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Lab alum Kaavya smashing it in GPCR world
This week's edition of Science magazine features an article on which Kaavya Krishna Kumar - PhD student with Dave Gell when he was here in our unit - is first-equal author. The paper describes the cryoEM structure of the glucagon receptor bound to a glucagon-like ligand and helps understand the mechanism by which the binding of glucagon to its GPCR receptor transmits a signal to the inside of the cell - increasing glucose production when blood glucose gets low. Great work Kaavya! [Figure taken from paper - which you can find HERE]
Angela wins the oldest shaking incubator competition!
Our lab manager, Angela Nikolic, learned of a competition hosted by In Vitro Technologies on "who has the oldest shaking incubator" in all of Australia and New Zealand. She applied with our Infors Unitron Shaker that dated back to Dec 2000! She has won us a brand new Infors Celltron Shaker! Well done Angela!
Jessica hands in
Always a big milestone in the PhD journey, Jessica Zhong has clicked the upload button (which isn't quite the same as the old days with the endless photocopying and page juggling, but still...) and submitted her thesis (and now is an expert on definite articles), which was focused on the biochemical analysis of CHD4 - the chromatin remodelling component of the NuRD complex. Her project landed her a Nature Commun paper so far, and with the experiments she's about to finish off, hopefully another good paper too. And it would be remiss of me to not mention that the project has been a fantastic collaboration with Antoine van Oijen and Bishnu Paudel at University of Wollongong - big...
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!
Roland and Liza tie the knot
Roland and Liza have taken the plunge and become a married couple - and we have photographic evidence to prove it... Congratulations to them both!
Richard Grant in the news
Richard Grant - ex-Mackay-lab postdoc, is now an associate editor at the Faculty of 1000 - the group of experts that review papers across a range of different fields and make note of ones that seem worth a read - and has been in the news recently with F1000's...
Jacqui gets elected…
...to the Executive Council of the Protein Society. It is possible that she is the first person from down under to be elected to the Council! Expect a push for lab members to attend the Protein Society meetings! Actually, I went to one in Zurich not long ago and it...
Jacqui and Lorna’s latest paper comes out in PNAS
Lorna's paper describing the multi-protein complexes formed by LMO2, GATA-1, LDB1 and - thrown in for good measure - FOG1 has appeared in the latest issue of PNAS - check it out here. You can also have a look at the structure in our structure gallery - number...
Is there something in the air?
The other day, Chu Kong became twice the father he was before, by virtue of Annabelle giving birth to their second child - a son - which will now ensure the continuation of the Liew lineage. Congrats Chu (although i would still recommend...
Fionna loses weight – 2.51 kg, to be precise…
On 30 July, Fionna gave birth to Toby Jasper Wai, who weighed in at a healthy but diminutive 2.5 kg (before promptly drinking himself to 3.6 kg!). Congratulations Fionna! Don't take him *too* close to the magnet - you just never...
Margie is on the move (even more than usual!)
Margie has just been appointed to an tenured academic position in the Department of Pharmacology here at USyd. Although we will miss her badly, it's great news for her - a continuing position *and* she doesn't have to put up with my jokes any more! Congratulations...
Belated news from Greece…
Somewhere amongst scootering between island beaches and late night clubbing while at the FEBS Analysis and Engineering of Biomolecular Systems lecture course on Spetses in Greece last year, Morgan found the time to win a talk prize for his work on LIM-homeodomain...
Check out our latest single at the iTunes store
Next time you are picking up new tracks at the iTunes store, just search for "Joel Mackay" to download our latest hit single. If you aren't an iPerson, you can get it from here. I'm sure it's going to go...
Light show at Circular Quay
There is an amazing light show on down at Circular Quay at the moment - well worth checking out what they have done to the Opera House and the Custom...
Paula hands in her thesis
Paula took her thesis off to the binder today - probably a bit of a relief, i reckon...
Liza steps into a new teaching+research academic role
Liza has secured a lectureship in the School of Biomedical and Health Sciences at UWS. That is great news for her - finally getting away from having to put up with us! 🙂 Roland will move out there too and work with Liza on single-stranded DNA-binding...