BMB Weekly #8: February 20, 2026

 

 

 

 

 

Bob Keenan from the University of Chicago will be presenting the lecture titled "Mechanisms of protein biogenesis at the endoplasmic reticulum".

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.

 

 

The GAC is a forum for graduate students to gain experience communicating their research to a non-specialized audience. While registration for presentations is closed, graduate students are welcome to attend the conference to watch your peers’ presentations, participate in activities, attend the keynote event and more! There is no charge for any of the events.

GAC Features:

• 10:00 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.: Student presentation sessions
• 12:15 p.m.: Keynote speaker and lunch
• 1:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.: Resource tables and professional headshots
• 1:30 p.m.: Fireside Chat with the Provost
• 2:30 p.m.: Panel discussion workshop: "Turning Graduate Research into Innovation"

Learn more and register 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.

As an educator at MSU, are you interested in...

• learning more about teaching and supporting writing in your courses
• revising or developing new writing assignments for your courses?
• improving your students' engagement with your writing assignments?

The Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) program at MSU supports all MSU educators in developing their writing-related pedagogy in any level course, in any discipline. Learn more and register here.

Please join us for coworking sessions in Chittenden Hall! Coworking means we each work quietly on our own work while getting the benefit and accountability of working alongside others. We will start at 2 p.m. with a brief time of sharing goals. We will then have two sessions of about 50 minutes where everyone will work on their individual goals with a 10-minute break in between. Learn more here.

How do you trust what you see? Is something posed or staged still real? Join us for a screening of Elysia marginata from New York City-based filmmakers Allyson Packer and Jesse Fisher. This genre-defying short film blends AI-generated content with documentary footage and virtual reality to craft a speculative narrative about human agency in a virtualizing world. Following this, we will hear from artist/researcher Vahid Valikhani on the historical tension between authenticity and manipulation in photography and documentary filmmaking, now rapidly evolving since AI entered the picture. Enrich your understanding of reality in the digital age with this conversation and audience Q&A, moderated by Professor Geri Zeldes from MSU’s School of Journalism. Learn more and register here.

Get ready for an epic night of Detroit pride and Spartan spirit at the Detroit Spartans Gala 2026—join us for an unforgettable evening! This signature event will be held at The Whiskey Factory - Detroit City Distillery, located on Maple Street in the heart of Detroit. Proceeds will support the 313 Endowed Scholarship, a campaign to help students from Wayne County attend MSU. Don't miss out on this incredible opportunity to connect with old friends, make new ones, and show your Spartan pride. Mark your calendars and get ready for an amazing night! Learn more here.

 

This is a friendly reminder that proposals for the spring 2026 funding cycle of MSU Plant Resilience Institute’s Seed Grant Program are due by February 27, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. ET.

This cycle, PRI invites applications from any graduate student or postdoctoral researcher at MSU. We encourage proposals to be synergistic across MSU laboratories and focus on projects that are both high-risk and high-reward. The proposed research must not already be funded by an existing grant and should be distinct from current research programs. Proposals are required to focus on plant resilience, broadly defined. The list of previously funded projects can be viewed here. Prospective applicants are encouraged to review the recording of the Spring 2026 PRI Seed Grant Program informational session. Learn more and apply here.

The Claffey Meyer International Award provides financial assistance to domestic students who intend to travel to developing (lower or middle income) countries for the purpose of providing technical assistance, participating in research, or engaging in service. Learn more and apply here.

The Walker Hill International Award is an award that can be used for pre-dissertation visits to a doctoral research site in a country outside the United States. International students who undertake research in the country of their origin are not eligible. Learn more and apply here.

The Center for Interdisciplinary Research, Collaboration, Learning, and Engagement (CIRCLE) will support three doctoral graduate students in the CIRCLE Graduate Fellowship (CGFP). The CGFP is a guided fellowship focused on interdisciplinary research and practice. Fellows in the program will develop skills and knowledge related to the practice of interdisciplinary inquiry and collaboration, including qualitative and arts-based methods, team building, facilitation, and critical engagement with the concept of interdisciplinarity. Learn more and apply here.

 

Schedule:

• Mondays from 10 a.m. to noon and 3 to 5 p.m.
• Wednesdays from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m.
• Thursdays from 3 to 5 p.m.

The Center for Statistical Training and Consulting (CTAT) offers free drop-in office hours for MSU graduate students, faculty, and research staff. Learn more here.

The Office for International Students and Scholars is hosting a series of events focused on promoting health and wellbeing for international students. These events include crafting activities, a speaker series, and opportunities to connect with your peers. Learn more here.

Hot off the press! The third University Health and Wellbeing Annual Report is now available! Explore the latest insights on how health and wellbeing was advanced on campus and delivered positive impact for the Spartan community in 2025.

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.

Cho, H., Choi, I., Bouain, N., Nawaz, A., Zheng, L., Shahzad, Z., Brandizzi, F., Rhee, S. Y., & Rouached, H. (2026). Phosphorus availability controls flowering time through subcellular reprogramming of bGLU25 and GRP7 in Arabidopsis. Developmental cell, 61(2), 340–355.e6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.devcel.2025.10.005

Jiang, J., Li, D., Wang, G., & Wei, G. W. (2026). Recent advances in machine learning predictions of protein-ligand binding affinities. Current opinion in structural biology, 96, 103193. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbi.2025.103193

Luo, C., Zheng, D., Elnegiry, A., Bhatara, S., Mias, G. I., Tsoi, M. F., Yu, J., & Gu, B. (2025). SOX2 is a dispensable modulator of NUT carcinoma oncogenesis in mice. Life science alliance, 9(2), e202503447. https://doi.org/10.26508/lsa.202503447

Nirmal, M. B., Pearce, M. E., Liu, C. T., Finkel, J. M., Darrow, K. S., & Vo, T. V. (2026). Deletion of Elongator Protein 1 (Elp1) relieves heterochromatin defects in a Pol II mutant of Schizosaccharomyces pombe. Genetics, 232(2), iyaf258. https://doi.org/10.1093/genetics/iyaf258

O'Malley, A., Borders, B. T., Wilson, J. M., Smith, S. A., & Chruszcz, M. (2026). Structural Determination of a Human IgE Epitope on Major Birch Allergen Bet v 1. Allergy, 10.1111/all.70240. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/all.70240

van de Ven, W., Hur, M., Fernanda Gómez-Méndez, M., Guo, J., Ke, H., Awal Mahmood, R., Kim, S., Sharkey, T. D., & Dehesh, K. (2026). Metabolite control of enzyme activity links stress to biosynthetic regulation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 123(6), e2529243123. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2529243123

Van Wyk, J., Wang, X., Mathieu, D., Mills, G. L., Childs, K. L., & Bonito, G. (2026). Life cycle transcriptomics of the homothallic cultivated morel (Morchella rufobrunnea). Fungal genetics and biology : FG & B, 182, 104056. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fgb.2025.104056

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, 37(2), 505–513. https://doi.org/10.1021/jasms.5c00384

Yang, F., Dee, E. C., Singh, A., Wu, Y., Suggitt, J. O., Treechairusame, T., Silverio Polanco, E., Honawar, A., Zhang, Z., Mah, D., Sine, K., Shim, A., Lin, H., Kang, J. J., Tsai, C. J., McBride, S. M., Riaz, N., Gelblum, D. Y., Zakeri, K., Chen, L., … Lee, N. Y. (2026). Osteoradionecrosis After Intensity-Modulated Radiation Therapy or Proton Therapy in Oropharyngeal Carcinoma. JAMA otolaryngology-- head & neck surgery, 152(2), 135–143. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamaoto.2025.4179

 

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