BLOG
May graduation, 2024
We had a bumper edition of graduation recently with Kim receiving her PhD and Andrea and Erekle graduating with their BSc Hons (1st class) degrees. Kim has found herself a postdoc position in neurobiology - just where she was hoping to end up!), Andrea has committed to a PhD in the lab to pursue her structural biology ambitions (and is a few months in already), and Erekle is looking to head to Europe to do a research Masters. Yay everyone!
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.
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.
Angela wins the oldest shaking incubator competition!
Our lab manager, Angela Nikolic, learned of a competition hosted by In Vitro Technologies on "who has the oldest shaking incubator" in all of Australia and New Zealand. She applied with our Infors Unitron Shaker that dated back to Dec 2000! She has won us a brand...
Jessica hands in
Always a big milestone in the PhD journey, Jessica Zhong has clicked the upload button (which isn't quite the same as the old days with the endless photocopying and page juggling, but still...) and submitted her thesis (and now is an expert on definite articles),...
Xavier receives encouragement – in the form of cash!
Xavier Reid, who started his PhD in the lab in 2019, has used his creative writing skills to pick up anATA Scientific Encouragement Award in March this year. You can read all about his musings on intelligent robots at the ATA website. The award brings with it a...
Ana strikes out in a brave new direction!
After quite a few years of being an invaluable member of the lab - and one of the only people I know who have solved structures by NMR and crystallography - and done EM as well - Ana has decided to step out of academia into the scary real world. She has done it by...
Ingrid and Percy get (secretly) hitched
Ingrid Macindoe - postdoc in the Mackay lab - has recently tied the knot with her beau in a low-key ceremony - and with the most awesome cake! Congratulations Ingrid!
Funding opportunities for ECRs
Here is an amazing resource put together by some folks at Johns Hopkins, showing funding opportunities (and travel grant opportunities) for PhD students, postdocs and ECRs: Early career faculty funding opportunities Postdoc funding opportunities PhD funding...
Maryam submits!
Maryam looks slightly dazed for good reason - she has just handed in her PhD thesis - well inside the time allowed. Along the way, she decided that moving country to do a PhD wasn't sufficiently challenging and so upped the stakes by becoming a mother for the first...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
