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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...
Jason heads to Blighty
Former lab member Jason Schmidberger (postdoc 2015-6) has packed up his Akubra (and his family) and made a big move to the UK to join the drug discovery alliance and consulting company Evotec. Looks like an exciting company and we look forward to hearing from him what it's like out in the real world!
Big news (x2) for Michael Webster in Strasbourg
Michael - an Hons student in the lab in 2012 - has been extra productive in his postdoc in Strasbourg lately. Not only has he just had a paper come out in Science this week showing the interaction between bacterial RNA polymerase and the ribosome (the basis for the coupling of transcription and translation): [check it out here] but he has just become a father to Hugo! Busy boy! - and congratulations on both fronts...
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!
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!
Young Investigator Award for David
David Jacques, who has spent a year with us (after a PhD with the Trewella/Guss labs) working wonders with crystals and small angle X-ray scattering, won a Young Investigator Award at the 2012 Lorne Protein Conference. In his award talk, David presented...
Poster Victories at Lorne Proteins
Soumya Joseph, Kaayva Kumar and Vanessa Morris all won poster prizes at the Lorne Conference for Protein structure and Function. We're very proud of them all. A bonus this year is that winning the prizes makes them eligible for winning a sponsored trip to the...
Fionna publishes a nice paper!
Fionna has just had her first paper published from her postdoc with Fred Allain at the ETH in Zurich - in NSMB, no less! While simultaneously juggling a small child (not literally) she has published her structure of the zinc knuckle domains of Lin28 (an inhibitor...
Socks gets the official word on her PhD
...and the word is "congratulations!" - yes - that's right - the official letter from the Dean has arrived saying that Socks has qualified for the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Well done Socks - we will put the champers in the fridge for your graduation!
Nick scores Early Career Research Award from the ARC
In the recently announced ARC round, Nick won one of the inaugural DECRA (Discovery Early Career Researcher Award) grants - from a very competitive field - overall success rate of just under 13%. Storming effort Nick - I suppose you will be wanting my office now......
More lab grant success
In the recently announced ARC Discovery grant round, Joel was lucky enough to get his two applications funded (outcomes here) - one on zinc finger design and one on trying to figure out the function of our favourite RNA-binding protein A bit of a...
Now, *this* is a cupcake!
From UNSW School of Chem's 50th anniversary celebrations - cupcake par...
Joel sweet talks a grant from the NHMRC
In the recently announced NHMRC Project grant round, Joel managed to convince the NHMRC to part with a little of its moola for a project that is focused on the design of new zinc-finger-based proteins with a new binding function. Who would have thought there was...
David Jacques lands a postdoctoral fellowship
David is off to old Blighty with his recently awarded postdoctoral fellowship from the NHMRC - he will be working with [Leo James at the world-famous LMB - a young gun working in the area of structural immunology. Perhaps David will come back and be the next Jamie...
Eija hands in her thesis
Yay! Eija has handed in! Off to Tahiti for some well-deserved R+R (and, no doubt, to dream of printers jamming for a few nights...).
Classic highlights of Chu Wai’s cycling trip
I can see a theme emerging from Chu Wai and Chu Yook's recent cycling trip around Switzerland - I think the sausage one is the best... [photos]