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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 research. It sounds like he might have itchy feet to venture overseas again, so who knows - we might see him back in Australia before too long... His farewell dinner featured Clement presenting his present - and Jakob's last chance (for the time being) to sample Australian Thai food...
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 the same issue as a rival group published a similar study! Our very own (well, until recently) Jason Low gave them a helping hand by collecting XLMS data on their complex, which helped them place subunits into the electron potential map that they obtained from single-particle cryoelectron microscopy data. Super start to one's independent career.
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 rainfall, but all of the surrounding shrubbery was saturated, and so we all were too. Still, it was warm enough that it didn't feel too miserable! The leeches were pretty happy about the weather though - and they were very keen to join us on our walk. In the end, I think Lucien might have won the prize for the most leech-friendly hiker, with about 20 bites - not that it was a competition. First, we headed down from Springwood on...
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!
Ingrid becomes a mother….again!
Ingrid was as organized as usual, and gave birth to baby Scarlett at 7:20 am on April 9. Current reports are that Scarlett has not learned yet to cry, but communicates in a series of small toy-like squeaks - they can only hope that continues for some time......
New research funding to develop selective insecticides!
Joel and Ron, teamed up with fellow SOLES academic Dr Emily Remnant, have been successful in procuring funding from Horticultural Innovation Australia (HIA) to create new insecticides that are safer and more selective. HIA collect levies from a wide range of...
Oscar’s Hut2Hut 2022
Oscars Hut2Hut is a 100-km trail run in the Victorian Alps with epic amounts of ascent and descent (5800 m of each) and a *lot* of technical sections. A good chunk of it is above the treeline with spectacular 360-degree views - on a good day... which is the...
Taylor and Rezwan become truer and bluer
Congratulations to former Mackay lab PhD student Taylor Szyszka and current Ataide lab researcher Rezwan Siddiquee for having their Australian permanent residency just confirmed. They will be saying "that isn't a knife..." and sandpapering cricket balls before you...
Lab Xmas bbq and croquet afternoon
As has become our custom, we twisted Gareth's arm to book us an afternoon at the Marrickville Croquet Club for our Xmas do. It is a most excellent location - as well as the obvious croquet lawn, it features a lovely parkland setting, our own bbq, kitchen, covered...
Our first step into the world of invertebrate transcription factors…
As part of a collaboration with Ron Hill (formerly CSIRO - now part of the structural biology discipline here at USyd), Jason and Joel helped out (well, mostly Jason) with Ron's characterization of the insect juvenile hormone receptor. Along with the ecdysone...
Joel successful with NHMRC Ideas Grant (hooray!)
Grants from NHMRC and ARC are becoming a bit harder to come by in recent years, so we were very relieved to secure an Ideas Grant working in collaboration with Dr Alex Norman - a peptide chemist and existing collaborator with the group of Richard Payne in Chemistry...
It’s raining babies!
Recent PhD graduate Mehdi and his wife Diba have just welcomed a new family member - their daughter Rosha who was borne at 00:34 on 9 August this year. All are healthy and raring to go on their latest project. And you thought the NuRD complex was challenging,...
Jason wins drug discovery seed grant
Jason has been successful in winning a $15,000 grant from the ECR seed funding program of the USyd Drug Discovery Initiative. This grant will help him pursue his mRNA-display based hunt for inhibitors of oncogenic transcription factors. Super stuff Jason!
Did I already mention that there are a lot of lab babies appearing lately?
Announcing the arrival into the world of Oren Lucev O’Connell, born on last Saturday morning at 3:49 am (GMT -4) and weighing in at 8lb 2oz. Direct report from new dad Mitch: "Mum (Annabelle) and baby are doing wonderfully, and we’re having fun adjusting to our new...
*Another* lab baby! Where are they all coming from?
Well, this one is coming to us courtesy of Jason and his wife Mel (mostly Mel) - he hasn't been given a name yet, so I think we'll just call him X. Actually, that could be quite a cool name... Here is is pictured with his elder brother Michael - who looks much...
Welcome to Adnan Shaik!
Dr Anjumara Shaik, who has been working with our collaborator Alyson Ashe on transgenerational epigenetic inheritance, has just become a new mother on 3 June - and here you can see her husband Asif Pasha and her new son Adnan (who doesn't look that pleased about...