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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!
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...
Its official! We work in Sydney’s ugliest building!
Letter to the editor in The Sydney Morning Herald (Tues 19 May, 2009): Response to: "Star City, the ugliest building in Sydney (Letters, May 18)?" "The interior, perhaps, but from the outside it is a model of grace and beauty compared with the UTS Tower, voted...
Jacqui’s LIM complex structure used as eye candy!
The new Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine (LIMM - nice...) has a vert attractive logo on their website! Can you pick which structure it is?
The 800 MHz spits out its first HSQC!
Woo-hooo - the new Bruker Avance 3 800-MHz NMR spectrometer recorded its first 15N and 13C HSQC spectra today, so we have taken our first steps in the ultra-high-field world. Exciting! The cryosystem and probe will be installed over the next 10 days or so, and then...
Mugdha and Ingrid blitz the Lorne Conference!
Mugdha and Ingrid both won poster prizes at the recent Lorne Conference on Protein Structure and Function for their presentations on LIM homeodomain and hydrophobin proteins, respectively. Miriam-Rose Ash and David Jacques from the crystallography side of the...
Ann appointed as NMR Instrument Manager
Ann has finally given in to her desire to work in or near a workshop and been appointed as our new NMR Instrument Manager. In this, she follows in the footsteps of Dr Bill Bubb, who did an excellent job of keeping our 400 and 600-MHz instruments in tip-top...
Ann wins ANZMAG Young Investigator Award
Ann was awarded the Young Investigator Medal from the Australian and NZ Society for Magnetic Resonance. This medal recognizes an outstanding contribution to the field of magnetic resonance in Australia and New Zealand, by a researcher who is less than 38 or is less...
Joel wins 100-mile race!
On the weekend, Joel ran in the Great North Walk 100-miler, run (oddly enough) on the Great North Walk between Newcastle and the northern reaches of Sydney (Patonga). Improbably, he crossed the line first in 26 h 31 min - his first ever win in a solo race. Soon he...
Fellowship success
Not only will we be able to buy tips, but Joel and Jacqui will also be able to feed their cats next year. Both of us have secured NHMRC fellowships (SRF B level) to keep us off the streets for the next five years. What a relief!
Grant success
Hooray - we will be able to buy pipette tips next year! Joel was awarded two ARC Discovery Grants and Jacqui one. Joel's two projects are focused on (a) new functions for zinc finger transcription factors (in collaboration with Merlin Crossley) and (b) novel...