BMB Weekly #2: January 9, 2026

 

How viruses know what’s theirs

Learning from nature's packaging experts could lead to anti-virals, gene therapy, and the next generation of RNA-based therapeutics. Prof. Kristin Parent teamed up with researchers at SDSU for a new study, which leveraged MSU's cryo-EM new instruments.
Read the full article here.

 

 

 

Bil Clemons from Caltech will be presenting the Sweeley lecture titled "Targeting of tail-anchored membrane proteins by various Get3 Homologs: Mechanisms and druggability".

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

The Spring BMB Seminar Series will run through April 23, 2026. The complete schedule is available on the BMB Spring 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.

 

 

Conduct in research spans a spectrum, from that performed with integrity to true research misconduct. Accusations of misconduct are incredibly serious, and the consequences grave. This session will help you understand the spectrum of behaviors that can arise while performing research and scholarly activities. It will review the processes of reporting, investigating, and reviewing alleged misconduct. Learn more and register here.

At 3:30 PM, we will mark the reopening of the MSU Museum with a brief opening ceremony and remarks to officially welcome visitors into the space. Following the remarks, guests will be invited to explore the renovated museum building for the first time.

Afterward, join us for a reception celebrating the opening of Blurred Realities, the newest exhibition from the MSU Museum CoLab Studio. The exhibition invites you to examine the dilemmas tied to dis/mis/information, artificial intelligence, and shifting perceptions of truth. Meet exhibitors and program partners, engage with our team of student CoLaborators, and enjoy refreshments as you experience this timely and thought-provoking work. Learn more and register here.

This unique opportunity allows Graduate Students the chance to connect with The Graduate School leadership and staff in a relaxed and informal lunch setting. Connect about career and school journeys, gain understanding of The Graduate School programs that empower graduate student success and engage in candid discussions about university and student life. Learn more and register here.

The MSU AGEP Learning Community is an informal environment where students from varying disciplines can gather, share their research in a 10-minute presentation, or discover that their graduate toils are not unusual. Those in attendance are privy to information regarding fellowships, career opportunities, even summer internships, pertaining to the group. Learn more and RSVP here.

This highly regarded two-day webinar is designed for faculty, postdoctoral researchers, and graduate students, 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 cost to attend is $95 and includes a copy of your agency-specific workbook. The presenter is John D. Robertson, managing member of the Grant Writers’ Seminars & Workshops, LLC.
This seminar is appropriate for doctoral students who have had some exposure to writing grant applications, either through training, mentoring, or personal experience. Interested doctoral students should be planning on writing a grant in the near future. Learn more here.

Please join us on Tuesday, January 27, 2026 for Transnational Voices, a monthly interactive experience-sharing session led by Leadership Fellow Kunti Adhikari. The project aims to connect international graduate students with transnational scholars to learn from their lived experiences across national, linguistic, cultural, and academic contexts. This month, we'll have Dr. Jungmin Kwon, associate professor in the Department of Teacher Education joining us. Learn more and register here.

The Council of Graduate Students is currently taking abstracts for the 18^th Annual Graduate Academic Conference (GAC). COGS is accepting abstracts for poster and oral presentations, and applications to present in the Three Minute Thesis (3MT) Competition! As you make your spring plans, don't forget to sign up for this annual conference. It's a great way to practice communication around your research and get feedback! Learn more and submit an abstract here.

 

The Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities (RCPD) is excited to announce that their scholarship application is now open through January 30, 2026. Ten scholarships honor MSU students with disabilities who demonstrate leadership, academic excellence, and resilience. Recipients will be honored at the RCPD Awards Reception on April 17. We encourage you to share this opportunity with eligible students you advise. Learn more and apply here.

In addition, all Spartans are invited to nominate students, faculty and staff, and alumni for three awards that recognize meaningful efforts to advance belonging and inclusion. Recipients will also be honored at the RCPD Awards Reception. Learn more and make a nomination here.

 

The MSU Center for Survivors is now recruiting volunteers for our Spring 2026 Training Class! The Survivor Advocacy & Crisis Intervention (SACI) Team provides essential support, advocacy, and crisis services to the MSU campus and greater Lansing community. Learn more and apply here.

Connect with Spartans and friends in a vibrant online community united by a love of reading. Join engaging discussions on a variety of topics — from the comfort of your own space. It’s easy to participate; simply borrow the book from your library or purchase a copy.

With a new book selection every two months and the flexibility to join or skip sessions as you like, this offers a fun, low-pressure way to stay connected with and inspired by fellow Spartans. 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.

 

Looking for Your Next Step? Check Out the Postdoc Opportunities Board

This free online resource connects you with postdoc positions at 18 world-leading institutions across 11 states. Explore openings and access advice to help you find the right postdoc position to thrive and succeed. Start your search today and take the next step in your career! Learn more 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.

 

 

Ghafouri, H., Janson, G., Tosatto, S. C. E., & Monzon, A. M. (2026). IDPEnsembleTools: An open-source library for analysis of conformational ensembles of disordered proteins. Protein science : a publication of the Protein Society, 35(1), e70427. https://doi.org/10.1002/pro.70427

Herrera-Tequia, A., Shivaiah, K. K., & Lundquist, P. K. (2025). Arabidopsis thalianaFibrillin 3a binds saturated fatty acids of chloroplast membranes. Plant signaling & behavior, 20(1), 2594894. https://doi.org/10.1080/15592324.2025.2594894

Jacobs, J., Newton, L., Gardener, B. M., Webster, B., Thompson, A., Grotewold, E., & Lundquist, P. K. (2025). CAPS-Based SNP Genotyping for Nitrogen-Response Phenotypes in Maize Hybrids. Bio-protocol, 15(24), e5551. https://doi.org/10.21769/BioProtoc.5551

Nirmal MB, Pearce ME, Liu CT, Finkel JM, Darrow KS, Vo TV. Deletion of Elongator Protein 1 (Elp1) relieves heterochromatin defects in a Pol II mutant of Schizosaccharomyces pombe. (2025) Genetics. 2025:iyaf258. https://doi.org/10.1093/genetics/iyaf258

O'Malley, A., Offermann, L. R., Khatri, K., Linn, C., Pote, S., McBride, J. K., Perdue, M. L., Hurlburt, B. K., Maleki, S. J., Mias, G. I., & Chruszcz, M. (2025). Structural analysis of 8-anilino-1-naphthalene sulfonate (ANS) binding to the PR-10 allergen Ara h 8. Biochemical and biophysical research communications, 793, 153013. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbrc.2025.153013

Subramanian, S., Dover, J. A., & Parent, K. N. (2025). The Shigella siphophage Sf11 tail structure and host attachment mechanism. Journal of virology, 99(12), e0136725. https://doi.org/10.1128/jvi.01367-25

Wu, H. L., Kaufman, I. D., & Hsu, P. Y. (2026). Identifying and Visualizing Novel Small Open Reading Frames (sORFs) Via Ribo-Seq, Transcriptome Assembly, and ggRibo. Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.), 2992, 75–89. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-5013-4_7

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