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You don’t get this aesthetic beauty from Alphafold…
We have just solved a structure working with SOLES colleague Tara Christie (not to mention Toby Passioura and Rich Payne). The structure determination was a bit of a wrestle for Tara (as you'd expect at 3.9 A!), but gee - you can't help but love the packing in the crystal (side-on and end-on views provided). Maybe we should be using this protein to make nanotubes!
Beautiful, but CruEL…
Well, it's one of those classic structural biology stories... Scientist (Anjumara) purifies and crystallizes protein, gets 3-A dataset at synchrotron (with Chandrika's help). Can't be solved, but scientists ask cryoEM colleagues kindly and they acquire some images (thanks Alastair and James!). Images are exquisite and quickly yield a 3-4 A map.....of GroEL. Scientists then have a good model for molecular replacement, and - lo and behold - can now solve crystal structure.... of GroEL... Hard not to admire the beauty of the structure though!
Ngaio, Mario and Martina
Although the proud parents missed the opportunity to give the new addition to their family a name ending in "o", we're still excited that they have recently announced baby Martina to the world. It sounds like she's reading the journals already, and planning to join the Sydney Protein Group, so you can't ask much more than that. Report suggests that the full level of sleep deprivation has not yet sunken in (to the parents), but we've no doubt that will come soon enough... Congratulations Ngaio and Mario - it's great to welcome another addition to the panoply of lab babies!
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?
Amazing story from the lab down the corridor - @RezwanSidd working with Sandro Ataide and Ruth Hall in @SydneySOLES at @Sydney_Science - now they will be thrown into the gladiators' pit I suspect with the other protagonists that prowl this landscape! 🙂 Great piece of work!
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,...
Boys bound for Blighty
Herman and Michael have both succeeded in their quest to leave southern climes for PhDs in the UK. Herman has been awarded a Wellcome Fellowship to fund his PhD at the University of York with Fred Antson,, starting later this year. Michael won a scholarship to fund...
A good-value Hons project!
Herman won a poster prize at the recent Lorne Protein Conference for his dehalogenase work. He must be getting sick of winning them by now, surely.
Katschi gets the final go-ahead
Katschi has had the final stamp of approval on her PhD thesis, and will be handing in the absolutely final, bound and authorized copy this week, crossing her fingers to make the April graduation. I'm guessing she's quite pleased about that...
Herman is a winner too!
In a symbolic event for our historically NMR-focused lab, Herman has won a poster prize at the Asian Crystallography Conference that was held in Adelaide last week. The meeting also featured the Bragg Symposium commemorating the contribution made by the...
Morgan wins the SPG Thompson Prize!
Tonight, the Sydney Protein Group had their annual Thompson Prize event, pitting PhD students from around the region against each other in 10-minute talks. We had Mitch and Morgan going head to head with students from a range of places, and in a tough context...
Review from lab accepted at Nature Reviews Cancer
Hooray - Jacqui, Krystal and Soumya have just had a review accepted in Nature Reviews Cancer on the involvement of LMO proteins in cancer. Good timing with grant (and fellowship) season around the corner...!
Graduation fever
Tonight, the Sydney Protein Group had their annual Thompson Prize event, pitting PhD students from around the region against each other in 10-minute talks. We had Mitch and Morgan going head to head with students from a range of places, and in a tough context...
Scientists in Schools
Joel has been involved in the CSIRO Scientists in Schools program for a few years now, visiting a local primary school (Strathfield North Public School) once or twice a year to do a day of science with a bunch of the students (usually about 150 in a day in three...