BMB Weekly #33: August 22, 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.

 

 

Ben Orlando from Michigan State University will be presenting "Physical Coupling of Membrane Transport and Signaling in Antimicrobial Resistance".

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

The Fall BMB Seminar Series will run through December 4, 2025. 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.

 

Welcome back, students! Stop by your free campus art museum to check out our exhibitions and screen print your own custom-designed tote bag to carry around campus! Learn more 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.

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).

Join the Mid-Michigan Spartans on Saturday, Aug. 30‚ as we visit the Student Memorial Tribute Trees planted across campus. The trees have been planted annually since 2014 to honor students who pass away during the academic year. We’ll meet at Jenison Fieldhouse and observe a moment of silence at each location. Learn more and register here.

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.

 

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.

Nominations for the College of Natural Science Alumni Awards are open for 2026! Submit your nominations for Outstanding Alumni, Recent Alumni, Alumni Service, and more by Friday, September 26. Learn more and make a nomination here.

 

Be sure to visit the Spartan Experiences webpage for the full MSU Fall Welcome schedule. There are tons of fun activities planned for ALL students. It’s a great time to get to know your whole campus community.

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 Fitzsimmons lab in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology is seeking a postdoctoral research associate for projects focused on the intersection of RNA biology and metabolism. The lab’s research directions include: 1) investigating molecular-level metabolic factors driving RNA modification changes; 2) understanding the regulation of RNA writers and erasers by metabolism; and 3) the role of tumor heterogeneity in RNA gene regulation. The lab employs multidisciplinary approaches from chemistry, biochemistry, molecular biology, cell biology, and bioinformatics to investigate the role of RNA modifications and modification enzymes both in vitro and in vivo. Learn more about this MSU Careers posting here.

West Shore Community College seeks Short-Term Biology Faculty to cover courses during a leave of absence (Oct 30 - Dec 12). If on campus lab coverage is not possible, the college is open to moving to online labs. Compensation is negotiable and may include travel, lodging, etc. This is a great opportunity for a graduate student with a completed master’s degree to gain experience teaching in a community college setting. Learn more and apply 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.

 

 

Barkarar, M., Sarkar, D., Hunt, C. G., & Vermaas, J. V. (2025). Quantifying Chemically Modified Acetylation Induced Changes in the Plant Secondary Cell Wall Structure and Dynamics. Biomacromolecules, 10.1021/acs.biomac.5c00391. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.biomac.5c00391

Jiang, N., García Navarrete, T., Lee, Y. S., Pawlowski, E. G., Park, S., & Grotewold, E. (2025). Flavonoid pathway intermediates implicate UVR8 in functions beyond canonical UV-B signaling. Nature communications, 16(1), 7810. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-63010-3

Khedia, J., Kenea, H. D., Castaneda-Méndez, O., Kwarteng, V., Feder, D., Galsurker, O., Barg, R., Grotewold, E., & Arazi, T. (2025). MADS-BOX PROTEIN3 cooperatively acts with AGAMOUS-like6 and MADS-BOX PROTEIN22 to suppress parthenocarpy in tomato. Plant physiology, kiaf363. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1093/plphys/kiaf363

Rastandeh, A., Makasarashvili, N., Dhaliwal, H. K., Baker, S., Subramanian, S., Villarreal, D. A., Gamez, E. I., Parent, K. N., & Garmann, R. F. (2025). Measuring the selective packaging of RNA molecules by viral coat proteins in cells. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 122(33), e2505190122. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2505190122

Wu, H. L., Kaufman, I. D., & Hsu, P. Y. (2025). The ggRibo single-gene viewer reveals insights into translatome and other nucleotide-resolution omics data. Genome research, 10.1101/gr.280480.125. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1101/gr.280480.125

 

 

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College of Natural Science | BMB Weekly | Vol. 58, No.33