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Jason wins drug discovery seed grant
Jason has been successful in winning a $15,000 grant from the ECR seed funding program of the USyd Drug Discovery Initiative. This grant will help him pursue his mRNA-display based hunt for inhibitors of oncogenic transcription factors. Super stuff Jason!
Did I already mention that there are a lot of lab babies appearing lately?
Announcing the arrival into the world of Oren Lucev O’Connell, born on last Saturday morning at 3:49 am (GMT -4) and weighing in at 8lb 2oz. Direct report from new dad Mitch: "Mum (Annabelle) and baby are doing wonderfully, and we’re having fun adjusting to our new life at home. Not at all what I expected when I jumped on that plane to UC Davis all those years ago to collaborate with the Segal lab." Everyone seems to have been busy during the pandemic! Mitch has been running a lab at the University of Rochester in New York for the last couple of...
*Another* lab baby! Where are they all coming from?
Well, this one is coming to us courtesy of Jason and his wife Mel (mostly Mel) - he hasn't been given a name yet, so I think we'll just call him X. Actually, that could be quite a cool name... Here is is pictured with his elder brother Michael - who looks much happier about the whole situation than X! Mother, father, brother and X are all doing well and getting used to the new regime!
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.
Jason gets hitched
Recently, Jason tied the knot with Dr Melissa Erce in a ceremony in Pymble that was followed by a splendid and intricately organized reception at the Sergeant's Mess at Chowder Bay. Both events were attended by a number of lab members - but for those of you who...
Gracing the cover of JBC…
Dave Gell's latest paper, on which Mitchell and Joel made a small contribution, has been featured on the cover of JBC. The paper, which is built on fantastic work by Claire Dickson, Kaavya Krishna Kumar and David Jacques, shows the structure of a bacterial iron...
Latest lab paper
A small invited commentary in J Mol Biol on non-specific DNA-binding proteins...
NHMRC, ARC and Cancer Council success
The lab was lucky enough to pick up a few grants in this year's annual funding bunfight. Joel was awarded an NHMRC grant with Tom Gonda and Dave Segal aimed at looking at the nucleic-acid binding properties of human transcription factors and a second one (with Nick...
Joel advances to high school
Last week, Joel responded to a request from the science department at Ascham School in Edgecliff to visit and give a talk on protein folding - the same talk that he gave at MLC in Burwood a few months ago. Joel is talking with the teachers about additional...
Joel goes back to primary school (again).
Joel has been involved with the CSIRO's Scientists in Schools program for 5 or so years now, and recently visited his long-term partner school - Strathfield North Public School - spending 2 days with the year 5 and 6 students teaching them about the principles of...
Flyp and Lorna’s ECPM success
At the recent East Coast Protein Meeting, Philippa won the ComBio award based on her talk and CV - entitling her to travel to ComBio in Perth this year to present her work to a wider audience. At the same time, Lorna picked up the postdoc poster prize for...
Saad hands in!
Saad has just summited that seemingly gargantuan mountain of thesis writing and handed in a very nice looking PhD thesis on interactions within his favourite protein complex. Now, time to take a breather and try to remind his family what he looks like! Well done...
A blast from the past…
Look what turned up in a lab cleanup a little while ago. What is the probability of finding a gel that has lanes on it from both Jacqui *and* Joel being at the bench at the same time?!?! See it with your own eyes! I would note that the lanes with the best...
Lab retreat done and dusted for 2013
The annual lab retreat to Hyam's Beach (whitest sand in the world - and possibly the squeakiest too) went off without any significant hitches last weekend. Fantastic weather, and we even had some intrepid cyclists transporting themselves the 30 km from Nowra to...
Another boy off to Blighty
Morgan has fared us well now and headed off to the UK to work with Alessio Ciulli, who works on the structural biology of protein-protein interactions (sounds familiar!) and who is in the process of moving from Cambridge to Dundee. I hope Morgan has packed his...
Flyp’s latest paper is out…
Congrats Flyp (and Chu Wai and Ann and others...!): Stokes et al., (2013) Structural Basis of the Interaction of the Breast Cancer Oncogene LMO4 with the Tumour Suppressor CtIP/RBBP8 J Mol Biol 425,...