Biochemistry Calendar

• Calendar of Events

Awards & Recognition

• Congratulations to Xin Jie Chen, who was awarded a five-year NIH grant totaling $2,037,500. It is a collaborative project with Patty Kane as an MPI. The project is entitled “A novel mitochondria-to-lysosome stress signaling pathway in degenerative disease and aging”.
• Alaji Bah, Liviu Movileanu (SU), Steve Hanes, and Aaron Wolfe (Ichor Life Sciences Inc.) received one of Syracuse University’s $30K BioInspired Institute intramural grants for their project “Using the Co-Evolution of the Ess1-CTD Axis in Polar Fungi to Investigate the Role of Phase Separation as a Mechanism for Adaptation to Extreme Environments”. It is for interdisciplinary, cross-institutional research projects.
• Congratulations to Alaji Bah, who was awarded a $90,328 Research Supplement to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research Program for Alexander Guerrero Garcia for NIH project “Role of DNA Methylation in Liquid-liquid Phase Separation-medicated Heterochromatin Formation”.
• Gargi Mishra (Chen lab) received the best student talk award at the 2023 Northeast Regional Yeast Meeting (NERY), which was held at Cornell University, July 27-28, 2023
• Brian Haarer, Jessica Henty-Ridilla, Morgan Pimm, Ebbing De Jong, and David Amberg’s research “New process for isolating actin from yeast opens doors for protein studies” was highlighted in Upstate News Articles:
  https://www.upstate.edu/news/articles/2023/2023-06-13-actin.php
• Congratulations to Bruce Knutson who was awarded a one-year $11,058 NIH Biomedical Research and Research Training supplement for Dabar Zarzuela.
• Congratulations to three Biochemistry students, Nicole Maurici, Akshay Patel, and Harsimranjit
  Sekhon received SUNY GREAT Awards!  SUNY GREAT (Graduate Research Empowering and Accelerating Talent) Award program provides $5,000 in flexible funding to incentivize SUNY students (both graduate and undergraduate) to submit competitive applications for prestigious, highly competitive graduate fellowships and enroll in SUNY's graduate programs.
  SUNY GREAT was created to incentivize stronger participation by SUNY students in NSF’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP), the nation’s largest and oldest STEM fellowship competition. Awards are made not only to those who win GRFP fellowships, but also to those who
  receive GRFP Honorable Mention. The fellowship programs eligible for this award include NSF GRFP, NDSEG (Defense), NASA, NIH NRSA (F30 and F31), DoE CSGF (Energy), and the Canadian fellowships (SSHRC and NSERC), which are similar to GRFP awards but are usable at U.S. institutions). SUNY News Press Release March 2023 3-8-23 SUNY Great Awards: https://www.suny.edu/suny-news/press-releases/3-23/3-8-23/great.html
• Stewart Loh was featured on Upstate The Informed Patient Podcast on 3/1/23 “Combining Protein and DNA Engineering” ‘DNA origami’ is one step in hunt for advances in medicine, science.
  https://www.upstate.edu/informed/2023/022323-loh-podcast.php
• Congratulations to Alana Belkevich who received the SUNY Chancellor award for Student
  Excellence! She also won Professional and Public Service Award at Student Research Day!
• Congratulations to Fiza Hashmi and Bridget Walker who won Best Poster Presentation at Student
  Research Day!
• Congratulations to Arnav Rana who won Best Oral Presentation - First Place at Student Research Day!
• Congratulations to Leonardo Dettori who won the Max Mozell Unsung Hero Award at Student
  Research Day!
• Congratulation to Dabar Zarzuela, a SU volunteer in Bruce Knutson’s lab, just received Renée Crown University Honors Program Award to work POLR1D and the Clinical Relevance of its Various Isoforms” for up to $3,000.
• Congratulations to Tom Duncan for being recognized by Dr. Chin for “Exceptional Moments
  in Teaching”.
• Congratulations to Nicole Maurici who won third place for overall best poster ($200 reward) at the
  BioInspired Institute's First Symposium hosted by Syracuse University on October 7, 2022.
• Congratulations to Xin Jie Chen who was named SUNY Distinguished Professor at the Fall Faculty
  Convocation on September 14, 2022
• Wenyi Feng was featured in Upstate Online (9/2/22) for her discovery in the Fragile X
  syndrome. https://www.upstate.edu/news/articles/2022/2022-09-01-feng.php
• Nicholas Brennan from the Chen lab won the best poster award at the 3rd International Conference on Musculoskeletal and Neural Interaction that was held on August 24-26 at Emory University in Georgia
• HJ Sekhon secured an NIH F30 predoctoral MD/PhD fellowship entitled “Molecular Devices for the Detection of Treatment of HCMV Infection”, on his first try. $51,752 directs/year for 5 years. Gary Chan is his co-Sponsor
• Congratulations to Wenyi Feng who was awarded a two-year NIH R21 for her project “Understanding the Genome Maintenance Function of the Fragile X Protein (FMRP). First year directs are $150,000, $448,250 total cost
• Congratulations to Nicole Maurici who was awarded a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Predoctoral Fellowship to Promote Diversity in Health-Related July-August 2022 Research (Parent F31-Diversity), $43,571/year for 4 years
• Xiang Li won a Young Investigator Travel Award from International Experimental Biology and Medicine conference and was selected for an oral presentation. The meeting was held in Memphis on April 29th- May 1st
• Baylee Porter won the Second Place Young Investigator Poster Award at the International Experimental Biology and Medicine conference.
• Congratulations to Jessica Ridilla who received a President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching!
• Congratulations to Jessica Henty Ridilla who was selected by the graduate student body as the recipient of the Outstanding Graduate Teacher Award!
• Congratulations to Kassidy Zimmer who was selected by the graduate student body as the recipient of the Professional and Public Service Award!
• Congratulations to Morgan Pimm who was selected by the graduate student body as the recipient of the Max Mozell Unsung Hero Award!
• Alaji Bah is highlighted in the February 25, 2022 Pew Scholars’ article “What It Means to Be Black in Science: Pew Scholars’ Experiences
  A celebration of leading biomedical scientists of color:
  https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2022/02/25/what-it-means-to-be-black-in-science-pew-scholars-experiences
• A recent publication on genome instability in FXS by Chakroborty et al. from the Feng lab was part of Crouse OB/GYN Grand Rounds presented by Dr. Lebel on February 11, 2022. Dr Lebel selected 20 publications from the three universities in Syracuse and gave each a short synopsis. It serves as a nice entryway for students/faculty who are broadly interested in genetics to a variety of subjects.
• Xin Jie Chen has been chosen as a SUNY Distinguished Professor. His appointment starts soon, and he will be recognized at Convocation in the fall. Congratulations!

Publications

• Papp, C., Mukundan, V. T., Jenjaroenpun, P., Winnerdy, F. R., Ow, G. S., Phan, A. T., & Kuznetsov, V. A. (2023). Stable bulged G-quadruplexes in the human genome: identification, experimental validation and functionalization. Nucleic Acids Research, gkad252.
• Belkevich AE, Pascual HG, Fakhouri AM, Ball DG, Knutson BA. Distinct Interaction Modes for the Eukaryotic RNA Polymerase Alpha-like Subunits. Mol Cell Biol. 2023 May 24:1-14. doi: 10.1080/10985549.2023.2210023. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 37222571.
• Farzana Tuli and Patricia M. Kane; The cytosolic N-terminal domain of V-ATPase a-subunits is a regulatory hub targeted by multiple signals. Frontiers Mol. Biosci. 16 June 2023; 10:1168680
• Brian K. Haarer, Morgan L. Pimm, Ebbing P. de Jong, David C. Amberg, Jessica L. Henty-Ridilla; Purification of human β- and γ-actin from budding yeast. J Cell Sci 1 May 2023; 136 (9): jcs260540. Also, highlighted on cover of Journal of Cell Science.
  

• Tom Duncan recently served as a guest co-editor for a collection of reviews on “Biological Rotary Nanomotors” and the final eBook version, with 20 reviews and an editorial by the co-editors, is now available for free download as a PDF or EPUB from the publisher, Frontiers. The collection includes 5 reviews recruited by Tom on different aspects of the ATP synthase as a rotary motor. So far, reviews in this collection have been viewed over 34,000 times.

• Tuli and P.M. Kane (2023) “Chimeric a-subunit isoforms generate functional yeast V-ATPases with altered regulatory properties in vivo” Mol. Biol. Cell, March 1, 34(3):ar14.

• Ashley J. Canning, Susan Viggiano, Martin E. Fernandez‑Zapico & Michael S. Cosgrove. (2022)  Parallel functional annotation of cancer‑associated missense mutations in histone methyltransferases.  Scientific Reports 12:18487
• Ryan J. Palumbo, Nathan McKean, Erinn Leatherman, Kevin E.W. Namitz, Laurie Connell, Aaron Wolfe, Kelsey Moody, Cene Gostincar, Nina Gunde-Cimerman, Alaji Bah, and Steven D. Hanes. (September 7, 2022) Coevolution of the Ess1-CTD axis in polar fungi suggests a role for phase
  separation in cold tolerance. Science Advances Vol. 8, No. 36
• Senter NC, McCulley A, Kuznetsov VA, Feng W. Genes (Basel). 2022 Jul 11;13(7)  Identification of recurrent chromosome breaks underlying structural rearrangements in mammary cancer cell lines.
• Ryan J. Palumbo, Alana E. Belkevich, Haleigh G. Pascual, Bruce A. Knutson (02 June 2022) A clicially-relevant residue of POLR1D is required for Drosophila development, American Association for Anatomy
• Xinbei Liu, Jessica L. Henty-Ridilla (2022) Multiple roles for the cytoskeleton in ALS. Experimental Neurology, 114143.
• Morgan L Pimm, Xinbei Liu, Farzana Tuli, Jennifer Heritz, Ashley Lojko, Jessica L Henty-Ridilla
  (2022) Visualizing molecules of functional human profilin. eLife, 11:e76485.
• Xinbei Liu, Morgan L. Pimm, Brian Haarer, Andrew T. Brawner, and Jessica L. Henty-Ridilla. “Biochemical characterization of actin assembly mechanisms with ALS-associated profilin variants” European Journal of Cell Biology (2022): Volume 101, Issue 2, April 2022, 151212
• John, A.M., Sekhon, H., Ha, J.-H., Loh, S.N. (2022). Engineering a fluorescent protein color switch using entropy-driven beta strand exchange. ACS Sens. 7, 263.
• Zhao, J., Liu, X., Blayney, A., Zhang, Y., Gandy, Lo. Mirsky, P.O., Smith, N., Zhang, F., Linhardt, R.J., Chen, J., Baines, C., Loh, S.N., Wang, C. (2022). Intrinsically Disordered N-terminal Domain (NTD) of p53 Interacts with Mitochondrial PTP Regulator Cyclophilin D. J. Mol. Biol. 434, 167552.
• Pedicone, C., Fernandes, S., Matera, A., Meyer,
  S.T., Loh, S.N., Ha, J.-H., Bernard, D., Chisholm, J.D., Paolicelli, R.C., Kerr, W.G. (2022). Discovery of a novel SHIP1 agonist that promotes degradation of lipid-laded phagocytic cargo by microglia. iScience, in press.
• Ha, J.-H., Prela, O., Carpizo, D.R.*, Loh, S.N.* (2022). p53 and zinc: a malleable relationship. Front. Mol. Biosci. 9, 895887. *Corresponding authors.
• Sekhon, H., Loh, S.N. (2022). Engineering protein activity into off-the-shelf DNA devices. Cell Reports Meth., in press
• Joshi I, Peng J, Alvino G, Kwan E, Feng W. Exceptional origin activation revealed by comparative analysis in two laboratory yeast strains. PLoS One. 2022;17(2):e0263569. eCollection 2022. PubMed PMID: 35157703; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8843211.
• Bachant J, Hoffman EA, Caridi C, Nugent CI, Feng W. The yeast Dbf4 Zn2+ finger domain suppresses single-stranded DNA at replication forks initiated from a subset of origins. Curr Genet. 2022 Feb 11;. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 35147742.
• Gasparayan H, Caridi C, Julius J, Feng W, Bachant J, Nugent CI. Yeast Stn1 promotes MCM to circumvent Rad53 control of the S phase checkpoint. Curr Genet. 2022 Feb 12;. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 35150303.

Presentations

• Connie Mitra, Farzana Tuli, and Patty Kane attended the ASBMB meeting in Philadelphia from April 2-5, 2022. Connie and Farzana presented posters and Connie gave a talk at their Spotlight session. Connie also received the ASBMB Graduate student/ Postdoctoral researcher Travel award
• Four of Bruce Knutson’s students attended and presented posters at the EB ASBMB meeting in Philly in April.
• Wenyi Feng gave a seminar to the Department of Biological Sciences at SUNY Oswego on February 25th as part of the visiting scholar series sponsored by College of Graduate Studies