BMB Weekly #39: October 3, 2025

 

BMB Shares Science at Annual Symposium

This year's BMB symposium at the MSU Union was a great success, offering a day filled with talks, posters, and colleague connections. Thank you to all who attended, and those who made the gathering possible with your organizing!

 

 

 

Heejin Yoo from the University of Utah will be presenting "The metabolic code of plant immune signaling".

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.

 

Spartans are known for their global impact, each forging a unique path of accomplishments. Yet no matter where life takes them, one thing remains the same — MSU is always home. Each year, Homecoming brings Spartans together to celebrate this unbreakable bond. Explore Homecoming details here, including parade information, the Grand Marshal, Homecoming Court, Glow Green initiative and student events.

Join us for MPS speaker Meixia Zhao from the University of Florida. The seminar will be held at 4:00 p.m.

Meixia’s talk is titled “Sex-specific & epigenetic regulation of meiotic recombination in maize”. We would like to invite graduate students and postdocs to join the speaker for a lunch and discussion on Monday, October 6th. Lunch will be provided at 12:00 p.m. 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 October 3, 2025 at 1 p.m. 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.

Attend this seminar via Zoom. Passcode: 028299

The Plant Resilience Institute (PRI) is pleased to announce that Cohort 2 Seed Grant Awardees will present the results of their research at the upcoming PRI Networking Hour on Thursday, October 9th. Each awardee will present for up to 10 minutes, followed by a brief Q&A session. This hybrid event is open to all at MSU and provides an excellent opportunity to learn about innovative projects advancing plant resilience. Learn more here and register using this link.

The Michigan State University Mass Spectrometry & Metabolomics Core (MSMC) invites you to join us for our Open House! Come explore our newly renovated facilities, learn about our advanced capabilities, and connect with our expert staff. MSMC supports discovery-phase and translational research with cutting-edge technology, expert support, and collaborative opportunities across MSU and Henry Ford Health. Whether you are a seasoned user or new to metabolomics and mass spectrometry, this is a great opportunity to learn how MSMC can accelerate your research. Learn more here.

The Water and Life Interface Institute (WALII) is excited to announce that registration and abstract submission are now open for the inaugural WALII Virtual Symposium: Exploring Life Without Water on Tuesday, November 18, 2025! This symposium is a new annual meeting bringing together researchers and the broader scientific community to explore one of biology’s most remarkable phenomena – anhydrobiosis, the ability of life to persist without water across organisms, scales, and disciplines. In addition to invited speakers, the program will feature contributed talks selected from abstracts. This is a great opportunity to share your work with other anhydrobiosis researchers. Registration is free and abstract submissions for contributed talks are now open.

The Office of Graduate Career Development announces three virtual career fairs this October hosted by the Big Ten consortium of 18+ institutions. Fairs are free to attend and designed specifically for MS, PhD, and postdoctoral scholars like you. Wherever you are in your academic training or postdoctoral work, now is the perfect time to begin shaping your next professional step. Registration is handled via Handshake, MSU's Career platform!

• BIG10 Graduate Student & Postdoc Industry Recruitment Event (GSPIRE)
  Thursday, October 23 | 12:00 – 4:00 PM ET
  Registration Deadline: October 13, 2025
  Open to: MS, PhD, and Postdoc students from all disciplines

Check out more great resources on the Graduate Career Development website.

 

Expenditure will be used to provide fellowship support for students enrolled in graduate programs at MSU. All graduate students including Master’s, Professional and Doctoral students will be eligible, with preference given to students pursing an advanced degree offered in the School of Human Resources & Labor Relations or Community Sustainability. Learn more and apply here.

Students enrolled in a graduate program at MSU studying any discipline, in good academic standing, are eligible to apply for the fellowship. Consideration will be given to graduate students who have clearly demonstrated leadership in their respective disciplines and/or professional societies through but not limited to, an award, presentation or participation in a panel discussion, or have been elected to serve in a leadership role on a professional society committee, or have been elected to serve in a leadership role on a professional society committee or nationally recognized graduate student organization. Awards may also be used to benefit or further research and/or cover expenses- travel, registration, and housing fees- for leadership development opportunities outside of MSU. Learn more and apply here.

 

BMB/PLB 864 is an interdisciplinary course for graduate students with interest in biotechnology applications using Plant Biology, Biochemistry or Synthetic Biology. Despite building on cases from plant biotechnology, this course explicitly invites students with broad interests outside the field of photosynthetic systems. You will be encouraged to think about, and actively develop concepts and ideas that may have the potential for commercialization. Learn more 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!

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 Hsu laboratory in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology is looking for a laboratory technician to assist with ongoing experiments led by the PI and other research personnel to investigate gene expression regulation in plants.
The candidate's main duties will include taking care of transgenic plants and performing gene expression analysis following established protocols, such as qRT-PCR and luciferase assays.

The candidate will also be responsible for maintaining, calibrating and operating equipment such as lab dishwasher, plant growth chamber, dissection microscope, light microscope, PCR machines, centrifuges, autoclave machine. The candidate will also assist in ordering lab supplies, general lab organization, and maintaining lab stocks. Learn more about this MSU Careers posting here.

Michigan State University's Plant Resilience Institute (PRI) is seeking a highly motivated and skilled postdoctoral researcher to lead a project focused on discovering a new class of regulatory metabolites and their nuclear signaling mechanisms that govern plant resilience. The project integrates bioinformatics, molecular genetics, protein structural prediction, and experimental validation to investigate their roles in gene regulation and stress response. The postdoctoral researcher will lean efforts in gene characterization, reverse genetics and ligand screening using phenotyping and molecular genetic approaches. This is a unique opportunity to contribute to conceptual advances in plant stress hormone biology, while building tools and resources of broad utility to the plant science community. The successful candidate will join a highly interdisciplinary team led by Dr. Gregg Howe, with collaborators across PRI. Learn more about this MSU Careers posting 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.

 

 

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. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmb.2025.169358

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. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmb.2025.169358

Hoang, Y., Dufour, Y. S., & Kroos, L. (2025). Segregation of sister chromosomes during the shape change of developing Myxococcus xanthus cells. Journal of bacteriology, e0032825. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1128/jb.00328-25

Jiang, J., Chen, L., Ke, L., Dou, B., Zhu, Y., Shi, Y., Qiu, H., Zhang, B. G., Zhou, T., & Wei, G. W. (2025). Machine learning predictions from unpredictable chaos. Journal of the Royal Society, Interface, 22(231), 20250441. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2025.0441

Jiang, Y., Nikolovski, M., Wang, T., MacRenaris, K., O'Halloran, T. V., & Hu, J. (2025). Targeting the selectivity filter to drastically alter the activity and substrate spectrum of a promiscuous metal transporter. Chemical science, 16(38), 17675–17687. https://doi.org/10.1039/d5sc03700j

Oliveira, J.dS., Dick, C. F., Pereira Nunes, G. H., Essus, V. A., Schrad, J., Subramanian, S., Abrahão, J., Meyer-Fernandes, J. R., Parent, K., & Cortines, J. R. (2025). Intracellular iron positively modulates the replicative cycle of mimiviruses, increasing virus production. Journal of virology, e0102525. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1128/jvi.01025-25

Sagresti, L., Benedetti, L., Merz, K. M., Jr, & Brancato, G. (2025). Simulating Metal Complex Formation and Ligand Exchange: Unraveling the Interplay between Entropy, Kinetics, and Mechanisms on the Chelate Effect. Journal of chemical theory and computation, 21(18), 8950–8962. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jctc.5c01079

Saldivar, E. V., Field, S., & Rhee, S. Y. (2025). Cellular view of metabolism: metabolic biomolecular condensates. The New phytologist, 248(2), 555–562. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.70474

Shammami, M. A., Virola-Iarussi, A., McCrary, I., & Ralston, A. (2025). Primitive means first, not worst: Critical roles for primitive endoderm in embryos and embryo models. Developmental biology, 528, 255–263. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ydbio.2025.09.008

Violante, S., Kyaw, A., Kouatli, L., Paladugu, K., Apostolakis, L., Jenks, M., Johnson, A., Sheldon, R. D., Whitten, D., Schilmiller, A. L., Visconti, P. E., Cross, J. R., Levin, L. R., Buck, J., & Balbach, M. (2025). Sperm meet the elevated energy demands to attain fertilization competence by increasing flux through aldolase. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 122(39), e2506417122. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2506417122

Xu, Y., Schmiege, S. C., & Sharkey, T. D. (2025). Time-resolved targeted metabolomics shows an abrupt switch from Calvin-Benson-Bassham cycle to tricarboxylic acid cycle when the light is turned off. Photosynthesis research, 163(5), 51. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11120-025-01173-2

Ziccardi, L. G., Kramer, D., Gonçalves, N., Nelson, B. W., Taylor, T., Albert, L. P., Campos, K. S., Prohaska, N., Restrepo-Coupe, N., Saleska, S. R., & Stark, S. C. (2025). Seasonal and intracanopy shifts in the fates of absorbed photons in central Amazonian forests: implications for leaf fluorescence and photosynthesis. The New phytologist, 248(1), 76–91. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.70183

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