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Charlotte wins prize!
Charlotte Franck - who has been doing her PhD riding the line between Richard Payne's lab in Chemistry and Joel's lab - has had some payoff for the great work she's done on her evasin project, winning a poster prize at the 2020 Lorne Conference on Protein Structure and Function. [...and it could have been either partially due to or alternatively despite the suggestions Joel gave her...we'll never know!] Pictured here with emotional supporters Xavier and Hakimeh!
Taylor and Rezwan get hitched (S01E01)
In the first of what promises to be an HBO miniseries, Taylor and Rezwan have completed a memorable year or so by becoming woman and husband. They celebrated with an intimate gathering of family and friends - and with extensive henna-ing! It was 48 degrees outside, so you can also see they did a great job of keeping their cool. Congratulations to the two of you and we look forward to the next installment!
Mehdi and Taylor (and Camilla! – and James, and Ngaio…) graduate!
The December graduation this year was a bumper crop of PhD graduates from the Science Faculty - and also a bumper crop from Structural Biology. Mehdi Sharifi Tabar and Taylor Szyszka from Joel's lab, Ngaio Smith (in absentia) from Jacqui's lab and Camilla Faoro and James Walshe (in absentia) from Sandro's lab *all* completed the final formality before they can wear their PhD gowns to their new labs each day... Congratulations to all - it's a big achievement!
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!
Former lab member becomes a dad
Gonzalo Durante (Gonn), a visitor to the lab from Spain in 2007 (wow - time flies!) had a busy week last July, when he (a) got married, (b) defended his PhD thesis (successfully) and (c) became a father. You can see the whole family. Now, *that* was a stressful...
Now *this* is an insect!
You thought that it was the snakes, scorpions, sharks and spiders that you had to worry about in Australia. No one warned you about the monster stick insects though... check this out. You could put a leash on it and take it for a walk! The body was 20 cm...
Two more visiting academics in the lab
A/Profs Kylie Walters and Hiroshi Matsuo are visiting the lab for 2 months from the University of Minnesota. Kylie and Hiroshi are protein NMR spectroscopists with interests in areas including protein-nucleic acid interactions and ubiquitin structure and function.
Joel becomes first Prof. of Zinc Fingers
Well, not quite, but I have just been promoted to Level E - Professor - and may need to choose a title. Any suggestions?
Dave heads for greener pastures (literally)
In a mixture of good news and bad news, all rolled into one, Dave Gell is making a move down south and moving his laboratory to the University of Tasmania in Hobart. It is bad news for us, because Dave has been an absolute cornerstone of the lab, from the time he...
Degrees of separation in science
A couple of days ago, Jacqui and I attended a dinner for the announcement of the Prime Minister's Science Prizes in Canberra. We were surprised to bump into the mother of one of Jacqui's former PhD students (Janet Deane). As it turned out, her father was part of a...
Visiting academic in the lab
A/Prof. Siavoush Dastmalchi is visiting the lab for 6 months from Tabriz University of Medical Sciences in Iran. Siavoush did his PhD at the University of Sydney with Bret Church (and also did some NMR work with us during that period). He has come to brush up on...
Socks and Soumya win poster prizes at the ECPM
Sock Yue Thong won the prize for the best poster and Soumya Joseph won third prize for her poster at the East Coast Protein Meeting, held in Coffs Harbour over the weekend. The ECPM is a joint initiative of the Sydney Protein Group and the Queensland Protein Group...
Mitch wins Cancer Institute NSW Award
Mitch O'Connell has followed in Eija's Finnish footsteps. After winning a University Medal for his undergraduate degree in 2008, Mitch has been successful in winning a Cancer Institute NSW Research Scholar Award, which will help fund his research project and...
Fionna wins a fellowship
Fionna Loughlin, who finished her PhD with Joel in 2007, has just been awarded an ETH Postdoctoral Fellowship to work on the structural biology of protein-RNA complexes in the laboratory of Fred Allain in Zürich. Well done Fionna - thoroughly deserved!
Joel sneaks home in English 100-km event
Joel teamed up with Richard Green, Jaap Bakker and Jonathan Worswick to win the inaugural Oxfam Trailtrekker 100-km race in the Yorkshire Dales recently. The four of them completed the course (running together), which took in parts of the Pennine Way and the Dales...
Richard Grant hits the headlines
Richard - ex-postdoctoral associate with Joel - is now working for the Faculty of 1000 in London, trying to make the scientific literature more easily accessible, and was recently interviewed about his predilection for blogging in The Australian newspaper [read the...