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Our latest preprint – super selective BET bromodomain inhibitors that act as remote control molecular glues!
OK - maybe that's hyping it up a bit, but these cyclic peptides are pretty amazing, we think! This is the latest chapter in Karishma's PhD work (with a massive effort by Biswa Mohanty too!): Peptide molecular glues select between BET paralogues by exploiting allosteric sites and conformational dynamics In the manuscript, we describe mRNA-display-derived cyclic peptides that bind two copies of a BET-family bromodomain in a highly selective manner - and in so doing, form infinite polymers (that, amazingly, Karishma was able to capture as crystal structures). These peptides are by far the most selective BET bromodomain ligands every described. Even more amazingly, it seems that one of...
Simone graduates – and comes back for more
Last week, Simone graduated with first class Honours - on a lunchbreak from the PhD that she has started in the lab following that Honours year! Jasmine from Sandro and Ann's lab graduated alongside her - on a perfect day for standing on the lawn!
The queen of the lab came back to visit her subjects!
Was fantastic to see Karishma last week when she passed through Sydney on a break from her posdoctoral work at Oxford. Was a good chance to try to get her last couple of papers from the lab sorted out before (in other exciting news) she takes up a very prestigious Human Frontiers fellowship at the Crick Institute in London - which will be a most excellent opportunity to immerse herself in a(nother) superb research environment. We look forward to hearing more!
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.
May graduation, 2024
We had a bumper edition of graduation recently with Kim receiving her PhD and Andrea and Erekle graduating with their BSc Hons (1st class) degrees. Kim has found herself a postdoc position in neurobiology - just where she was hoping to end up!), Andrea has...
Auf wiedersehen Jakob…
Jakob Helmbrecht bravely ventured down under, risking crocodile attacks and leech bites to work in the lab under the tutelage of Clement and Lucien for 5 months - and he is now setting sail back to Germany to polish his Masters off by embarking on a little more...
Lab alumnus Michael Webster publishes his first last-author paper – in Cell!
Michael, a BSc Hons student in the lab in 2012, now has an independent group leader position at the highly regarded John Innes Center for Plant Science in the UK. He has just reported his structure of the RNA polymerase from plant plastids - in a paper in Cell - in...
Lab walk in the Blue Mountains
We ventured out into the lower Blue Mountains for a day hike on Sat 24 Feb. The forecast was that there might be some rain. And there was. The first couple of hours were persistent - though not heavy - rain. Fortunately the canopy protected us from some direct...
The lab hits the big time on Youtube
We recently had a camera crew in the lab from Horticultural Innovation Australia. They are providing some funding for our work to design new, selective pesticides targeting the Varroa mite that has made its way to Australian in the last year or so and is causing...
Lucien picks up a poster prize at the annual meeting of the ANZSCDB – not our usual hunting ground!
Several lab members took the opportunity to attend the annual meeting of the NSW chapter of the Aus and NZ Society for Cell and Molecular Biology - which was held at Uni of Sydney a couple of weeks ago. Posters were presented and Lucien impressed them sufficiently...
Zahra and Erekle show us how it’s done at the ASBMB meeting
At the recent ASBMB annual meeting in Canberra (which was an excellent meeting, I thought - great speakers, great venue, nice size and really nice feeling), Erekle Kobhakidze (2023 Mackay lab BSc Hons student) and Zahra Falahati (Mackay lab first year PhD student)...
Flojo – a life
With great sadness, Jacqui and Joel shepherded Flojo to her last big sleep at the vet on the weekend. She was with us for 20 of her 22 years and was a part of our lives for so long. We were so lucky to have her as a companion. The house seems much quieter today -...
Xavier graduates (again!)
Joel managed to miss the graduation by being on the other side of the world but Jason was a more than worthy replacement - ...and Jessica and Karishma also sneaked into the academic procession (I like it - nice work!) so that Xavier got...
Parenthood comes knocking again for Jason!
We welcome Isabelle into the world - and more specifically into Jason and Mel's house. They are currently trying to work out a routine that allows all five members of the household to achieve their goals (e.g., getting fed, sleeping, doing mass spectrometry etc) in...
Charlotte’s farewell
Last Thursday we celebrated Charlotte leaving. Well, I mean we celebrated the time that she had with us, if you see what I mean. Brewdog in Everleigh was a great location - good beers, good (vegetarian) food and very long tables (just what we needed). We managed to...
Jacqui spins it up!
Jacqui has been training at The Movement Academy in Alexandria, and demonstrated her latest act in their December 2022 showcase. Check it out if you want to see what she's been spending her spare time doing! Autograph requests...