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Our first step into the world of invertebrate transcription factors…
As part of a collaboration with Ron Hill (formerly CSIRO - now part of the structural biology discipline here at USyd), Jason and Joel helped out (well, mostly Jason) with Ron's characterization of the insect juvenile hormone receptor. Along with the ecdysone receptor (which we're also now working on...), juvenile hormone receptor (JHR) is a ligand-binding transcription factor that binds to its cognate hormone (juvenile hormone!) and is then regulates the expression of thousands of genes involved in Arthropod development and reproduction. That means they're important for more than a million species and a quarter of the animal biomass in the oceans! JHR has been quite elusive because of...
Joel successful with NHMRC Ideas Grant (hooray!)
Grants from NHMRC and ARC are becoming a bit harder to come by in recent years, so we were very relieved to secure an Ideas Grant working in collaboration with Dr Alex Norman - a peptide chemist and existing collaborator with the group of Richard Payne in Chemistry here at USyd. The grant follows up on our initial work led by Karishma Patel in our lab and done in collaboration with Louise Walport, Toby Passioura and Hiroaki Suga to use RaPID mRNA display to design cyclic peptide inhibitors of BET bromodomains - a sought after drug target for a number of disorders. In the new four-year project, we are hoping to further improve the specificity of these peptides (which already have great...
It’s raining babies!
Recent PhD graduate Mehdi and his wife Diba have just welcomed a new family member - their daughter Rosha who was borne at 00:34 on 9 August this year. All are healthy and raring to go on their latest project. And you thought the NuRD complex was challenging, Mehdi! 🙂 Congratulations Mehdi and Diba!
Wanted: postdoc biochemist/structural biologist to work with Richard Payne, Sydney/US startup INSAMO (and me). Goal: use cyclic peptide mRNA display to design cell-permeable peptide-based protein degraders: https://usyd.wd105.myworkdayjobs.com/USYD_EXTERNAL_CAREER_SITE/job/Darlington-Campus/Postdoctoral-Researcher-in--Peptide-Based-Drug-Discovery_0131612-1
Email for more info: joel.mackay@sydney.edu.au
Have been off X for months but had to log in to see response to AF3. I am much less smart than the authors - but am I (and Erin) the only ones to think that the helical afros that it makes out of IDRs is totally weird? Am I missing something?
This is supercool, but it does like folding everything, even things that are probably disordered... As always, use with caution, and consult your friendly structural biologist before investing too much in low confidence predictions.
Almost a lab baby…
Nick Shepherd, who recently relocated from Sydney to Melbourne, has just become the proud father of Leo Saska Shepherd. Mother Ivana and baby Leo are doing just fine and Nick is learning some new skills to go with the ones he has in the lab...Congratulations...
Mitch honoured by ASBMB
Mitch O'Connell, who handed in his PhD in 2013 and then headed off to Berkeley to work with Jennifer Doudna, has won the Boomerang Award from ASBMB, which is presented to a young expat Aussie to allow them to come back to attend ComBio and to give a talk in one of...
Wilfred is off to the Big Apple
Wilfred Leung, who did Hons with Joel in 2007 and has since then sampled both Vet School and medical research, has won a PhD place at Cornell in New York (not quite the Big Apple, but a stone's throw from it), starting this August. Hard to get these places, so it...
Jason and Mel are starting their own group
In July, Jason and Mel will become proud first-time parents, with all the joy and sleeplessness that that entails! Make sure you congratulate or comiserate with them...
Neil’s Lorne’s success
Neil nabbed one of the poster prizes at this year's Lorne Protein Conference. Might have even been just about the only NSW poster prize from the 20 they announced! Well done Neil! Your shout, I reckon.
Joel ‘appears’ on the radio…
...talking to ABC702 (which I know you all listen to) to explain the sport of rogaining. Of course, it was at 6:10 am on a Saturday morning, so not many of you might have heard it. Because I know you'll be gutted to have missed it, you can listen to it here (~13...
Jason wins talk prize
Jason gave a talk on his NuRD complex work at the recent "Proteomics and beyond" symposium hosted by APAF at Macquarie University and, in his first conference oral presentation, impressed the judges enough to be awarded the prize for best talk. Sterling effort...
New lab baby!
Thilo and Vanessa, living in Basel, have just become the proud parents of baby Quinn (hopefully not named after the slightly dodgy detective in Dexter). Congratulations to both of them! I'm trying to think how many that is now. If we don't count Kate and Richard...
Mitchell hits the big time in Berkeley
Mitchell O'Connell, who completed his PhD with Joel in 2013 has had a taste of success in the US with a first-author paper in Nature on work that he spearheaded in his postdoctoral position with Prof Jennifer Doudna in the Dept of Molecular and Cell Biology at...
Jacqui invited to speak at the triennial GATA meeting in 2015
In the latest of a recent glut of international speaking invitations (Gordon Conference in the US and the Prague Spring Meeting being the most recent), Jacqui has been invited to speak at the GATA meeting, which will be held next year on the island of Kos in...
Marylène’s paper on designer RNA-binding proteins has been accepted in Angew. Chem.
Slightly too late to allow us to celebrate with her, but a good belated going-away present nonetheless. Steph and Mitch also put in plenty of work and several other people in the lab were involved too... The full citation is: Engineering Specificity Changes on a...
Soumya is given the nod
The official word has come through that Soumya has now qualified for her PhD degree. Graduation will no doubt follow soon, but you can practise calling her Dr Joseph in the meantime... Congratulations Soumya!