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CSHL macromolecular crystallography course
Jun. 10, 2025—Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) is a leading international center for research and education. As part of its mission, each year CSHL organizes 30 advanced technical science courses, with organizers, instructors and participants from all over the world. CSHL is offering a course in macromolecular crystallography October 12 – 28, 2025. X-ray crystallography has been...
Call for Nominations: 2025 Vanderbilt Prize Student Scholar
Jun. 10, 2025—Nominations for the 2025 Vanderbilt Prize Student Scholar are invited now through June 27, 2025. Candidates for the Vanderbilt Prize Student Scholar are graduate students in biomedical sciences at Vanderbilt (Ph.D. or M.D./Ph.D. track) who have completed the qualifying exam and have at least one year left to complete the Ph.D. degree. Competitive nominees are...
CSB Spotlight: Prashant Singh, Iverson Lab
May. 30, 2025—Prashant Singh, is a Senior Research Associate in the Iverson Lab. He’s getting used to the spotlight from his recent appearance on the YouTube channel SmarterEveryDay. However, he’s still the down-to-earth Prash, as he’s known to his friends and family, who is always ready to respond to the “call of duty.” Meet Prash … What is...
Redefining synaptic architecture: nanoblocks as key organizing units in the postsynaptic density
May. 9, 2025—Cellular function relies on the nanoscale organization of molecular components. Pre-synaptic, post-synaptic and cell adhesion proteins within the synapse are carefully organized in nanostructures to facilitate the transmission of information between neurons, a process which is essential for synaptic plasticity, learning and memory formation. However, the precise structural arrangement of synapses is largely unknown due...
CSB Research Spotlight: Wankowicz Lab – How protein movement influences function
Apr. 28, 2025—Understanding how proteins get from point A to point B is top of mind for Stephanie Wankowicz, assistant professor of molecular physiology and biophysics. The Wankowicz lab conducts research on how entropy, a measure of the tendency toward disorder or randomness within a system, shifts when a protein binds to a drug or another protein....
CSB Spotlight: Katherine Stefanski, Sanders Lab
Apr. 25, 2025—Sanders Lab Postdoc Katherine Stefanski’s lab motto might be “a place for everything and everything in its place.” Outside the lab she likes to wreak a bit of havoc in Smashville! That is, when it doesn’t get in the way of a good book. Meet Katherine … What is the focus of your research? I...
From activation to repression: decoding the impact of PPARγ ligands on ligand-binding domain conformation
Apr. 11, 2025—Nuclear receptors (NRs) are a group of transcription factors that control gene expression in response to endogenous metabolites and synthetic ligands. Ligands bind the C-terminal ligand-binding domain (LBD) of NRs which is widely believed to alternate between transcriptionally active and repressive states and be stabilized upon ligand binding. Various X-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy studies...
CSB Spotlight: Areetha D’Souza, Chazin Lab
Mar. 21, 2025—Areetha D’Souza is a research instructor in the Department of Biochemistry and the Chazin Lab. With a diverse scientific background centering on NMR and cryo-EM, she still has time for the finer things in life—especially tacos! Meet Areetha … What is the focus of your research? I’m currently studying nucleotide excision repair (NER). NER is...
CSB Research Spotlight: X-ray Crystallography – Paving the way for ‘hypoallergen’ treatments against peanut allergies
Mar. 7, 2025—Ben Spiller, associate professor of pharmacology, and collaborators recently published two papers that dig into how peanut allergies are provoked and providing support for the use of a potential treatment option: hypoallergens. Both papers were published in February in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Read more about how the IgE antibodies’ structural, immunological...
CSB Research Spotlight: Sanders Lab – New mechanisms that cause irregular heartbeat
Mar. 3, 2025—In a recent collaboration with researchers at Northwestern University, newly-minted PhD Kathryn Butcher (Brewer) and Professor of Biochemistry and Vice Dean of Basic Sciences Chuck Sanders found that, for people with long QT syndrome, a heart condition that causes an irregular heartbeat, a more tailored approach to treatment could be more beneficial than the usual...
Greater than the sum of its parts: the role of VARP-SNX27 binding in endosomal “supercomplex” formation
Feb. 14, 2025—In cells, multi-subunit coat protein complexes are responsible for coordinating the transport of transmembrane proteins and lipid cargo between membranes. At the endosome, cargo trafficking is mediated by retromer, a heterotrimer composed of VPS26, VPS29, and VPS35. Retromer serves as a “master regulator”, recruiting machinery to help deform the membrane and sort cargo into vesicles...
CSB Student Profile: Clay Tydings
Feb. 7, 2025—Teamwork makes the dream work! Clay Tydings, of the Walker and Meiler Labs, thinks collaboration is key to not only furthering his scientific endeavors but also for achieving a personal goal. Meet Clay … What is the focus of your research and what tools/techniques do you use? I work on developing methods for modeling peptides...
Investigations into inositol phosphates: the mTOR regulators you’ve never heard of!
Jan. 31, 2025—Inositol phosphates are a family of small metabolites characterized by their different phosphorylation patterns. Inositol hexakisphosphate (IP6), the fully phosphorylated form of inositol phosphate, is found in many organisms and is the most abundant inositol phosphate in animal and plant cells. IP6 serves a wide range of functions including regulation of enzyme activity, mediation of...
Jenny Tran wins the Dr. Anne Karpay Award in Structural Biology
Jan. 23, 2025—Congratulations to Jenny Tran, of the Breann Brown lab, on being named the 2025 recipient of the Dr. Anne Karpay Award in Structural Biology. “It’s such an honor to be selected as the recipient of the Karpay Award,” Tran said. Although she completed a summer research internship with Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor David G....
Jenny Tran presents Karpay Award Seminar January 21
Jan. 17, 2025—2025 Anne Karpay Award in Structural Biology Winner Jenny Tran, of the Breann Brown lab, gives the MBTP/CSB Seminar on Tuesday, January 21, at 12:20pm in 1220 MRB3. Although in high school Jenny completed a summer research internship with Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor David Lynn at Emory University, she originally wanted to pursue architecture...
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