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Joels NBD…
...which means New Bike Day in bike geek lingo... Joel has spent a bit of time (well, quite a bit of time) building up a new all-road touring bike based on a custom Ti frame built by titanproduct in China. Kitted out with an old Ultegra crankset (+38T Wolftooth chainring), 1x11 GRX (taking a risk with an out-of-spec 11-46 cassette that seems to be shifting smoothly) with Enigma C-six fork, GRX hydraulic discs, Chris King headset, SQlab saddle (very comfortable so far), Salsa Cowchipper bars (feel great), and Hunt wheels set up tubeless with a Son dynamo. And couplers of course...! Rides like a dream (around the block, at least) and - once the open the border to Victoria - there could...
Priya + 1
Priya Thaivalappil - who worked with Joel as a Research Assistant way back in 2014 - is now the proud mother of a bouncing (well, hopefully not bouncing too much) baby boy named Neil. He looks like a handful...! Congratulations Priya and thanks very much for keeping us up to date!
Our first mRNA display paper hits the internet in PNAS
A big paper for us - out now here! Working with Louise Walport and Toby Passioura, who were themselves working with Hiroaki Suga at the University of Tokyo at the time, we have used Suga's RaPID version of mRNA display to discover cyclic peptide inhibitors of the BRD3 and BRD4 bromodomains that have nM to pM affinities and - in some cases - very high specificity compared to small-molecule inhibitors. One of the cool things about the RaPID setup is that you can incorporate unnatural amino acids - and our peptides all had one or more acetyllysine residues. We see a wide range of binding modes, giving hints about ways that one could design much more specific bromodomain inhibitors than are...
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!
Marylene wins SPG ECR Prize
This one slipped through the news net - apologies for that Marylène... On 15 June, the Sydney Protein Group had an Early Career Researcher event in which six speakers (including Marylène and Ana) vied for the opportunity to get a guaranteed speaking slot at the...
Cuong hands in his thesis – for good!
A huge collective sigh of relief was heard from the Nguyen household the other day when Cuong finished his thesis corrections and handed in the final copy of his thesis to the University! All three of his examiners' reports were excellent - commenting how well...
Katschi’s done it!
The other day Katschi did that momentous deed - handing in her PhD thesis. Yay! No more staying up all night (unless she wants to of course)... Well done Katschi - fantastic effort!!
Tom’s Cambridge fundraising is going well…
Tom - Jacqui's 2011 Bsc Hons student - has just won a University of Sydney Scholarship to pay part of his costs for doing a PhD at Cambridge (the UK one - not the rural sheep farming place in the North Island of NZ) - hopefully with one more lamington drive, he...
Saad’s new heir
In case you were thinking that Saad had been a bit distracted lately or were wondering why he wasn't here today, I can show you the reason - meet! I can see the resemblence... All set for a busy next six months on all fronts...
Mitchell’s amateur astronomy effort
Mitchell, one of our resident crystallographers and amateur astronomers, was on the ball this morning and managed to cunningly capture the transit of Venus using his binoculars and a white surface - cool. As he noted, it was probably the last time he was going to...
Paul insisted I put this up…
A surreptitious recording of an effort from our first jam yesterday with a 4-member ensemble - Paul on bass, Mitch on drums, Elissa Liew from Micro on keyboard (she sounds great here!) and yours truly on the tenor sax (and sounding a bit thin). [listen]. Felt great...
We are slowly turning Ana from the dark side…
Ana recorded her first 15N-HSQC today - and it was a ripper! Who needs those fiddly crystal things...? We will have her writing pulse programs by the end of the year......
A bumper week for papers
Jacqui has had a good couple of weeks, with 3 papers getting accepted or reviews that indicate only minor revisions are required - that backlog of papers is getting slowly but steadily cleared!
Michael’s quotable quotes from the lab retreat
How he remembered them, I don't know - was he wearing a wire? 1. "Suck it up, princess." (with the appropriate accent) 2. "You're in for a flaming sausage of a surprise - if you catch my drift." 3. "The mask of Dorro." 4. "Having to run 22 km to get ping pong...
Angela wins award!
Angela Nikolic, our intrepid lab manager, won the 2012 Regina Zabaras Memorial Award, in recognition of the contributions she makes to the smooth running of the School (as well as keeping us all in line). Well done Angela, we're very proud of you!