BMB Weekly #4: January 23, 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.

 

 

 

Michael Sheedlo from the University of Minnesota will be presenting the lecture titled "Structural and functional characterization of the Clostridioides difficile transferase".

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.

 

 

Enjoy a morning beverage and treats with COGS while networking with peers across disciplines! Bonus for this event, we'll get a tour of the MSU Bug House too! See you there! 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.

Collaboration is one of the most important parts of your graduate studies. This workshop will review guidelines to following when looking to initiate collaboration and best practices for effective collaboration. The session will also explore student conflicts of interest that can arise in research and creative activity. Learn more and register here.

Join us for the next Beyond the PhD seminar featuring Dr. Josh Lensmire, an MSU alumnus (Microbiology, Genetics, & Immunology, Class of 2021) and Senior Staff Scientist at Immunartes.

Gain practical insight into:

• What working at a biotech startup actually looks like
• How PhD skills translate to industry roles
• How to prepare for an industry career
  

A graduate student networking session w/ Dr. Lensmire will follow the seminar in BPS 1425. Snacks and drinks will be provided. Learn more here.

The Plant Resilience Institute (PRI) hosts a bimonthly event series, PRI Networking Hour, on the second and fourth Thursday of the month during the fall and spring semesters. These hybrid workshops are open to all at MSU and focus on fostering engaging discussions on essential topics, such as responsible conduct of research, career development, writing skills, and more. This month's speaker will be Dr. David Lowry, PRI Associate Director and Seed Grant Committee Chair. Learn more and register here.

The Summer Research Opportunities Program (SROP) is a gateway to graduate education at Big Ten Academic Alliance universities. SROP helps prepare undergraduates for graduate study through intensive research experiences with faculty mentors and enrichment activities. At this open house event, prospective interns can learn about the upcoming summer program and gain valuable insight into application best practices. Learn more and register here.

The North American Plant Phenotyping Network (NAPPN) annual conference is coming to Michigan State University next month, bringing together a uniquely interdisciplinary community spanning basic and applied plant sciences and plant breeding, computer science, engineering, and data science. This is an excellent opportunity to meet new people from a wide range of disciplines, forge new collaborations, and hear the latest updates in this rapidly evolving field.

What’s coming up:

• Student Hackathon (FREE!) - Feb 7-8
  Hosted by Bayer and the Plant Resilience Institute (PRI), this hands-on plant breeding hackathon is open to students and trainees and focused on collaborative problem-solving in predictive breeding.
  Hackathon registration is open until January 30th or until filled.
• Workshops - Feb 9
  A full day of technical and conceptual workshops leading into the conference.
  Workshop registration is open until January 30th or until filled.
• NAPPN Conference - Feb 10-12
  Three days of talks, posters, and discussion centered on predictive plant phenomics, modeling, and data-driven approaches to plant biology and agriculture.
  NAPPN registration and poster abstracts are due Friday, January 23rd.

Learn more here.

 

This fellowship will allow a graduate student to draft research manuscripts and research proposals while gaining hands-on experience in scholarly writing, literature synthesis, data interpretation, and the preparation of grant-ready research documents, as well as possibly other research activities designated by the supervisor. Learn more and apply here.

This fellowship will be awarded to students at graduate levels. Applicants will have graduated from a US public high school and demonstrated academic excellence in their undergraduate studies.

Applicants may be pursuing a degree in the following disciplines:

• Education: preference to be given to those who currently teach S.T.E.M subjects (i.e. classroom teachers returning for a Masters or PhD)
• Healthcare: this includes students in healthcare related fields, i.e., medical, nursing, pharmacy, veterinary medicine and public health.
• Engineering: students who are pursuing an advanced degree in bioengineering.

The award will be disbursed for fall semester, and the recipient must be enrolled in that semester. Learn more and apply here.

The Office of Research and Innovation is seeking applications for the Neogen Land Grant Prize. Funded by a gift from former Provost and Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies, Dr. John E. Cantlon and his wife, Carolyne Irene Cantlon, this endowed award program seeks to advance the work of an MSU graduate student whose research has the potential to contribute to economic and scientific improvements in society, with a promise of practical applications that benefit U.S. economic interests.

Applicants must be graduate students in good standing who have successfully completed their preliminary exam, have a track record of research accomplishment, and a project that is ripe for translation to impact through a commercialization/dissemination pathway. The preliminary research leading to the proposed work should be ongoing or have been completed in the last two years and must be the work of the applicant. The application must be written by and support the proposed work of the applicant graduate student. The student's research mentor must write a letter of support, describing their significant commitment to foster and nurture the proposed line of translational research. Learn more and apply here.

 

The MSU Libraries Digital Scholarship Lab (DSL) is a unit that supports the transformative use of digital technologies in teaching and research. We regularly provide workshops and training opportunities for the campus community. We are happy to share our Spring Semester 2026 lineup, which will offer hands-on opportunities to develop skills in data visualization, data management, R, Python, mapping tools like QGIS and ArcGIS, OpenRefine, 360 cameras, and virtual reality. Learn more here.

COGS funding for conferences and GSO events is open for Spring 2026. Apply by the earliest posted deadline for best results. COGS has limited funds to help defray costs for presenting at conferences or attending professional development events. First SS26 deadline is 5 p.m. EST February 2. Second and final deadline is March 30th.

Additional MSU funding resources are also listed on the COGS funding page as well. We encourage you to look at all available sources as you look to fund conference attendance, etc.! Learn more here.

Move your way to 5K! UHW is hosting a training site for the 8-week Blue Cross® Winter Warm Up program. Training culminating with a 5K Walk/Run event at Hawk Island County Park on March 21. Participants can score a 50% off coupon on a SPARTANfit Comprehensive Fitness Assessment. Learn more and register 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.

 

 

Hayes, N., Merkurjev, E., & Wei, G. W. (2026). Predicting protein-nucleic acid flexibility using persistent sheaf Laplacians. Physical chemistry chemical physics : PCCP, 10.1039/d5cp04098a. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1039/d5cp04098a

Moss, D. H., Pear, O., Guío, J., Libonati, A., Ducat, D., Bay, R. K., & Khakhar, A. (2026). Uncovering the Design Rules for Sustainable Growth of Mineralized Mycomaterials. ACS synthetic biology, 10.1021/acssynbio.5c00713. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1021/acssynbio.5c00713

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

Wang, Q., Wang, Q., Melani, R. D., Liu, Q., Nurmi, P., & Sun, L. (2026). Extensive Backbone Cleavage Coverage of Intact Proteoforms in a Mass Range of 10-70 kDa by Integrating Electron, Collision, and Photon-Based Fragmentation Techniques during an Electrophoretic Time Scale. Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, 10.1021/jasms.5c00384. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1021/jasms.5c00384

Yu, P., Krah, B. S., Orlando, M. A., Subramanian, S., & Orlando, B. J. (2026). Structural analysis of a Gram-positive type VII ABC transporter induced by cell wall-targeting antibiotics. Structure (London, England : 1993), 34(1), 145–156.e4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.str.2025.10.004

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