BMB Weekly #45: November 14, 2025

 

BMB Spotlight: Chinedum Udekwu

Chinedum Udekwu is a familiar face in the halls of BMB, conducting cutting-edge cancer research in lab of department chair Olorunseun Ogunwobi. This year, you'll also find him representing the biochemistry community at MSU's Council of Graduate Students.
Read the full article here.

 

 

 

 Zhen Wang from the University of Buffalo will be presenting the Hansen lecture titled "Unraveling the Biosynthesis of Cardiac Glycosides in Foxglove Plants".

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.

 

Join us for MPS speaker Yilin Zhang from Michigan State University. The seminar will be held at 4:00 p.m.

Yilin’s talk is titled “Nanotechnology Enabled Precision Delivery for Sustainable Agriculture”. We would like to invite graduate students and postdocs to join the speaker for a lunch and discussion on Monday, November 17th. 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 November 14, 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 inaugural WALII (Water & Life Interface Institute) Symposium on November 18, 2025 is the 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. Register now for free! Learn more here.

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 2pm with a brief time of connecting and sharing goals. We will then have two sessions of about 50-60 minutes where everyone will work on their individual goals with a 10-minute break in between. You can come for one or both sessions or just stop in at any point. We will offer a hybrid option upon request. Learn more here.

Do you have questions regarding formatting your thesis or dissertation? Stop in during one of our help sessions to talk to Graduate School staff about any specific formatting questions you may have. These are walk-in sessions. No registration is required.

Celebrate Native American Heritage Month with the MSU Museum and the MSU Native American Institute. Join us for an evening honoring the power of drumming, storytelling, and community. Daniel Jackson, a proud member of the Bear Clan and the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe (SCIT), will share the deep cultural and spiritual significance of Native American drums—exploring how rhythm connects people to tradition, ceremony, and identity. Following the conversation, enjoy a tasting of traditional Anishinaabe cuisine prepared by Chef Sam Anglin, celebrating the rich flavors and heritage of Native foodways. Learn more and register here.

Master's and doctoral students are encouraged to attend this webinar, which will present information regarding GradPlan and RECR from the student perspective.

Topics include:

• GradPlan
• How to use different components
• What each component tracks
• What constitutes a complete GradPlan
• Responsible & Ethical Conduct of Research (RECR)
• What is RECR?
• Requirements for different degree types
• Different types of training
• How to complete your requirements

Learn more and register here.

This highly regarded two-day webinar is designed for those who have some experience with grant writing. Participants will receive a copy of The Grant Application Writer’s Workbook, which has been written to complement and extend the webinar. The presenter is John D. Robertson, managing member of the Grant Writers’ Seminars & Workshops, LLC. The cost to attend is $95 and includes a copy of your agency-specific workbook. The Graduate School and COGS will pay $75 of the $95 fee for a limited number of doctoral students to attend. This seminar is appropriate for doctoral students who have had some exposure to writing grant applications, either through training, mentoring, or personal experience. Learn more here.

 

Marking the 250th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence and in celebration of French-American friendship, the Lafayette Fellowship will fund one year of master’s level study in France for up to 30 outstanding American students. Open to both Francophone and non-Francophone candidates, the initiative partners with 15 of the top French higher education institutions that offer programs across science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM); the humanities and social sciences; and the arts, either in French or entirely in English. In addition to their academic studies, fellows will take part in the French-American Leadership Program, which explores the future of the transatlantic relationship and provides a 360-degree immersion into European innovation, culture, and policy, as well as access to an international network of mentors. Learn more and apply here.

The Center for Interdisciplinary Research, Collaboration, Learning, and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Michigan State University is excited to announce the launch of its Graduate Student Affiliate Program. This new initiative is designed to support early-career scholars who are eager to deepen their engagement with interdisciplinarity, connect with a community of peers, and strengthen their professional development. Learn more and apply here.

The Graduate Employees Union and Michigan State University agreed to add 500 additional tuition credits to the tuition waiver benefit for teaching assistants. This additional benefit will be in place for 2024-2028. The Spring tuition pool is available to students appointed as teaching assistants in Spring 2026. Learn more and apply here.

 

Join the Collegiate Recovery Community for our annual Friendsgiving on Nov. 18 from 5 to 9:30 p.m. This event provides a space for those in recovery and their allies to find good food, meaningful connection and gratitude. Meet us at the CRC Lounge (Room 27 of the Student Services Building) at 5 p.m. before heading to the Mason-Abbot Oak Room for dinner at 7 p.m. No registration required - come as you are. This event is made possible through the generous support of Mason-Abbot-Snyder-Philips Hall and the Residence Halls Association. We’re grateful for partners who create spaces where students in recovery feel seen, supported, and celebrated. Connect with UHW on LinkedIn here.

The Evidence Driven Learning Innovation (EDLI) team is seeking graduate students, particularly those with teaching responsibilities, to participate in a research study exploring how NeuroSupport GPT, a custom AI tool, can help instructors gain knowledge and implement inclusive teaching strategies for neurodivergent students. This project supports MSU instructors in strengthening their knowledge and enhancing inclusive teaching practices — especially when working with students with disabilities and neurodiverse learners. Learn more and apply here.

Airport check in and security processing times are reported to be currently longer than average. 

• Please plan to arrive 3 ½-4 hours prior to the scheduled departure time to accommodate potential delays.
• For the most current airport information related to delays and closures, please visit the following Federal Aviation Administration, and U.S Department of Transportation websites:

• • https://nasstatus.faa.gov/
  • https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/airline-cancellation-delay-dashboard

• For the most current flight information: Please check the above referenced websites, TripIt app, and your airlines site for specific impacts that might apply to your flights. 
• Contact the travel agency 1^st if you have any questions or need to make changes. Contact information for MSU’s preferred agencies is located on the following website: https://travel.msu.edu/partners/preferred-agencies

Visit Travel@State for the most up-to-date support resources. The Education page is continually updated with helpful training and educational resources designed to empower you.

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 University of Georgia Department of Plant Biology invites applications for a tenure-track assistant professor position in plant synthetic biology for strategic resources research. UGA seeks candidates with expertise in protein and metabolic engineering to advance plant-based discovery, synthesis, or capture of materials and resources of strategic importance. A Ph.D. in plant biology, biochemistry, bioengineering, or a related field is required at the time of appointment, and at least one year of postdoctoral experience is highly desirable. The successful candidate will be expected to develop a vigorous, externally funded research program, contribute to undergraduate and graduate teaching, and actively contribute to departmental and university service. Learn more and apply 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.

 

 

Cho, H., Choi, I., Bouain, N., Nawaz, A., Zheng, L., Shahzad, Z., Brandizzi, F., Rhee, S. Y., & Rouached, H. (2025). Phosphorus availability controls flowering time through subcellular reprogramming of bGLU25 and GRP7 in Arabidopsis. Developmental cell, S1534-5807(25)00635-5. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.devcel.2025.10.005

Fan, Y., Noble, D. W. A., Medlyn, B. E., Monson, R. K., Sage, R. F., Smith, N. G., Ainsworth, E. A., Busch, F. A., Danila, F. R., Ermakova, M., Friesen, P., Furbank, R. T., Gan, S. H., Ghannoum, O., Griffith, D. M., Gu, L., Jacob, V., Knauer, J., Leakey, A. D. B., Li, S., … Way, D. A. (2025). Environmental factors have a greater influence on photosynthetic capacity in C4 plants than biochemical subtypes or growth forms. The New phytologist, 248(3), 1205–1224. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.70525

Jeon, H. M., Eun, J., Kim, K. H., & Kim, Y. (2025). Cryo-EM structures of human OAT1 reveal drug binding and inhibition mechanisms. Structure (London, England : 1993), 33(11), 1856–1866.e5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.str.2025.07.019

Keng, M., & Merz, K. M., Jr (2025). PEAS: An Application for Autonomous Precision Conformation Sampling. Journal of chemical information and modeling, 10.1021/acs.jcim.5c02104. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jcim.5c02104

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. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ymben.2025.07.008

Prado, K., Xue, B., Johnson, J. E., Field, S., Stata, M., Hawkins, C. L., Hsia, R. C., Liu, H., Cheng, S., & Rhee, S. Y. (2025). Photosynthetic acclimation is a key contributor to exponential growth of a desert plant in Death Valley summer. Current biology : CB, S0960-9822(25)01312-0. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2025.10.004

Ying S. (2025). Get the ball rolling: update and perspective on the role of chloroplast plastoglobule-associated proteins under abiotic stress. Journal of experimental botany, 76(17), 4735–4744. https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/eraf011

Zuo, Z., Weraduwage, S. M., Huang, T., & Sharkey, T. D. (2025). How volatile isoprenoids improve plant thermotolerance. Trends in plant science, 30(11), 1237–1250. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tplants.2025.05.004

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