

 

The Institute of Plant and Microbial Biology (IPMB), Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan (https://ipmb.sinica.edu.tw/), invites applications for tenure-track faculty positions at all levels in the research areas of plants and plant-related microbes. Successful candidates should have research records complementary to the current IPMB research capacities or have the potential to launch a new research direction. Preference will be given, but not limited to, applicants with research experience in integrative structural biology or translational plant biology.

The mission of IPMB is to explore the functionality of plants and microbes to benefit science, agriculture, environmental sustainability, and human well-being. As a research institution funded by the central government, IPMB maintains well-equipped core facilities managed by Research Specialists/Assistants to provide state-of-the-art resources and key technical expertise for proteomics, genomics, metabolomics, bioinformatics, cell biology, and imaging. The successful candidates will receive generous startup, annual intramural funds, and external competitive grant opportunities to establish independent/collaborative research programs. Learn more and apply here.

 

 

Arachchige, E. J., Rahman, M. S., Singendonk, K. S., & Kim, K. H. (2025). Structural and Functional Characterization of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Virulence Factor AaaA, an Autotransporter with Arginine-Specific Aminopeptidase Activity. Journal of molecular biology, 437(19), 169358. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmb.2025.169358

Barberini, M. L., Lee, Y. S., Guerrero, L. D., Obertello, M., Mazzella, M. A., Bertero, D., Grotewold, E., & Muschietti, J. P. (2025). Comparative transcriptomic, proteomic, and amino acid content analyses of quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa) seed accessions from diverse geographic locations. BMC plant biology, 25(1), 1002. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12870-025-06913-z

Case, D. A., Cerutti, D. S., Cruzeiro, V. W. D., Darden, T. A., Duke, R. E., Ghazimirsaeed, M., Giambaşu, G. M., Giese, T. J., Götz, A. W., Harris, J. A., Kasavajhala, K., Lee, T. S., Li, Z., Lin, C., Liu, J., Miao, Y., Salomon-Ferrrer, R., Shen, J., Snyder, R., Swails, J., … Merz, K. M., Jr (2025). Recent Developments in Amber Biomolecular Simulations. Journal of chemical information and modeling, 10.1021/acs.jcim.5c01063. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jcim.5c01063

Chatterjee, S., Rankin, J. A., Farrugia, M. A., Delaney, B. J., Pascual, N. S., VanAntwerp, J., Woldring, D. R., Hu, J., & Hausinger, R. P. (2025). Ancestral Sequence Reconstruction of the Ethylene-Forming Enzyme. Biochemistry, 64(15), 3432–3445. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.biochem.5c00334

Feig, M., & Shen, J. (2025). Tribute to Charles L. Brooks III. The journal of physical chemistry. B, 129(30), 7699–7700. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcb.5c04352

Jin, J., He, Q., Feng, X., Wang, J., Lyu, T., Pan, J., Chen, J., Feng, S., Shen, X. X., Yu, J., Last, R. L., & Fan, P. (2025). Evolutionary diversification of acyl-CoA synthetases underpins hydrophobic barrier formation across diverse tomato tissues and beyond. Horticulture research, 12(8), uhaf114. https://doi.org/10.1093/hr/uhaf114

Keng, M., & Merz, K. M., Jr (2025). Assigning Peptide Structure from Ion-Mobility Mass Spectrometry Collision Cross Section Data. Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, 36(8), 1677–1685. https://doi.org/10.1021/jasms.5c00078

Keng, M., & Merz, K. M., Jr (2025). State Ensemble Energy Recognition (SEER): A Hybrid Gas-Phase Molecular Charge State Predictor. Journal of chemical information and modeling, 65(14), 7507–7515. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jcim.5c00980

Kokarakis, E. J., Santos-Merino, M., Ghaffarinasab, S., Vocelle, D., & Ducat, D. C. (2025). Engineering quorum-sensing circuits in Synechococcus elongatus PCC 7942 towards self-inducible systems. Metabolic engineering, 92, 76–89. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ymben.2025.07.008

Qu, Y., Edwards, K., Li, M., Williams, M., Liu, Y., Tsai, P. Y., Cheng, C., Blum, J. E., Acor, N., Oshoe, T., Walter, C., Thirumalaikumar, V., Thalacker-Mercer, A. E., Skirycz, A., & Barrow, J. (2025). Small Molecule Oxybutynin Rescues Proliferative Capacity of Complex III-Defective Muscle Progenitor Cells. American journal of physiology. Cell physiology, 10.1152/ajpcell.00141.2025. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1152/ajpcell.00141.2025

 

 

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College of Natural Science | BMB Weekly | Vol. 58, No.31