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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 much concern (it's already been causing much concern in the rest of the world for some years!). They spent a long time taking footage and in the end we made the cut to their 2023 annual report video...which you can see here. Today, the Hort Innovation annual report, tomorrow Hollywood...!
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 with his work on the chromatin remodelling enzyme CHD4 to pick up one of their poster prizes (and spread some protein biochemistry to the cell biologists!). Well done Lucien...!
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) both did a most excellent job of presenting their posters - so excellent that they both picked up poster prizes for their efforts. Erekle talked about his Hons project looking at the chromatin binding proteins BRD2 and PWWP2A, whereas Zahra told people about her work starting to look at designing inhibitors of the ecdysone receptor as insecticides. Kudos to both of them! [and to the other lab members who presented at the...
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!
Joel’s Braidwood-Bermagui bike weekend
With the lack of international bike touring possibilities at the moment, Joel's been looking for options closer to home. Last weekend, he loaded up his gravel bike and headed south to do a loop from Braidwood to Bermagui on the coast, and back a different way...
Lorna weaves (well, knits) her magic!
Lorna has been busy preparing for the Sydney Royal Easter Show - and has come up with the goods. Her knitted fingerless mittens have snared first prize at the Show in the Adult Knitted Accessories division. Storming work Lorna. I'm expecting a lab coat...
Joel hits the trails in the UTA 50-km race
A friend of Joel's had to pull out of the Ultra Trail Australia 50-km race in the Blue Mountains recently and offered Joel his entry at short notice. Given that he wasn't in 'race shape' - whatever that means - he went for the social option and ran the event...
Ahhh – it’s still one of my favourite sights in science…
...a sweet 15N-HSQC titration. Last minute effort to add that extra piece of preliminary data to the grant application - and who would have believed that it would actually pan out - but it did! All thanks to Ingrid's protein production skills and Alex Norman's...
Xmas stroll in the Royal National Park
Joel and Jacqui took advantage of the cool weather to head down the RNP and see what the wildflower situation was like. It's still pretty impressive - and we even spotted some native orchids with amazing dappled petals. The bridge at Audley is very Monet-esque...
You don’t get this aesthetic beauty from Alphafold…
We have just solved a structure working with SOLES colleague Tara Christie (not to mention Toby Passioura and Rich Payne). The structure determination was a bit of a wrestle for Tara (as you'd expect at 3.9 A!), but gee - you can't help but love the packing in the...
Beautiful, but CruEL…
Well, it's one of those classic structural biology stories... Scientist (Anjumara) purifies and crystallizes protein, gets 3-A dataset at synchrotron (with Chandrika's help). Can't be solved, but scientists ask cryoEM colleagues kindly and they acquire some images...
Ngaio, Mario and Martina
Although the proud parents missed the opportunity to give the new addition to their family a name ending in "o", we're still excited that they have recently announced baby Martina to the world. It sounds like she's reading the journals already, and planning to join...
Joels NBD…
...which means New Bike Day in bike geek lingo... Joel has spent a bit of time (well, quite a bit of time) building up a new all-road touring bike based on a custom Ti frame built by titanproduct in China. Kitted out with an old Ultegra crankset (+38T Wolftooth...
Our first mRNA display paper hits the internet in PNAS
A big paper for us - out now here! Working with Louise Walport and Toby Passioura, who were themselves working with Hiroaki Suga at the University of Tokyo at the time, we have used Suga's RaPID version of mRNA display to discover cyclic peptide inhibitors of the...
Jason heads to Blighty
Former lab member Jason Schmidberger (postdoc 2015-6) has packed up his Akubra (and his family) and made a big move to the UK to join the drug discovery alliance and consulting company Evotec. Looks like an exciting company and we look forward to hearing from him...