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Flojo – a life
With great sadness, Jacqui and Joel shepherded Flojo to her last big sleep at the vet on the weekend. She was with us for 20 of her 22 years and was a part of our lives for so long. We were so lucky to have her as a companion. The house seems much quieter today - even though there are still three more cats sharing the space. Have compiled a (very) small subset of the photos we've taken of her over the years...
Xavier graduates (again!)
Joel managed to miss the graduation by being on the other side of the world but Jason was a more than worthy replacement - ...and Jessica and Karishma also sneaked into the academic procession (I like it - nice work!) so that Xavier got extra applause when he went up on stage. Congratulations Xavier - a big milestone!
Parenthood comes knocking again for Jason!
We welcome Isabelle into the world - and more specifically into Jason and Mel's house. They are currently trying to work out a routine that allows all five members of the household to achieve their goals (e.g., getting fed, sleeping, doing mass spectrometry etc) in an efficient manner. I must confess that I'm not entirely convinced that Matthew (behind) has signed on to give the enterprise his full support yet. 🙂
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.
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...
Dave Gell’s new paper featuring old-school biochemistry
Molecular Microbiology has now published the epic piece of work spearheaded by ex-lab member Dave Gell, who is now resident at the University of Tasmania. Dave had been approached by local microbiologists who noted that some strains of Haemophilus haemolyticus...
Our RaPID screening manuscript is up on bioRxiv
The project that Karishma has been hammering away at for the last couple of years - with substantial input from collaborators Louise Walport (Crick Institute, London) and Toby Passioura (now USyd) - has been somehow condensed into a manuscript and posted on bioRxiv...
Jessica takes home the SPG Thompson Prize!
The Sydney Protein Group ran its annual Thompson Prize symposium last week - in which 5 PhD students duke it out by giving a talk on their work, and then the best presenter is chosen by a panel of judges to win the Thompson Prize (which brings with it glory *and*...
Efe takes to the great outdoors
Just had some correspondence with Efe Isilak, a bright spark who spent time in the lab a few years ago, who wanted to let us know that much as he loves science, he felt like he couldn't spend his life in an indoor job - so of course he bought a farm! Took him a...
Our Peppy VR paper hits the airwaves!
Our great collaboration with David Doak, Jane Allison, Juliet Gerrard and Gareth Denyer is now out in Protein Science here . Peppy VR is a Unity application written by David (of Goldeneye fame), advised on by Juliet, Jane and myself and tested in real-life teaching...
Louise and the cloudy sea
Our RaPID collaborator from the Crick Institute in London - Louise Walport - was visiting this week (on her way to a speaking invitation at the Australian Peptide Conference) and she stopped in for a visit and to give a seminar. We managed to find a day with some...
Marylène est maintenant une mère
Congratulations to former postdoc Marylene Vandevenne and her husband Mathieu, who have become the proud parents of baby Alice on 27 March. I've been informed that she (Alice that is) is sleeping soundly from 10 pm till 7 am - which sounds like a great start to...