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The latest update in our travails with the NuRD complex!
We have posted our analysis of NuRD complex architecture on Biorxiv. We firm up the stoichiometry, show that there is large-scale dynamics, partially map architecture using XLMS and show direct competition by PWWP2A that steals half the complex! It's been a massive effort over many years by many lab members and collaborators (most significantly Michael Landsberg at UQ) - with Jason Low and Ana Silva leading the way. Check it out here while we try to find a publication home for it...
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!
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.
Jacqui hammers Six Foot Track
On Saturday, Jacqui and I ran the Six Foot Track ultramarathon - a particularly nasty 45-km trail run in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. Jacqui had been plotting her revenge on the race since 2000, when she went out too hard and had to pull out half way. Her...
Joel has a good run
Last weekend, I raced in the Great North Walk 100-mile trail run just north of Sydney, and was lucky enough to come in third, behind David Waugh and Tim Cochrane. It was an awesome run with great scenery, and everything went as well as it could possibly have done...
Eija wins Cancer Institute NSW Award
Not only have Joel, Jacqui, Ann and Margie been busy getting grants, but Eija Lehtomaki didn't want to miss out either. She has been awarded a Cancer Institute NSW Research Scholar Award, which will help fund her research project and provide funding for conference...
More grants! Yay!
At the same time we found out about the grant towards our new NMR spectrometer, Jacqui was awarded an NHMRC Project Grant to continue some of her work on LIM domain complexes, and Margie and Ann were awarded an ARC Discovery Grant to investigate aspects of...
More megahertz, anyone?!
We met with some success in the latest round of ARC Equipment and Infrastructure grants and have been awarded $1.3M towards the cost of an 800 MHz NMR spectrometer to keep our cryo-equipped 600 company. We also have some commitments from other universities, which...
Translation services on offer!
Out of curiosity, Paul started writing the languages that people in the lab could speak reasonably fluently on the whiteboard the other day. The list kept getting longer and longer - and ended up with 20! They are: English, Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese,...
Joel wins Sydney Trailwalker
Perhaps even more improbably, Joel recently got together with three blokes from his running club (Jaap Bakker, Richard Green and Jonathan Worswick) and took out the Oxfam Sydney Trailwalker, a 100-km ultramarathon through the bushland of Sydney. The run attracted...
Joel wins Australian Rogaining Championships
Improbably, Joel and his rogaining partner Phil Whitten sneaked in by only 20 points (out of 2690) to win the 24-h Australian Rogaining Championships held last weekend in the Eastern MacDonnell Ranges near Alice Springs. For those of you who have never heard of the...
Lab success at East Coast Protein Meeting
At the East Coast Protein Meeting, which was held last weekend at Coffs Harbour, the lab took home more than their fair share of the prizes! Mugdha Bhati won the prize for the best student talk, and Chu Kong Liew was runner-up for the best presentation by a...
Sally II – The Return of Sally
Sally Eaton, fresh from her PhD in Merlin Crossley's lab upstairs, has joined Jacqui's lab for a period of postdoctoral work. Sally will now have worked with Joel/Dave (BSc Hons), Merlin *and* Jacqui - placing her well to decide who is the best supervisor (not that...
Our latest Scandanavian arrives!
Mats Gustaffson is an undergraduate from Uppsala University in Sweden who has joined the lab (as of today) as part of the research training component of his undergraduate degree. He will work with Ann on developing the use of ribosome display and phage display for...
Sandra wins poster prize
Sandra Wissmüller recently attended the 6th Discovery Science and Biotechnology Meeting in Brisbane, where she was awarded an Early Career Researcher poster prize for her poster: Specific Interactions of Sox Proteins with many Transcription Factors. The work...