News Archive


2022 News

April

Dr. Ackley has been appointed to two editorial boards: BMC Biology and Journal of Developmental Biology.

Dr. Xu received a Pilot Grant from The Kansas Institute for Precision Medicine (KIPM) COBRE at the University of Kansas Medical Center, aiming to discover potent and specific chemical probes for delineating the functional roles of MSI1/2 in cancer progression.  Dr. Xu was also invited to be a Specialty Chief Editor for the journal: Frontiers in Drug Discovery, which is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland.

March

Kristi Neufeld (professor) is the recipient of a Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) R01 Bridging grant for her project entitled “Roles for Adenomatous polyposis coli in colon injury prevention and wound healing”. She also received seed grant funds from the KU Center for Genomics Pilot Project Program for her proposal entitled “Nuclear Adenomatous polyposis coli as transcriptional driver influences microbial composition of mouse gut”.

January

KU lab leads research on little-studied coronavirus structure, developing antiviral treatment. Tony Fehr (assistant professor) is featured in KU DISCOVERIES, a KU Research monthly publication.

Lynn Hancock was reappointed to the editorial board of the journal Infection and Immunity for three additional years (2022-24).

December 2021 News

Ronak Tilvawala received a collaborative NCI U01 $3.8 M grant for the project entitled, "Engineering Native E. coli to Detect Report and Treat Colorectal Cancer " in collaborations with faculty from the University of San Diego, University of Florida, Illinois Institute of Engineering, and the University of Rochester. The Tilvawala lab will receive a total of $660,000 over the next five years.  Ronak also had a CBID CoBRE grant renewed under Phase II for the project entitled, "Host Substrate Profiling of coronoavirus Protease" in collaboration with Anthony Fehr.

 

Josephine Chandler was awarded a Research Supplement to Promote Diversity in a Health-related Research Program under her parent award NIH R35 GM133572 “Quorum sensing evolution and function in mixed microbial communities.” This supplement will be used to support two years of training of Blanca Rodriguez, a second-year graduate student in the KU Ecology and Evolutionary Biology PhD program.  Josie also donated an image of her bacterial colonies to the BioNexusKC fundraiser and it raised $1000 for Kansas City area STEM education.

 

Mizuki Azuma was selected as a Review Editor for Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology.

 

Eileen Hotze has been successfully promoted to Associate Teaching Professor. Congratulations Dr. Hotze!

 

 

October 2021 News

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) received a competitive NSF Major Research Instrumentation grant with Brian Laird (PI, Chemistry), Ward Thompson (Chemistry), and Suzanne Shontz (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science). It will allow us to purchase a high-performance computing cluster nicknamed “BigJay” for science and engineering research at the University of Kansas.

Joanna Slusky (associate professor) was named an associate editor for PloS Computational Biology.

The KU Office of Research recently established the KU Center for Genomics. The mission of the center is to coalesce genomic researchers from across the campus. Activities include seminars, symposia, a postdoctoral fellowship, early career mentoring, and pilot grants. Rob Unckless (associate professor) will be the director of the center and Erik Lundquist (professor) will serve on the advisory board. A website will be published soon at genomics.ku.edu.

David Davido (professor) and Rob Unckless were awarded an NSF EAGER grant entitled “Toward a tractable genetic model of a DNA virus – Drosophila interaction”.

The Center for Biomedical Research Excellence in Chemical Biology of Infectious Disease (COBRE CBID) funding has been renewed for the next five years. Scott Hefty (professor) was recently awarded the competitive renewal grant by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He will work in association with John Tunge (professor) of the Department of Chemistry, as well as with other researchers from KU and other academic institutions in Kansas. Together, they will continue to encourage research scientists to conduct research in the chemical biology of infectious disease field.

Erik Lundquist is recipient of The Grant Goodman Undergraduate Mentor Award, recognizing faculty members who are selfless with their time and experience, and continue to have lasting mentoring relationships with students long after they leave the classroom.

Berl Oakley (professor) has been elected an American Society for Cell Biology Fellow.

Elizabeth Everman (postdoc, Macdonald lab) is Principal Investigator on a new NIH Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00) entitled “Linking Genomic, Physiological and Behavioral Responses using a Drosophila Model of Heavy Metal Stress”. This highly competitive NIH program provides independent support to help outstanding postdoctoral researchers transition to an independent academic research career. Dr. Everman also received matching funds provided by the KU Office of Research to support her K99/R00 project. Dr. Everman will continue her investigations into the effects of copper toxicity, assisted by Dr. Macdonald, and leverage several genetic and genomic resources available in the Macdonald group.

Jessie Perlmutter (postdoc, Unckless lab) received a DeLill Nasser award for Professional Development in Genetics from the Genetics Society of America (GSA).

September 2021 News

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) received a grant from the National Science Foundation, “A public workflow for predicting peptide binding structures” (Number: 2121063, role: PI), 09/01/21 - 08/31/24.

Liang Xu (professor) received an award from The Midwest Biomedical Accelerator Consortium (MBArC), an NIH Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hub (REACH) program, entitled: “Improve cancer immunotherapy by targeting RNA-binding protein HuR”.  MBArC bridges the gap between academic research and industry by providing proof-of-concept funding and training to researchers to perform experiments and generate data that can attract follow-on funding from federal sources, investors and strategic partners to continue commercialization of the technology. KU provides 1:1 matching fund to the project.

Ilya Vakser (professor) received a competing renewal of NIH R01 grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, entitled Integrated Resource for Protein Recognition Studies.  He also received a grant from the KU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences within Research Excellence Initiative (REI), entitled Deep Learning of the Cell.

Summer 2021 News

Dan Dixon (professor) received a Pilot Project Award from the KU Cancer Center, entitled Colon Cancer Chemoprevention Through Inhibition of Exportin 1 (XPO1).

Erik Lundquist (professor) was the recipient of the 2021 Grant Goodman Undergraduate Mentor Award through the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.

Liang Xu (professor) in collaboration with Dr. Yong Zeng at University of Florida, received an NIH multi-PI R33 grant from the National Cancer Institute, entitled Integrative Functional Profiling of Tumor-Derived Extracellular Vesicles.

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) received an OpenEye Outstanding Junior Faculty Award in Computational Chemistry provided by the American Chemical Society in fall 2021.

Jessie Perlmutter (postdoc, Unckless lab) was awarded an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship for her work on the evolution of a novel mutualism.

Jennifer Amrein (graduate student, Dixon lab) was awarded trainee support by the University of Kansas Cancer Center match position to the NIH funded Chemistry Biology Training Grant.

Evan Kauffman (undergraduate, Dixon lab) was selected to be a 2021 Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) Translational Scholar.

Hunter Duke joined the Unckless lab as a research assistant. They will work on genetic conflict in Drosophila. 

May 2021 News

Yinglong Miao

From the Yinglong Miao lab: The recent GaMD review in WIREs Computational Molecular Science has been highlighted in Advanced Science NewsA “time-accelerated computational microscope” provides biologists with powerful insights.

 

Angelica Lang

Angelica Lang (undergraduate, Lundquist lab) will enter the Genetics Ph.D. program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in fall of 2021.  Congratulations Angelica!

 

 

Collette Wright

Collette Wright (undergraduate Neufeld lab) was selected to be a 2021 Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) Star Trainee.  Congratulations Collette!

 

April 2021 News

Alicia Brown

Alicia Brown (graduate student, Chandler lab) has received a Madison and Lila Self Graduate Fellowship, which will cover her stipend and tuition from 2021-2025. She will be doing her dissertation studying toxins produced by a bacterial pathogen called Burkholderia pseudomallei.  Congratulations Alicia!

A research article by Taybor Parker (PhD, Neufeld lab) and Kristi Neufeld, APC controls Wnt-induced beta-catenin destruction complex recruitment in human colonocytes received 3,180 article downloads in 2020, placing it as one of the top 100 downloaded cell and molecular biology papers for Scientific Reports in 2020.

Emma Pagella (undergraduate, Unckless lab) has accepted an offer of admission for a PhD program at the University of Kansas Medical Center. Congratulations Emma!

March 2021 News

Rob Unckless

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) is featured in a KU Today news story: Study of Virus in Fruit Flies Points to the Repeatability of Evolution.

 

 

Josie Chandler

Josie Chandler (associate professor) was invited to become an associate editor at the journal Frontiers in Microbiology.

 

 

 

Berl Oakley

Berl Oakley (professor) has been elected to the University of Kansas Distinguished Professors Steering Committee.

 

 

 

Jessie Perlmutter

Jessie Perlmutter (postdoc, Unckless lab) was awarded a Kansas INBRE Postdoctoral Award for her proposal entitled "Evolving mutualism: Rescue of a host embryonic development defect by a parasite”. Congratulations Jessie!

 

 

Kade Townsend

Kade Townsend (undergraduate, Chandler lab) was one of five undergraduates from KU-Lawrence invited to share his research work at the Undergraduate Research Days, meant to showcase research from Kansas state institutions to state lawmakers and the general public.

 

We are pleased to announce that these first-year students have found their research lab homes!

  • Kervens Accilien joins the Unckless lab and will work on the evolution of antimicrobial peptides from both biochemical and genetic perspectives.
  • Alicia Brown joins the Chandler lab.
  • Alexandra Cutter joins the Hefty lab.
  • Vedant Jain joins the Lundquist lab where he will be studying Hox gene transcriptional programs in neuroblast migration.
  • Anika James joins the Neufeld lab and will be studying the role of APC in normal colon biology, inflammation, and cancer suppression.
  • Jacob Kroh joins the Tilvawala lab where he will work on a project called Elucidation of the role of Thrombin citrullination in coagulation.
  • Brielle McKee joins the Chandler lab.
  • Gabby Perkins joins the Holmstrom lab where she will be using lasers and microscopes to “watch” RNA and protein molecules interact with each other in order to learn how certain proteins help RNAs fold into intricate 3D shapes that can perform important biological functions.

 

February 2021 News

Mark Richter

It is with deep sadness that the Department of Molecular Biosciences shares that Professor Mark Richter passed away on December 26, 2020 following an extended fight with COVID-19. Mark grew up in Australia and earned bachelor’s and PhD degrees in Biochemistry from the University of New South Wales. He came to the US in 1981 and held post-doctoral positions at Florida State University and then Cornell University. Mark joined the University of Kansas faculty as an Assistant Professor in 1987 in the Department of Biochemistry (later Molecular Biosciences), and was promoted through the ranks to Professor. In his 33 years at KU, Mark was a colleague, friend, collaborator and mentor to many faculty members and students. He twice provided steadfast leadership to the department as Chair/ Acting Chair overseeing the departmental mergers that resulted in the current Molecular Biosciences department in the late 1990s, and later as Chair of Molecular Biosciences from 2010-2014. Mark received numerous awards for his teaching and student mentoring while at KU, including the Mortar Board Outstanding Educator award (1991), the Kemper Teaching Excellence award (2002), the Dean’s Scholar’s Mentor award (1999, 2000), the J. Michael Young Outstanding Graduate Advisor award (2005) and the Byron A. Alexander CLAS Graduate Mentor award (2005). Some joked his Australian accent helped him win these honors, but his deep sense of fairness and compassion were likely the primary factors. Mark mentored 26 graduate students, 10 postdoctoral associates and more than 70 undergraduate students in his research lab at KU, and taught many hundreds of students in the classroom. Three of his graduate students will complete their degrees in coming months. Mark’s research applied his knowledge of enzymes, protein purification, spectroscopy, and evolving enhanced enzymatic capabilities to a range of topics. His research initially focused on the ATP synthase central to energy generation in chloroplasts and mitochondria, which led to an interest in the Parkin protein associated with an inherited form of Parkinson’s disease, and recently focused on development of biosensors, including those for real-time detection of brain molecules relevant to diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. Through his kindness, easy humor and generosity, Mark developed and maintained deep and long-lasting friendships with his former students, collaborators, many other colleagues, and fellow soccer players. We miss him greatly, and offer our sincerest condolences to Mark’s family and all who mourn his loss. The family will establish the Mark Richter Fund through the KU Endowment and a memorial service will be held later this year in Lawrence - once it’s safe to gather in person.

The Departments of Molecular Biosciences and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and the Undergraduate Biology Program mourn the passing of Brian Van Schmus, manager of the research-supply Biostore. Brian was diagnosed with stomach cancer two years ago and passed away on January 22, 2020. Brian grew up in Lawrence as the son of a KU faculty member and graduated from KU with a degree in Political Science in 1986. He began his position in the Biostore in early 2018, and expertly managed the diverse operations of the store until his passing. Brian will be remembered and missed by the many colleagues, friends, customers and student workers he encountered through the Biostore for his hard work, efficiency, kindness and warm smile. Our sincerest condolences go out to Brian’s wife, their two sons and all his friends and family. The family will plan a memorial service later in 2021.
 

Robert Unckless

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) was named Edward & Thelma Wohlgemuth Faculty Scholar by the Provost of the University of Kansas.

 

 

The 19th Annual K-INBRE Symposium was held virtually on January 14-15, 2021.  Molecular Biosciences was very well represented!  Congratulations to all our undergraduate researchers for continuing to excel, despite the pandemic.

  • Zakria Abdullah (Hancock Lab)
  • Angelo Andoyo (Xu Lab) – Outstanding Poster Award
  • Andres Cordova (Slusky Lab) – Honorable Mention
  • Nathan Do (Ackley Lab)
  • Emily Hughes (Hefty Lab) – Honorable Mention
  • Natasha LaGrega (Ackley Lab) – Outstanding Poster Award
  • Payton Markley (Dixon Lab)
  • Bryn O’Meara (Ackley Lab) – Honorable Mention
  • Emma Pagella (Unckless Lab)
  • Eduardo Ramirez Cuellar (Timmons Lab)
  • Hunter Woosley (Davido Lab)

 

Cheyenne Loo

Cheyenne Loo (undergraduate, Chandler lab) was selected to be a 2021 K-INBRE Undergraduate Scholar, working on a research project entitled “Eavesdropping by competing bacteria using quorum-sensing communication systems”.

 

 

Kade Townsend

Kade Townsend (undergraduate, Chandler lab) was accepted into the NIH-funded Maximizing Access to Research Careers (MARC) Program. As part of this program, Kade will do research in the Chandler lab.  Kade was also selected to present at the KU Undergraduate Research Day at the Capital, where he will present a poster on his research in the Chandler lab to Kansas State legislators.

 

Collette Wright

Collette Wright (undergraduate, Neufeld lab) was selected to be a 2021 K-INBRE Undergraduate Scholar.

 

 

January 2021 News

Robert Unckless

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) was named an Associate Editor for the journal Evolution.

 

 

 

Berl Oakley

Berl Oakley (professor) has been appointed a Review Editor for Frontiers in Fungal Biology.

 

 

 

Zoe Dimond (PhD recipient, Hefty lab) successfully defended her PhD dissertation entitled “Genome-wide Investigation into Chlamydial Factors Important in Host-Specific Pathogenesis” on Nov. 10, 2020.  She has begun her post-doctoral position at the National Institutes of Health-Rocky Mountain Laboratories with Ted Hackstadt.

 

Thelma Chiremba (PhD recipient, Neufeld lab) successfully defended her PhD dissertation entitled “Functional Characterization of Musashi1 in Mouse Postnatal Development and Intestinal Homeostasis” on December 10, 2020.  In January, Thelma begins a postdoctoral fellowship at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in the laboratory of Ron Yu.

Shivani JM (MS recipient, M Azuma lab) successfully defended her MS thesis on December 16, 2020.

Kade Townsend

Kade Townsend (undergraduate, Chandler lab) has been awarded a McNair Scholarship. Kade is a sophomore microbiology major.

 

 

December 2020 News

Congratulations to Catherine Kerr (graduate student, Fehr lab) for being named Best Student Speaker at the 3rd HBC Biomedical Sciences Symposium, held virtually November 6, 2020.  Congratulations also go to David Ingham (graduate student, Lundquist lab) for his first place (tie) Best Poster Award, and Wendy Aquino Nunez (graduate student, Ackley lab) for her second place (tie) Best Poster Award out of 42 total posters.  A great representation from Molecular Biosciences!

Dr. Dana Hawkinson (assistant professor, KUMC) received his master's degree from the Buechner lab.  He has since become somewhat of a celebrity, featured in this Kansas Alumni Magazine story called Hope is Real.  Thank you Dr. Hawkinson!

Payton Markley (undergraduate, Dixon lab) was awarded the Erma Reed Peterson Scholarship for Pre-Medicine Seniors.

November 2020 News

Ronak Tilvawala (assistant professor) in collaboration with Tony Fehr (assistant professor) received a CBID CoBRE grant entitled "Host Substrate Profiling of SARS-CoV-2 Virus Protease".

Eric Lundquist

Erik Lundquist (professor) received an NIH R01 research award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke entitled “Regulation of Directed Neuroblast Migration by the Extracellular Matrix and MAB-5/Hox”.

 

 

Dan Dixon

Dan Dixon (professor) was awarded a voucher from the IDeA National Resource for Quantitative Proteomics to examine inflammation-associated exosomes.

 

 

Liang Xu

image

Liang Xu (professor) received a Pilot Project Award from KU Cancer Center, entitled “Drug the Undruggable Musashi Oncoprotein by Fragment-based Drug Discovery”. Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) is a co-investigator on this project.

 

Dan Dixon

image

Kristi Neufeld

Three Molecular Biosciences faculty were selected for The University of Kansas Cancer Center 2020 Director’s Awards in recognition of “individuals who have significantly contributed to the Cancer Center’s mission of reducing the burden of cancer in our region.” Dan Dixon and Liang Xu received the William Jewell Team Science Award and Kristi Neufeld received the Director’s Mentoring Award. Dixon and Neufeld, who serve as Cancer Center program co-leaders each planned and moderated several sessions during KUCC research week, October 26-30.

 

Tom Hill

Tom Hill (postdoc, Unckless lab) accepted a position as a Bioinformatics Analyst at the National Cancer Institute at Frederick in Frederick, Maryland. Congratulations Tom!

 

 

October 2020 News

Tony Fehr

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) received an R35 MIRA award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) for a project entitled Determining Mechanisms of Innate Immune Modulation by ADP-ribosylation.

 

image

David Davido (professor) has been reappointed to serve another three-year term on the editorial board for Journal of Virology starting January 2021.  

 

 

image

Kristi Neufeld (professor) is featured in this KU Medical Center News article discussing the effort to gain comprehensive cancer center status.  Alumna Dr. Lisa Harlan-Williams (PhD recipient, Benedict lab) is also featured.

 

Heba Mostafa (PhD recipient, Davido lab) has been named a Hawk to Watch, recognizing her important work on COVID-19 testing.  Dr. Mostafa is now the director of the Molecular Virology Lab at Johns Hopkins as well as an assistant professor of pathology.

 

image

Christian Gomez (PhD recipient, Neufeld lab) successfully defended his dissertation entitled “Novel Role for APC in Goblet Cells, Inflammation, and Cell Stress” on September 21.  In October, Christian will start a new position in the Dixon lab as a postdoctoral fellow in the IRACDA program.

 

Sam Glaser (undergraduate, Fehr lab) was one of eight recipients of an Undergraduate Research Award (UGRA) this fall for his project entitle “Role of the Coronavirus Macrodomain Highly-Conserved GIF Loop in Virus Replication.”

 

September 2020 News

Aaron Rudeen (PhD recipient, Neufeld lab) successfully defended his dissertation entitled “The 15-aa Repeat Region of Adenomatous Polyposis Coli: Association with β-catenin and Interplay with Cell Cycle Regulator Topoisomerase IIα” on July 30.  Aaron has started a new position with Deciphera Pharmaceuticals, right here in Lawrence, KS.

 

image

Matt Ochs (PhD recipient, Lundquist lab) started a position with the life sciences and pharmaceutical product development company Catalent, located in Houston, TX.

 

 

image

Taybor Parker (PhD recipient, Neufeld lab) started a position with Catalent, Inc. in Kansas City, MO.

 

 

 

Clinton Rice

Clint Rice (IRACDA postdoc with Rob Ward and Rob Unckless) accepted a position at Catalent, Inc. in Madison Wisconsin. Congratulations Clint!

 

 

Ben Smith (former undergrad in the Lamb lab) has joined the Chandler lab as a research technician.

 

August 2020 News

image

David Davido (professor) is recipient of a grant from the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases (NIH) for his project entitled “Identifying functional targets of HSV‐1 ICP0‐directed degradation.”

 

 

image

Mizuki Azuma (associate professor) is recipient of a BioNexus KC grant for her work on Ewing sarcoma.

 

 

 

image

Joanna Slusky (associate professor) is recipient of a grant from the KU Medical Center Research Institute as mentor for Jimmy Budiardjo for the project entitled “Designing peptide‐based inhibitors of bacterial efflux pumps.”

 

 

image

Shivani JagannathanMurali (graduate student, M. Azuma lab) was recipient of the Kenneth B. Armitage Award for Excellence in Teaching, Principles of Biology Laboratory this past spring.

 

 

Catherine Kerr (graduate student, Fehr lab) was awarded a Chemical Biology Training Grant.

 

The Fehr Lab was featured in this Business Wire new study announcement.

In the spring, a Beckman Coulter SW 41 Ti Swinging‐Bucket Rotor Package was offered to HBC participants as part of an award competition. Congratulations to Drs. Yoshiaki Azuma and Dan Dixon, both from molecular biosciences, who applied for the rotor and agreed to share its use.

This month, three researchers joined the Unckless lab: Wen-Juan Ma (research associate), Clint Rice (postdoc) and Isaac Nevarez-Saenz (technician). Wen-Juan is coming from a position at Amherst College and will work on meiotic drive. Clint is switching from Rob Ward’s lab at KU and will work on antimicrobial peptides. Isaac is a former KU undergraduate and PREP scholar and will work on antimicrobial peptides as well. 

 

July 2020 News

image

image

Kristi Neufeld (professor) and Eileen Hotze (lecturer) were recognized as “Favorite Professors” by the Biology Class of 2020 at the University of Kansas Undergraduate Biology Virtual Recognition Ceremony on May 16.

 

Tori Paolillo (post-doc, Lundquist lab; PhD recipient, Oakley lab) started a position as Genome Analyst in the Genomic Medicine Center at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, MO.

Jennifer Klaus (PhD recipient, Chandler lab) successfully defended her dissertation entitled "Genetic and functional characterization of antimicrobial secondary metabolites produced by Burkholderia species" on June 11.

Matt Ochs (PhD recipient, Lundquist lab) successfully defended his dissertation entitled "New insights into the regulatory network controlling neuroblast migration in C. elegans" on June 18.

Taybor Parker (PhD recipient, Neufeld lab) successfully defended his dissertation entitled "Wnt signaling in human colonocytes: roles for the tumor suppressor APC inβ-catenin cytoplasmic retention and destruction complex localization"on June 2.

Zhe Yang (PhD recipient, Buechner lab) successfully defended his dissertation entitled "Terminal Web and Associated Proteins Mediate Signaling to Promote Nematode Single-Cell Tubulogenesis" on May 6.

Jennifer Amrein (PhD candidate, Dixon lab) was awarded trainee support by the University of Kansas Cancer Center match position to the NIH funded Chemistry Biology Training Grant.

 

June 2020 News

image

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) is a co-Investigator with Professor Michael Wolfe (PI, Medicinal Chemistry) on an awarded NIH-NIA R01 research grant entitled “Structure and Function of Gamma-Secretase in Familial Alzheimer's Disease”.

 

Audrey Lamb (professor) is the recipient of the 2020 Louise Byrd Graduate Educator Award.  Congratulations Audrey!

 

Angelica Lang

Angelica Lang (undergraduate, Lundquist lab) is the recipient of an Astronaut Scholarship, one of 56 nationally. The Astronaut Scholarships recognize “the brightest and most talented college students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics” “To aid the United States in retaining its world leadership in technology and innovation by supporting the very best and brightest scholars in science, technology, engineering and mathematics while commemorating the legacy of America’s pioneering astronauts.” Angelica is also a Beckman Scholar and Goldwater Scholar.

The following graduate students have almost a year of study under their belts and we are happy to announce that they have now found research homes!

  • Samalee Banerjee joined the Chandler lab and will be studying antibiotic resistance and cell-cell communication in the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
  • Eldric Carreon joined the Neufeld lab to study the role of tumor suppressor protein APC in Wnt signal transmission.
  • Katherine (Katie) Hanson joined the Macdonald lab and will carry out experimental and computational genomics studies to understand the genetic basis of complex, biomedically-relevant traits using the fruit fly model system.
  • Bunu Lama joined the Yoshi Azuma lab and will be studying role of SUMOylated DNA Topoisomerase IIalfa/PICH interaction on novel mitotic checkpoint regulation and mitotic chromosomal organization.
  • Hana Mayfield joined the Yoshi Azuma lab and will be studying biochemical/cell biological aspect of DNA topoisomerase IIalfa binding to specific chromatin with histone methylation for faithful chromosome segregation.
  • Joseph O’Connor joined the Fehr lab and will be studying how PARP14 enhances the IFN response to virus infections.
  • Maxim Rodzkin joined the Dixon lab and will studying the control of cancer exosome secretion.

Congratulations to these stellar undergraduates for receiving Outstanding Presentation Awards at the 2020 Online Undergraduate Research Symposium:

  • Maya Bluitt is a behavioral neuroscience major from Lenexa.  Her presentation was entitled “Do Flavin Monooxygenases Function in the Celsr/Flamingo Pathway During Neural Development?” and her mentor is Brian Ackley.
  • Dasha Frank is a biochemistry major from Tonganoxie.  Her presentation was entitled “Effect of Vitamin C on Glycogen Phosphorylase b” and her mentor is Roberto de Guzman.
  • Hailey Young is a biology major from Overland Park.  Her presentation was entitled “Retrospective docking of y-secretase modulators” and her mentors are Yinglong Miao and Apurba Bhattari.

Also of note, Brian Ackley (associate professor) was a nominee for the K. Barbara Schowen Undergraduate Research Mentor Award while Taybor Parker (graduate student-Neufeld lab) was a nominee for the Undergraduate Research Mentor Award.

 

May 2020 News

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) is an expert on the Coronavirus and has been interviewed numerous times over the course of the pandemic.  You can check out just a couple news items, a Kansas City FOX-4 News story and one from an interview with an Arizona news station.

 

Liang Xu

Liang Xu (professor) with co-PIs Dr. Yong Zeng (SOE) and Dr. Fen Wang (KUMC) were awarded a Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) Partnership for Translational Research Training grant entitled “Novel NanoChip to detect exosomal biomarkers in liquid biopsy of non-small cell lung cancer patients with metastasis”.

 

image

Stuart Macdonald (professor) was one of four recipients of the University Scholarly Achievement Award for 2020.  Congratulations Stuart!

 

 

Emily Hughes (undergraduate, Hefty lab) and Anton Barybin (undergraduate, Lunte lab) have been named 2020 Beckman Scholars.

Angelo Andoyo (undergraduate, Xu lab) obtained a K-INBRE Translational Summer Scholar award to work on the HuR protein in breast cancer.

Spencer Tye (PREP student, Ward lab) was awarded the NSF GRFP fellowship and will attend graduate school as a member of the Genetics Program at the University of Wisconsin. 

Congratulations to Khushi Kohli (Olathe North High School student, Miao lab) for winning 1st place in the Computational Biology category and 2nd place overall in the 2020 Greater Kansas City Science Fair!

 

April 2020 News

image

image

Josie Chandler and Joanna Slusky were recently promoted to associate professor.  Congratulations Josie and Joanna!

 

 

Dan Dixon

Dan Dixon was promoted to full professor.  Congratulations Dan!

 

 

 

Two KUMB scientists have contributed to efforts to help set up COVID-19 diagnostic testing. Pratik Koirala (graduate student, Chandler lab) helped set up early testing in his country (Nepal), and alumna Heba Mostafa helped set up testing at Johns Hopkins.

KUMB is here for you!  Susan Egan (professor), Scott Hefty (professor), and Erik Lundquist (professor) worked together to accept supplies from across campus to aid in COVID-19 testing efforts.  You can read about it in this LJWorld article.

 

image

Angelica Lang (undergraduate, Lundquist lab) is the recipient of a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, the nation’s premier undergraduate award for academically gifted students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Angelica will be studying the role of basement membrane collagen as a guidance cue for directed neuronal migration. Collette Wright (undergraduate, Lamb lab) is one of three other students to be nominated by KU.  Collette is studying the regulation of an enzyme that could serve as a target for diabetes and personalized medicine.  Read more about KU’s nominees in KU Today article.

 

Andie Cassity (postdoc, Lamb lab) is the recipient of a postdoctoral fellowship from the Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) for her project entitled “Nicotianamine Synthases of Opine Metallophore Biosynthesis.”  Andie will be studying the structure and function of enzymes required by bacteria to acquire metal ions from the environment.

Tom Hill (postdoc, Unckless lab) was awarded a Kansas INBRE postdoctoral fellowship for his project entitled “Understanding host-virus coevolution and viral trade-offs using a Drosophila DNA virus”.

 

March 2020 News

Tony Fehr

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) is quoted in the following Washington Post articles discussing the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.  He also acted as a panelist for a Coronavirus Fact vs Fiction Forum sponsored by the Center for East Asian Studies and Office of International Affairs at Marvin Hall on February 14, 2020.

 

50 KU students received Undergraduate Research Awards for spring 2020.  Six of these students are doing research in Molecular Biosciences labs:

  • Maya Bluitt, a senior from Lawrence: “Elucidating how Flamingo Selectively Regulates Anteroposterior Axonal Outgrowth of VD Motor Neurons Using MSRB-1 as a Model Protein,” mentored by Brian Ackley.
  • Vaughn Craddock, a senior from Wichita: “Screening of Aspergillus Nidulans Secondary Metabolites that Block Quorum Sensing in the Bacterium Pseudomonas Aeruginosa,” mentored by Josie Chandler.
  • Kelsey Hillyer, a senior from Shawnee: “In-vitro Study of FTDP-17 Tau Mutations,” mentored by T. Chris Gamblin.
  • Payton Markley, a junior from Hays: “Identification and Characterization of the ELAVL1 Promoter Region,” mentored by Dan Dixon.
  • Dania Shoaib, a senior from Elizabethtown, Kentucky: “Investigating the Role of Septate Junction Proteins in Border Cell Migration in Drosophila,” mentored by Robert Ward.
  • Hunter Woosley, a junior from Leawood: “Investigation of Cellular Protein Targeted by ICP0 for Degradation,” mentored by David Davido.

 

Jessie Perlmutter

Jessie Perlmutter joined the Unckless lab as a postdoctoral researcher. Jessie is from Colorado and recently completed her PhD at Vanderbilt University. She will work on host/microbe interactions in Drosophila.

 

 

Yousef Alhammad joined the Fehr lab as a postdoctoral researcher. Yousef is from Saudi Arabia but got his PhD in Australia at Monash University. He will work on coronavirus macrodomain functions and its role in replication.

 

February 2020 News

The Department of Molecular Biosciences at the University of Kansas invites applications for a faculty position at the tenure-track Assistant Professor level with expected start dates between August 2020 and May 2021.  We are seeking outstanding candidates to apply for a tenure-track faculty position at the Assistant Professor level in the area of Immunology with a focus on host-pathogen interactions whose research aligns with the NIH mission.  The university and department aspire to become a leader among its peer institutions in making meaningful and lasting progress in responding to the needs and concerns of minority and marginalized demographic groups. As such, applications from members of underrepresented groups in higher education are highly encouraged.

 

The Department of Molecular Biosciences is very sad to share that emeritus faculty member Dr. Dean Stetler passed away on February 9, 2020. Dean earned both bachelor’s and doctoral degrees from KU, and then pursued postdoctoral training at Penn State University. Following an initial faculty position at Penn State, Dean returned to KU in 1985 as a faculty member. Dean’s research initially focused on Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, an autoimmune disease, and later on the genetics of human behavior. Among his most noteworthy accomplishments, Dean’s research contributed to more accurate methods for diagnosing Lupus patients, and led to three US patents related to the diagnosis and severity-monitoring of autoimmune diseases. He also developed an important mouse model of Lupus used for research studies. Dean taught 17 different undergraduate and graduate courses in his years at KU, and provided research training to many undergraduate students in his lab. He trained over a dozen graduate students and postdoctoral researchers who went on to successful careers. Dean established himself as an expert in DNA evidence for the legal system and contributed to nearly 300 legal cases and conducted frequent workshops for legal professionals. Dean’s service to KU was also extensive, including serving as Director of Graduate Studies for Molecular Biosciences, Director of the Genetics Program, and Director of Undergraduate Biology, during which time he founded the Undergraduate Biology Graduate Recognition Ceremony. Dean will be missed by current and former KU faculty, staff and students. Funeral services were held shortly after his passing. We offer our sincerest condolences to Dean’s family members and all those mourning his loss.

 

Rob Unckless

Rob Unckless organized the Great Plains Genetic Conflict 2020 meeting that occurred on January 25th in Lawrence, KS. Rob also gave a talk entitled “The genetics of sex-ratio meiotic drive in Drosophila affinis”.

 

 

Vaughn Craddock (undergraduate, Chandler lab) received a KU Undergraduate Research Award (UGRA) from the KU Center for Undergraduate Research for the spring 2020 semester to do research focused on identifying fungal secondary metabolites that can inhibit quorum sensing in the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

 

Payton Markley (undergraduate, Dixon lab) was awarded an Undergraduate Research Award (UGRA) from the KU Center for Undergraduate Research for the spring 2020 semester for her project entitled “Identification and Characterization of the ELAVL1 Promoter Region”.

Jennifer Amrein

Jennifer Amrein (graduate student, Dixon lab) received Honorable Mention recognition at the 18th Annual K-INBRE Symposium for her poster presentation entitled “The RNA-binding protein Tristetraprolin: A key factor of intestinal cell differentiation and microbial homeostasis in colorectal cancer”.

Colby Spiess (undergraduate, Dixon lab) received Honorable Mention recognition at the 18th Annual K-INBRE Symposium for his oral presentation entitled “Overexpression of the RNA binding protein HuR promotes chemoresistance by stabilizing AKT in colorectal cancer cells”.

Emma Pagella (undergraduate, Unckless lab) was awarded a K-INBRE Undergraduate Scholarship for her work on Drosophila immunity.

Eduardo Ramirez (undergraduate, Timmons lab) was selected as a 2020 K-INBRE Undergraduate Scholarship Program recipient.>

January 2020 News

The natural sciences departments at the University of Kansas are excited to offer a one-day Graduate Admissions Workshop on April 18th, 2020. Sessions will include CV and personal statement writing, navigating the admissions process and more. Admission is free, reasonable travel will be covered and preference will be given to people from backgrounds underrepresented in the sciences. Participating departments include Chemistry, EEB, Molecular Biosciences and Physics & Astronomy. Application deadline is March 15th.

 

Erik Lundquist

Erik Lundquist (professor) has been appointed Associate Vice Chancellor for Research effective January 1, a position in which he has served as interim since June of 2018. He will work alongside the Vice Chancellor for Research and two other Associate Vice Chancellors for Research to oversee the operations of the Office of Research, and to facilitate the research enterprise at KU. His oversight responsibilities include the Animal Care and Use program, university core laboratories and facilities, and the Higuchi Biosciences Center. In this position, he also serves as Vice President of the KU Center for Research. As this is a 50% appointment, Dr. Lundquist will continue research and teaching activities as a faculty member in Molecular Biosciences.

 

Erik Lundquist

Erik Lundquist (professor) has been awarded an R03 research grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke entitled “Regulation of growth cone polarity and protrusion in axon guidance”. The focus of the project is to use CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing in C. elegans to tag axon guidance receptor molecules with Green Fluorescent Protein in order to visualize their distribution in the growth cone during directed axon guidance. These studies will test critical predictions of the polarity/protrusion model in axon guidance, which has the potential to guide strategies to treat central nervous system damage after traumatic injury or stroke.

 

Tom Hill

Tom Hill (postdoc, Unckless lab) was awarded a KU Research Postdoctoral Achievement Award. The award was established in 2018 to recognize the numerous contributions of postdoctoral researchers to the KU research mission. It provides $5,000 in funds to be used for approved research or professional development activities. He will officially recognized at a ceremony on April 22 from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Burge Union, where the recipients of the KU Research Staff Achievement Award and Steven F. Warren Research Achievement Award will also be recognized.

 

image

Kent Smith (graphic artist at KU) collaborated with Rob Unckless (assistant professor) to create journal cover artwork for a special issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society (B Series) on gene drives. The artwork depicts the Red Queen from Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass”. The Red Queen is invoked in a theory about coevolution between different entities such that both players keep evolving in reaction to each other but never actually improve their fitness. 

Kelsey Hillyer (undergraduate, Gamblin lab) was awarded an Undergraduate Research Award (UGRA) from the KU Center for Undergraduate Research for her project entitled “In vitro study of FTDP-17 tau mutations”.

December 2019 News

The Department of Molecular Biosciences is very sad to share that Professor Stephen Benedict passed away on December 2, 2019.  Steve earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Kentucky, and a PhD in Microbiology from Vanderbilt University.  Following professional positions at two research hospitals, Steve joined the faculty at the University of Kansas in 1990.  At KU, he excelled in all aspects of an academic career: research and scholarship; teaching and mentoring; and service and collegiality.  Steve’s primary professional passion was his research, which focused on understanding and potentially controlling T-cell function. This research has potential applications to diseases such as cancer, Type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis.  His research led to the publication of nearly 90 papers and the receipt of 6 US Patents.  Steve mentored 12 doctoral students – 6 of whom have successful academic faculty careers, and one who will complete her degree in the coming weeks.  Steve was also an award-winning educator who taught and touched the lives of large numbers of KU students (among other classes, he taught immunology to more than 100 students per year for 22 years). Among his teaching and mentoring accolades were a Del Shankel Teaching Excellence Award (2000), the Kemper Teaching award (2002), the Robert Weaver Graduate Mentoring award (2014), the J. Michael Young Academic Advisor Award (2014), and the Mortar Board Outstanding Educator award (2016-2017).  He also served as a Chancellors Club Teaching Professor from 2014 to 2019.  This prestigious five-year professorship is awarded in honor of excellence in teaching over a number of years, and includes a substantial annual salary supplement. Perhaps Steve’s crowning teaching achievement was the receipt of the Favorite Biology Professor award five times in the last 15 years (2006, 2009, 2014, 2016 and 2019 – despite a pool of ~50 biology faculty members).  In honor of this remarkable student recognition of Steve, this award will be renamed the Stephen Benedict Favorite Biology Professor award.  Steve will be greatly missed by countless current and former KU faculty, staff and students.  We offer our sincerest condolences to Steve’s family and all those mourning his loss.  A celebration of life service is planned for Jan. 18, 2020, in Lawrence.

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) had the cover image for the November issue of G3.

Kristi Neufeld (professor) was awarded a Pilot Project Grant from the KU Cancer Center for her project entitled– Generating a mouse to test musashi 1 inhibitors as anti-tumor agents”.

Brian Ackley (associate professor) and Scott Hefty (professor) attended the national conference for the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science in Honolulu October 31 to November 2 where they served as mentors and poster judges.

Audrey Lamb (professor) and Latavia Hill (graduate student, Egan lab) attended the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students in Anaheim on November 13-26 where they served as mentors and poster judges.  

Molecular Biosciences Graduate Students Jennifer Amrein (Dixon lab), Wendy Aquino Nunez (Ackley lab), Oindrila De (Ward lab), Shivani Jagannathan Murali (M. Azuma lab), and Srivatsan Parthasarathy (Hancock lab) were finalists in the university-wide Three Minute Thesis Competition on November 5 (all of the finalists are pictured above with Interim Dean of Graduate Studies Audrey Lamb).  Shivani took second place (pictured right giving her award winning presentation). You can read all about it in the University Daily Kansan.  We are proud of their accomplishments!

David Ingham (graduate student, Gamblin lab) received a Roofe Fellowship in Neuroscience Research from the Institute for Neurological Discoveries at the University of Kansas Medical Center. This award will support his research project entitled “Development of in vitro disease-relevant strains of tau for PSP drug discovery”.

Taybor Parker (graduate student, Neufeld lab) won first place at the KU Cancer Center Annual Symposium on November 8 for his poster entitled, APC-dependent localization of the β-catenin destruction complex during Wnt stimulation”.

November 2019 News

Assistant or Associate Professor in Biochemical Mechanisms of Cancer - The Department of Molecular Biosciences at the University of Kansas invites applications for a faculty position as a tenure-track assistant professor or associate professor using biochemical or chemical biology approaches to investigate the molecular mechanisms of cancer. Candidates are expected to develop an internationally visible, rigorous, and externally-funded research program and to effectively teach and mentor undergraduate and graduate students in the area of biochemistry. A full job description and instructions for applying are available at the KU Human Resources Management website.

Anthony Fehr (assistant professor) was awarded a CBID CoBRE Research Project Grant through NIGMS for his project entitled “Deciphering the distinct roles of macrodomain ADP-ribose binding and hydrolysis in coronavirus replication”.

Mizuki Azuma (associate professor) was awarded a 2-year term grant from The Children's Mercy Hospital Midwest Alliance Partners Advisory Board for her work entitled "The role of a sugar (O-GlcNAc) modification of EWS-FLI1 in malignant progression of Ewing sarcoma and its therapeutic potential"

October 2019 News

Assistant or Associate Professor in Biochemical Mechanisms of Cancer - The Department of Molecular Biosciences at the University of Kansas invites applications for a faculty position as a tenure-track assistant professor or associate professor using biochemical or chemical biology approaches to investigate the molecular mechanisms of cancer. Candidates are expected to develop an internationally visible, rigorous, and externally-funded research program and to effectively teach and mentor undergraduate and graduate students in the area of biochemistry. A full job description and instructions for applying are available at the KU Human Resources Management website.

Ilya Vakser (professor) received a grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences to enhance computing infrastructure for a project entitled "Integrated resource for protein recognition studies”. The goal of the project is to develop docking methodology and an accompanying molecular recognition data resource for studies of protein interfaces and development of docking and scoring techniques.

We are excited to welcome the new graduate student class for fall 2019!

  • 1st Row: Benjamin Bunnell, Kehinde Akinseye, Hana Mayfield, Samalee Banerjee, Katherine Hanson
  • 2nd Row: Eldric Jonn Carreon, Bunu Lama, Maxim Rodzkin, Benjamin May, Vaishnavi Kulkarni
  • 3rd Row: Hongping Hao, Joseph O'Connor

September 2019 News

Erik Lundquist (professor) is part of a collaborative research group with the Scripps Research Institute that has published their findings in Science entitled “Genetic behavioral screen identifies an orphan anti-opioid system”. In this study, the research team used the nematode C. elegans to identify a gene encoding a negative regulator of the opioid response that is conserved in mice and humans and that has potential as a target for increased opioid safety.

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) published a paper that was also highlighted with an image on the cover of The Journal of Physical Chemistry. The image depicts specific G protein coupling to adenosine G-protein-coupled receptors revealed from all-atom enhanced sampling simulations.

Tom Hill (postdoc, Unckless lab) won the award for best postdoc talk for his talk entitled “Host/virus coevolution in Drosophila innubila” at the Midwest Population Genetics Conference 2019 in Chicago, IL, August 16-17, 2019.

August 2019 News

Dr. Simon Atkinson (professor) joins the faculty of the Department of Molecular Biosciences. Dr. Atkinson has been selected to lead the University of Kansas Office of Research as the new vice chancellor for research. Atkinson will advocate for research on and off campus, implement research integrity requirements, and, through the KU Center for Research (KUCR), oversee the administration of research grants and contracts at the Lawrence campus. Atkinson was the vice chancellor for research at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), and the associate vice president for research for Indiana University. Atkinson was a chancellor's professor at IUPUI as well as professor of biology in the School of Science and an adjunct professor of medicine and of biochemistry and molecular biology. He studies acute kidney injury with the goal of developing strategies to prevent or treat kidney injuries that can be caused by heart failure, cardiac surgery, and toxins. Dr. Atkinson obtained a bachelor’s degree in cell and molecular biology from King’s College London, from there he got his doctorate in molecular biology from the University of Cambridge, and then was a post-doctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Welcome Dr. Atkinson to KU and to the department of Molecular Biosciences!

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) received an R35 (MIRA) grant from the NIH/NIGMS entitled “The evolution and function of quorum sensing in mixed microbial communities.” This grant will fund research in the Chandler lab over the next five years. The work will investigate how bacterial communication systems regulate interactions among members of complex microbial communities such as those found in infections.

Erik Holmstrom (assistant professor) was awarded a Research Project from the Center for Molecular Analysis of Disease Pathways (CMADP), an NIH Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE). This award provides support for his Research Project entitled, “Molecular mechanisms of Hepatitis C Virus nucleocapsid-like particle assembly.” The goal of this project is to understand how key biomolecular interactions govern viral assembly using an integrative combination of single-molecule fluorescence experiments, microfluidics, and biochemical inhibitors.

Audrey Lamb (professor) is the recipient of a Collaborative Research Grant entitled “The Chemistry of Riboflavin Biosynthesis” from the Chemistry of Life Processes program at the National Science Foundation.  Riboflavin (Vitamin B2) is essential in all organisms, facilitating biological reactions that include cellular energy production, photosynthesis, DNA repair and response to oxidative stress. Working with Prof. Graham Moran at the Loyola University Chicago, the focus of this research is to define the enzymatic mechanisms of the unusual deformylation reactions of RibA and RibB and the unconventional multi-activity of RibD. This basic science knowledge may provide strategies for the development of antimicrobial drugs.

David Davido (professor) served as co-chair of the Priscilla Schaffer Lecture and selection committee chair for the Priscilla Schaffer Graduate Student and Postdoctoral Travel Awards at the 44th International Herpesvirus Workshop in Knoxville, TN, from July 20-24, 2019.  He also presented a poster entitled "Simple and rapid high-throughput assay to examine HSV-1 ICP0 transactivator function”.

Jennifer Amrein (graduate student, Dixon lab) was awarded a Young Investigator award to attend the Genomic Medicine Short Course, September 9-12 at Children's Mercy Hospital. 

Wendy Aquino Nunez (graduate student, Ackley lab) was appointed to the National Institutes of Health Graduate Training Program in the Dynamic Aspects of Chemical Biology on July 1.  She will also be pursuing a KU Graduate Certificate in Chemical Biology along with her doctorate in our department.

David Ingham (graduate student, Gamblin lab) and Meghan Franklin (graduate student, Slusky lab) were awarded Graduate Certificates in Chemical Biology on July 17.

Anupama Kante (Deeds Lab) became one of the winners of the graduate student Poster Competition at the Protein Society’s 33rd Annual Symposium, in Seattle, Washington, Jun 30-Jul 3, 2019, where she presented her poster, "Kinetic Trapping and Robustness in Proteasome assembly”.

Jenn Klaus (graduate student, Chandler lab) presented a poster entitled “The role of malleilactone, a Burkholderia pseudomallei cytotoxic polyketide, in bacterial iron acquisition” at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology conference in Washington DC on July 21. She also won the Carol D. Litchfield Outstanding Student Poster Presentation Award.

Nikola Kenjic (graduate student, Lamb lab) successfully defended his dissertation entitled “The Road Less Travelled: utilization of formate in two biochemical reactions in Gram-negative bacteria” on July 2.

Congratulations to Sonia Hall, who received her PhD from MB working with Rob Ward, for her selection as the new President and CEO of BioKansas.

July 2019 News

Ilya Vakser (professor) received a grant from the National Science Foundation entitled "Structural modeling of interactome to assess phenotypic effects of genetic variation.” The goal of the project is the development of high-throughput, structure-based methodologies and public resources for modeling of protein interaction networks and assessing the function of single amino acid variation. The project is a collaboration with Professor Michael Sternberg at the Imperial College London.

Tori Paolillo (postdoc, Lundquist lab) received a K-INBRE post-doctoral award to study the transcriptomics of neuroblast migration in C. elegans.

Jeff McFarlane (graduate student, Lamb lab) successfully defended his dissertation entitled “The Biosynthesis of Opine Metallophores” on June 21.  In August, Jeff will become an Assistant Professor at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado.

Rhea Abisado (graduate student, Chandler lab) gave an invited talk at the American Society of Microbiology Microbe meeting in San Francisco on June 24 entitled “Quorum sensing control of tobramycin resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

The 22nd International C. elegans Meeting was held at UCLA in Los Angeles, June 26-29.  The main sponsor of the meeting, the Genetics Society of America, was represented by former KUMB graduate students, Sonia Hall and Erin Suderman, both from Rob Ward’s lab.  Three current KUMB students had poster presentations at the meeting:  Zhe Yang(graduate student, Buechner lab) “The RNA-Binding Proteins EXC-7 and MSI-1 Upregulate Serotonin Signaling in the Male Tail”, Snehal Mahadik (graduate student, Lundquist lab) “SRC-1 Is the Negative Regulator of UNC-5 in the Polarity/Protrusion Model of Directed Growth Cone Outgrowth”, and Matthew Ochs (graduate student, Lundquist lab) “Using Fluorescence-Activated Cell Sorting and RNA-Seq to Identify mRNA Targets of ETR-1/CELF that Regulate Q Neuroblast Migration”

June 2019 News

Dan Dixon (associate professor) and Liang Xu (professor), with Yong Zeng (associate professor, Chemistry) were awarded a Multi-PI Research Project Grant (R01) from the National Cancer Institute  (NCI) entitled "Nano-Engineered Lab-on-a-Chip for Assessing HuR-Regulated Exosomes for Cancer Monitoring and Targeted Therapy”. The goal of this award is to develop new technologies for analysis of circulating exosomes and potential exosomal biomarkers and blood-based tests for precision diagnosis and treatment of cancers.

Josephine Chandler (assistant professor) was awarded a National Institutes of Health COBRE Chemical Biology of Infectious Diseases pilot project award for her project entitled, “Chemical biology studies of malleilactone, a small-molecule toxin produced by Burkholderia pseudomallei.” The goal of this project is to understand how secondary metabolites influence the disease process and evaluate secondary metabolites as novel therapeutic targets for combatting infections.

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) published a paper in PLos Pathogens entitled, The coronavirus macrodomain is required to prevent PARP-mediated inhibition of virus replication and enhancement of IFN expression. It was highlighted as Featured Research on the PLos Pathogens website and a press release was also issued to Eurekalerts.

Mizuki Azuma (associate professor) and Steve Benedict (professor) were recognized as “Favorite Professors” by the Biology Class of 2019 at the University of Kansas Undergraduate Biology Recognition Ceremony on May 18.

Erik Lundquist (professor) was recognized with the McNair Mentor Award on May 2, 2019. Dr. Lundquist was mentor for McNair Scholars Program participant Aubrie Stricker(undergraduate) who was awarded the McNair Exceptional Research Award.

Jenn Klaus (graduate student, Chandler lab) received the 2019 Phillip and Marjorie Newmark Award for Excellence in Biochemistry Research for her project entitled, “Novel iron acquisition mechanisms in the pathogenic bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei.” The other finalist for the prize was Meghan Franklin (Slusky lab). The 2019 invited Newmark lecturer was Stephen H. White of the University of California - Irvine.  Jenn was also awarded the 2019 Hirata Summer Fellowship which will provide full summer support for research, manuscript writing, and thesis defense preparation. Finally, Jenn was awarded a KU Robert H. Ammar Graduate Teaching Award (Microbiology), for excellence in teaching of the class BIOL507 (Bacterial Infectious Diseases Lab) in the spring of 2019.

Elizabeth Everman (postdoc, Macdonald lab) received a two-year F32 Postdoctoral Fellowship from the NIH for her project "Genetic dissection and characterization of variation in copper resistance in Drosophila melanogaster". The goal of her work is to genetically dissect the response to toxic levels of copper sulfate using the fruit fly model system, and to identify the genes and genetic networks that confer resistance via genetic mapping, expression profiling, and genome editing. In addition to using large, sequenced laboratory panels of flies, she will also use flies collected from multiple wild populations known to have experienced high levels of toxic metal contamination (e.g., Superfund sites) to examine the effect of toxic metal exposure on the evolution of metal resistance in natural populations.

Molecular Biosciences participated in the University of Kansas Doctoral Hooding Ceremony on May 19, 2019.

From left to right: Jeff McFarlane and his mentor Audrey Lamb, Mark Richter, mentor to Jittasak Khowsathit, and Lisa Timmons, mentor to Vaishnavi Nagarajan

Lauren Jennings (undergraduate, Neufeld lab) has received a KU Undergraduate Research Award for Summer 2019 for her project: “Analysis of Axin1 in Destruction Complex Localization Following Wnt ligand presentation.”

Kirsten Kent (undergraduate, Dixon Lab) received a 2019 Undergraduate Research Award (UGRA) from the Center for Undergraduate Research to study the regulation of the cell cycle in colon cancer.

Aubrie Stricker (undergraduate, Lundquist lab) received a BS MCDB degree with Honors from Biological Sciences. She will begin PhD studies in the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in the Biomedical and Biological Sciences at Vanderbilt University in the fall of 2019.

Sierra Mortimer (undergraduate, Lundquist lab) received a BS MCDB degree with Honors from Biological Sciences. She will begin PhD studies in the Human Genetics program at the University of Michigan in the fall of 2019.

Natalie Eppler (undergraduate, Chandler lab) will be entering the interdisciplinary PhD program in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Kansas Medical Center in the fall 2019.

Skye Perkins joined the Unckless Lab for a summer research program through the KU-Haskell Bridge partnership and will be working on Inhibition of Drosophila pathogens by natural plant compounds.

May 2019 News

David Davido (professor) has been promoted to full professor. Dr. Davido earned his Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis. Following postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Würzburg, University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard Medical School, he joined the faculty in the Department of Molecular Biosciences in 2005.  The Davido Laboratory studies the roles that viral and host factors play in controlling the lytic and latent phases of the herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) life cycle. 

Cindy Ly (graduate student, Davido Lab) received an Honorable Mention from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for her Graduate Research Fellowship application entitled “Identifying Ubiquitinome Profiles and Pathways Targets by HSV-1 ICP0.”

Nikola Kenjic (pictured) and Jeff McFarlane (graduate students, Lamb lab) won travel awards from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology to attend the Experimental Biology conference in Orlando, FL (April 6-9).  Both participated in the career development programming and presented posters.  Nikola’s poster was titled “3,4-dihydroxy-2-butanone 4-phosphate synthase (RibB) of riboflavin biosynthesis has a mononuclear magnesium active site,” and Jeff’s poster was “An opine on opines: the biosynthesis of opine metallophores.”

Haifa Alhadyian (graduate student, Ward lab) moderated the Undergraduate Panel of the New Faculty Forum at the 60th Drosophila Research Conference in Dallas, TX on March 27, 2019. She also presented her work in a poster format.

Congratulations to the incoming 2018 graduate student class!  As their first year winds down, we are pleased to announce that home labs have been secured and research projects have begun.

  • Sahida Afroz has joined the Dixon lab and will be studying the role of exosomes in colorectal cancer.
  • Jennifer Amrein has joined the Dixon lab and will be studying how RNA decay impacts the intestinal microbiome and immune function in colorectal cancer.
  • Wendy Aquino Nunez has joined the Ackley Lab, and will study the mechanisms of how tau aggregation results in neuronal dysfunction in vivo.
  • Kelsey Ferguson has joined the Lundquist lab and will investigate the role of the axon guidance cue UNC-6/Netrin on growth cone behavior in C. elegans.
  • Paul Ikujuni has joined the Slusky lab and will be studying how efflux pumps can be disabled to make resistant bacteria more susceptible to antibiotics.
  • Catherine Kerr has joined the Fehr Lab and will be studying how cellular PARP enzymes impact coronavirus replication and pathogenesis.
  • Kent Mulkey has joined the Unckless Lab and will be studying the mechanisms of DNA virus infection and virulence in Drosophila.
  • Parker Sperstad has joined the Richter lab working on directed evolution of a nicotine sensing enzyme for monitoring nicotine levels in the brain.
  • Sutton Stegman has joined the Timmons lab where he will investigate environmental contributions to gene regulatory mechanisms using Caenorhabditis elegans.
  • Nicholas Wagner has joined the Macdonald lab and will be working on an array of computational biology projects that seek to investigate the genetic basis of complex trait variation in Drosophila.
  • Qi Zhang has joined the Xu Lab and will be studying the role of RNA-binding proteins in resistance to cancer immunotherapy.
  • Bailey Huser (undergraduate, Davido Lab) received a K-INBRE undergraduate scholarship to study how HSV-1 alters the stability of cellular proteins during productive infection.
  • Mariaelena Nabors (undergraduate, Unckless Lab) was named a Kansas IDEA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (KINBRE) Star Trainee. This program identifies outstanding biomedical researchers and provides financial support during their senior year.
  • Cara Davis (undergraduate, Lamb lab) will be entering the Biological Chemistry graduate program at the University of Michigan in the fall.

 

April 2019 News

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) is the recipient a National Institute of Heath Project Grant (R01) for his project entitled “Enhanced Sampling of G-Protein-Coupled Receptor–G protein interactions”. The major goal of this project is to develop a novel computational approach to enhance sampling of protein-protein interactions and determine molecular mechanisms of selective coupling and allosteric modulation of G-Protein-Coupled ReceptorG protein interactions through complementary computer simulations and experiments.

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) co-organized a workshop entitled “Intro to the Drosophila microbiome: How can I control the microbiome in my research?” at the Drosophila Research Conferencein Dallas, TX on March 28, 2019.

Jinan Wang (post doc, Miao lab) won a Travel Award to attend the Biophysical Society Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland in March 2019. He also served as a Co-Chair for session “Platform: Membrane Receptors and Signal Transduction” and presented an oral talk entitled “Mechanism of specific G protein coupling to adenosine receptors”.  

Haeyoung Kim (graduate student, Mizuki Azuma lab) received an award for the KU Cancer Center KUCC Summer Research Training Program . Her research is focused on the pediatric bone cancer Ewing sarcoma by investigation of the crucial role of EWS protein during the mitosis and interrelationship between genomic integrity and tumor progression. 

Angelica Lang (undergraduate, Lundquist lab) received a Beckman Scholars award for 2019/2020. Angelica will conduct research on the role of the extracellular matrix in neuroblast migration in C. elegans.

 

March 2019 News

Erik D. Holmstrom (assistant professor) joins the Department of Molecular Biosciences faculty. Dr. Holmstrom received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Colorado working in the Nesbitt lab where he studied the kinetics and thermodynamics of RNA folding. Afterwards, he traveled to the Schuler lab in Zurich, Switzerland for his postdoctoral training where he investigated interactions between intrinsically disordered proteins and nucleic acids. While there, he was awarded a Long-term Postdoctoral Fellowship from the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) This allowed him to build a research program that aims to use state-of-the-art single-molecule fluorescence techniques to probe RNA-protein interactions that regulate viral nucleocapsid assembly. The Holmstrom lab will continue to develop this program at KU. Welcome Dr. Holmstrom!

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) was awarded a Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence Bridging Award for her proposal entitled: “Quorum sensing evolution and function in mixed microbial communities.” The goal of this work is to provide a fundamental understanding of how bacterial communication systems regulate interactions between and among members of a population in complex microbial communities, such as those found in many infections.

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) served as a discussion leader in the “Mining peptide diversity and functionality across species” session of the 2019 Antimicrobial Peptide Gordon Research Conference in Tuscany, Italy in February.

Sanjana Sundararajan (graduate student, Yoshi Azuma lab) won the “People’s Choice Award” for KU’s first participation in the 3-minute Thesis Competition for her talk on her work, “Because Small Things Do Go a Long Way!”

Zoe Dimond (graduate student, Hefty lab) received a research award from BioKansas at the 16th annual Capital Graduate Summit Research Summit. Read more about the summit

 

February 2019 News

BECKMAN SCHOLARS PROGRAM

Dr. Susan Egan (professor and chair), along with David Benson (associate professor, chemistry) and Lynn Hancock (associate professor) were awarded a 3 year grant from the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation to support the Beckman Scholars Program at KU. This prestigious award supports mentored undergraduate research in participating faculty laboratories from the departments of Molecular Biosciences and Chemistry. 

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) was officially awarded a K22 grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) entitled “Investigating How ADP-ribosyation Impacts Innate Immunity During Coronavirus Infection”. ADP-ribosylation is an understudied protein modification that inhibits coronavirus replication and enhance the immune response to these viruses. In this project we will work to identify how ADP-ribosylation impacts these events at a molecular level, which will have implications for therapeutics and vaccine design need to limit disease caused by coronaviruses.

Stuart Macdonald (professor) was awarded a Research Project Grant (R01) from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) entitled "Toxicogenomics of metal response in genetically-variable Drosophila populations". The goal of this award is to use fruit flies to model the response to toxic levels of the metals cadmium, lead, manganese, and mercury. The Macdonald lab will use a combination of genetic mapping, high-throughput genomewide expression analysis, and epigenetic profiling to understand the neurotoxicity of environmental metal exposure, and isolate genes and genetic pathways mediating variable responses to metals in populations.

Berl Oakley (distinguished professor) has been elected to the Board of Trustees of the Kansas University Center for Research (2019-2023) and appointed to the Executive Committee of The Kansas University Center for Research (2019)

Dan Dixon (associate professor) published a Correspondence in Nature entitled “Stolen-colon storm could boost cancer screening.” 

Joanna Slusky (assistant professor) published an article in eLife entitled, “Evolutionary pathways of repeat protein topology in bacterial outer membrane proteins.” The importance of this work was also described in an Insight article in eLife.

Thelma Chiremba (graduate student, Neufeld lab) was awarded a Graduate Student and Post-Doctoral Travel (GPT) grant within the 2019 Research Excellence Initiative. This fund will support Thelma’s travel to attend The Gastrointestinal Tract XVIII Conference: Integrated Biology of the GI-Super Organ to be held in Steamboat Springs, Colorado from July 28 to August 2, 2019.

Nikola Kenjic and Jeff McFarlane (graduate students, Lamb lab) were both recipients of the Graduate Scholarly Presentation Awards from KU Graduate Studies to attend the Enzyme Mechanisms Conference in New Orleans, January 6-9. Nikola presented a poster entitled “3,4-dihydroxy-2-butanone 4-phospahte synthase (RibB) of riboflavin biosynthesis has a mononuclear magnesium active site.”  Jeff’s poster was called “An opine on opines: the biosynthesis of opine metallophores in bacterial pathogens.”

Natalie Eppler (undergraduate, Chandler lab) was awarded a K-INBRE undergraduate scholarship(spring/summer 2019) and a KU Undergraduate research assistance ship (spring 2019) to perform research in my lab centered around discovering antimicrobials produced by the bacterium Burkholderia thailandensis.

Collette Wright (undergraduate, Lamb lab) has been named to the K-INBRE Scholars Program for the spring and summer semesters. Collette will be studying the non-allosteric pyruvate kinase from Zymomonas mobilis, doing both kinetic and x-ray crystallography experiments. 

Colby Spiess (undergraduate, Dixon lab) was awarded a 2019 K-INBRE Undergraduate Scholarship to continue his studies of HuR regulation of the mTOR pathway in colon cancer.

Vaughn Craddock (undergraduate, Chandler lab) was invited to give a talk at the K-INBRE symposiumin Overland Park in January and won the award for best talk! His talk was titled “Quorum sensing control of antibiotic resistance in the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa.”

Lindsay Ussher joined the Unckless lab as an assistant researcher. Lindsay's main responsibilities will be to oversee the Drosophila CRISPR genome editing work in the lab. He graduated from KU in December 2018 with a degree in Biology and worked in Rob Ward's (KU MB) lab. 

January 2019 News

Audrey Lamb (professor) has been appointed Interim Dean of Graduate Studies. In this role, she will support the success of graduate students and the growth and quality of graduate programs at KU. Audrey will continue research and teaching activities as a faculty member in Molecular Biosciences.

Chris Gamblin (professor) received a $15,000 KU Research Grant Opportunity grant from the University of Kansas Office of Research for a collaborative project with Dr. Berl Oakley entitled “Development of Fungal Natural Products as Potential Therapeutics for Alzheimer’s Disease”.

Krzystof Kuczera (professor) published an article “Helix-Coil Transition Courses Through Multiple Pathways and Intermediates: Fast Kinetic Measurements and Dimensionality Reduction”. His work was highlighted with the cover image for the December issue of The Journal of Physical Chemistry B.

Emma Pagella (Unckless lab) was awarded a KU Center for Undergraduate Research Travel Award to attend the 2019 Drosophila Genetics Research Conference in Dallas, Texas. Emma will present her work on the characterization of microbes infecting wild Drosophila.

Jordyn Koehn joined the Unckless lab as an assistant researcher. Jordyn’s main responsibilities will be to oversee the Drosophila CRISPR genome editing work in the lab. She graduated from KU in December 2018 with a degree in Biology and worked in Jamie Walters' (KU EEB) lab.

Sierra Mortimer (undergraduate, Lundquist lab) received an Undergraduate Research Award from the Center for Undergraduate Research to continue her studies of Onecut transcription factors in neuroblast migration in C. elegans.

Audrey Lamb (professor) is the recipient of a National Institutes of Health (National Institutes of General Medical Sciences) Research Project Grant (R01) for her project entitled “Novel and essential metallophores from multidrug resistant bacterial pathogens.”  The goal of this work is to provide a fundamental understanding of the enzymes that generate a recently discovered metal acquisition system used by bacterial pathogens that are becoming increasingly antibiotic resistant. Indeed, the enzymes to be studied have only very recently been documented in bacterial pathogens, and their structures and mechanisms are not well-studied, or are missing from the literature across all kingdoms of life. This crucial basic science knowledge can then be exploited in the generation of new antimicrobial therapeutics.

 

December 2018 News

Audrey Lamb (professor) was elected to be a voting member of Council for the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

 

Brian Ackley (associate professor) and Scott Hefty (professor) attended the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students in Indianapolis November 14-17 where they served as mentors and poster judge.  Andrea Darby (undergraduate, Unckless lab, pictured) also attended and presented a poster entitled “Strong immune response in Drosophila can lead to tradeoffs in reduced fitness during environmental stress.”

 

The new edition of the textbook Biological Inorganic Chemistry features a protein structure determined by Audrey Lamb (professor) on the cover.

 

November 2018 News

Molecular Biosciences at KU makes GRE scores optional for applications to our PhD programs

As part of ongoing efforts to attract strong, motivated students to our program, and continue to enhance the diversity of our graduate community, the department recently eliminated the GRE requirement for applicants to our doctoral programs. Students are welcome to submit GRE scores if they feel the scores will help us better assess their academic potential, but equally students who do not choose to provide GRE scores will not be penalized. Our department will continue to carefully examine all aspects of each applicant's package in a holistic fashion during admissions decisions. Applicants, or advisors of potential applicants, should feel free to reach out to Dr. Stuart Macdonald, our Director of Graduate Studies, if they have any questions about this change.

 

Lynn Hancock (associate professor) co-chaired the 7th International Conference on Gram-Positive Pathogens held October 14-17, 2018 in Omaha, NE.

 

Audrey Lamb (professor) attended the annual meeting of the Society for Advancing Chicanos/Hispanics & Native Americans in Science in San Antonio, Texas, October 11-13 where she served as a mentor judge and was the host of the biochemistry room for the Conversations with Scientists dinner.

 

Kara Evans (recent PhD, Chandler lab) started a new position as a Genomics and Microbiome Scientist at DuPont Nutrition & Health in Madison, Wisconsin on October 15. She will be conducting research on bacteria in the human microbiome and probiotic product development.

 

Yamini Mutreja (recent PhD, Gamblin lab) has accepted a postdoctoral position in the laboratory of Domenico Praticò in the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University. Yamini’s new position is expected to begin in early 2019.

 

Cara Davis (undergraduate, Lamb lab) was one of two undergrads to win a poster award for her presentation “Biosynthesis of opine metallophores from Yersinia pestis and Clostridium argentinense” at the Midwest Enzyme Chemistry Conference at Northwestern University on October 20.  Cara is pictured on the far left.

 

October 2018 News

 

Joanna Slusky (assistant professor) published a paper in the September issue of Structure titled "Efflux Pumps Represent Possible Evolutionary Convergence onto the β-Barrel Fold". The paper has also been chosen as the cover article for Structure and was recommended by F1000Prime.

 

Xiaoqing (Sarah) Wu (assistant research professor, Xu lab) and mentor Dr. Liang Xu, was awarded $450,000 by the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation for the project entitled: “Chemo-sensitization of triple negative breast cancer by targeting HuR.” The major goals are to explore HuR as a potential target for overcoming TNBC chemo-resistance, and to validate the potent and specific HuR inhibitor KH-3 as a new class of chemotherapy that sensitizes TNBC via HuR overexpression.

 

Hikmat Al-Hashimi a 2018 Ph.D. graduate of the Buechner lab, has been hired as a Senior Scientist I at Deciphera, Inc. based in Lawrence, KS.

 

Helen Peng (undergraduate, De Guzman lab) received the NIH Summer Internship Program in Biomedical Research. She spent the summer 2018 in Bethesda, Maryland as an undergraduate researcher at the National Institutes of Health where she worked in the laboratory of Dr. Robert Yarchoan of the National Cancer Institute. She participated in research investigating the effect of Pomalidomode, an immunomodulatory drug known to increase virus-infected tumor cell sensitivity to cells. She had an incredibly enriching experience thanks to her research mentors and their eagerness to show her the impact of their research in terms of its relationship to clinical trials and patients. Helen presented the results of her research at a poster conference at the NIH Summer Poster Day, on August 9.

 

September 2018 News   

Anthony Fehr (assistant professor) joins the Department of Molecular Biosciences faculty.  Dr. Fehr received his Ph.D. at Washington University-St. Louis in the lab of Dong Yu where he studied the molecular biology of Human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV). He subsequently completed his postdoctoral research with Stanley Perlman at the University of Iowa, where he studied the role and mechanisms by which coronavirus genes impact virus replication and pathogenesis. The Fehr lab at KU will continue to study the mechanisms that these genes use to overcome host anti-viral defenses, and identify novel compounds that can target these genes and act as anti-viral therapeutics. Welcome Dr. Fehr!

 

Krzysztof Kuczera (professor) was awarded an NSF grant from the Chemistry of Life Processes Program in the Division of Chemistry along with co-investigator Carey Johnson (Chemistry) and Gouri Jas (Pharmacy) for work entitled, “Dynamic Elements: effects of co-solvents on peptide folding pathways”. The goal is to combine ultra-fast spectroscopy and molecular modeling to elucidate the folding pathways of structured peptides in the presence of stabilizing and destabilizing co-solvents, such as urea, guanidinium chloride and proline.

 

Liang Xu (professor) is co-investigator and PI of a sub award on a National Institutes of Health Research Grant entitled “Robust rational design of chemical tools to inhibit RNA-binding proteins.”  The PI is John Karanicolas (Fox Chase Cancer Center), and the goal of the project is to identify novel inhibitors of protein-RNA interaction with a new computational modeling.

 

Erik A. Lundquist (professor) will serve as chair of the National Institutes of Health grant review study section Neurodifferentiation, Plasticity, Regeneration, and Rhythmicity.  Dr. Lundquist will lead the thrice-yearly meetings at which researchers from across the country review ~70 applications for funding related to neuronal development, funtion, circuitry, and physiology.

 

Steve Benedict (professor) was one of six speakers at the KU memorial service honoring the late Del Shankel and his many contributions to the university that stretched across nearly 60 years of service. Professor Shankel contributed as a faculty member and in a long list of administrative positions including athletic director and chancellor of the university. Steve’s comments highlighted Del’s contributions to the field of microbiology with his co-founding of a sub-discipline of science, his love of a good (and bad) joke, especially when they could enhance his teaching efforts, and his remarkable kindness toward everyone. Del adopted Kansas and KU as his permanent home. He was known throughout the state with affection, and represented our interests nationally and internationally with enthusiasm. He is remembered as a gentleman, a scientist, a teacher, a mentor, an administrator, a friend and a Kansan; and he is always remembered with a smile.

 

Elizabeth Everman (postdoc, Macdonald lab) is the recipient of a Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) Postdoctoral Fellowship entitled "Genetic dissection of variation in copper resistance across multiple life stages in Drosophila melanogaster". Dr. Everman will use funds to continue her work to determine the genes and gene networks responsible for variable metal response.

 

Catie Shelton (former post doc, Lamb lab) began an assistant professor position in the department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the Northern Kentucky University on August 15.  Catie will be teaching biochemistry at this Primarily Undergraduate Institution, and will continue the research goals she started during her time here at KU, including structural biology and mechanistic enzymology of proteins from human pathogens.

 

Trey Ronnebaum (graduate student, Lamb lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled “Adenylation and tailoring activities in the nonribosomal peptide synthesis of the siderophore pyochelin” on August 17. Trey will be starting a postdoctoral position at the University of Pennsylvania in the laboratory of David Christianson at the beginning of September.

 

Letty Beltran joined the De Guzman lab as a part of KU’s PREP Program after spending a year in Dr. Scott Hefty’s lab studying C. trachomatis. In Dr. De Guzman's lab she will be studying the binding between the tip and translocon proteins of the Type 3 Secretion System in Burkholderia pseudomallei

 

August 2018 News   

Molecular Biosciences is deeply saddened by the passing of former Chancellor Del Shankelon July 12, 2018.  Del came to KU in 1959 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology (later Molecular Biosciences). Among the faculty he joined in Microbiology were Dr. David Paretsky (former University Distinguished Professor) and Dr. Cora Downs (the first woman to receive a PhD at KU and namesake of the new Downs residence hall). Del was hired to begin research and teaching programs in the area of Microbial Genetics, a new field at the time. Del continued the research he began in graduate school on the effects and prevention of mutations caused by environmental exposures, using bacteria as model systems. The latter part of his research career involved the identification and study of compounds (often plant derived compounds such as those from green tea) that can prevent or reduce the effects of environmental mutagens – an area dubbed anti-mutagenesis. He was an active member of the American Society for Microbiology and the Environmental Mutagen Society for many years, and mentored more than 30 graduate students in their Masters or PhD research in his lab. Del also found great joy in classroom teaching of students, which he continued until his retirement in 1996, and was a strong supporter of undergraduate student research through establishment of the Del and Carol Shankel Biomedical Research Award. Of course, Del is widely known at KU for the many administrative positions he held – 13 positions over the course of his 37 years on the KU faculty, most notably serving twice as chancellor. In 2010, the Shankel Structural Biology Center was named to honor Del’s service to KU. Our sincerest condolences go out to Del’s wife Carol, their two daughters, and everyone whose life he touched. We will miss Del’s counsel, his benevolence, and his humor.

A memorial service will be held on the KU campus on Saturday, August 18, 2018, at 4 p.m. in Woodruff auditorium, Kansas Union, followed by a reception at the Adams Alumni Center. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that contributions be made to the Del and Carol Shankel Biomedical Research Award at the KU Endowment Association.

 

Audrey Lamb (professor) served as the organizer of the Power Hour at the Enzymes, Coenzymes, and Metabolic Pathways Gordon Research Conference in Waterville Valley on July 23. The Power Hour is designed to help address the challenges women face in science and support professional growth by providing an open forum for discussion and mentoring.

 

Andrea Darby joined the Unckless lab as part of KU's PREP Program. Drea joins us from Allen Gibbs' lab at UNLV. She will continue to work on the role of immunity and the microbiome in adaptation to desiccation.  

 

July 2018 News   

Molecular Biosciences mourns the passing of Professor Emeritus Charles Wyttenbach on June 11. Charles earned Bachelors and Master’s degrees in Zoology at Indiana University. During that time he became a research assistant to Sears Crowell at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) at Woods Hole in Massachusetts, an affiliation he would continue throughout his career. Charles earned a doctorate from Johns Hopkins University in three years, supported by a National Science Foundation fellowship. After earning his doctorate, Charles became an Instructor and then Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago. In 1966, Charles accepted a position at KU as a member of the (former) Department of Zoology. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1970 and to Professor in 1975. He served as chairman of the Department of Physiology and Cell Biology (a direct predecessor of Molecular Biosciences) from 1976-1983. Charles’ research interests included nervous system development in chick embryos (carried out at KU) and stolon growth in colonial hydroids (carried out during summers at Woods Hole). In collaboration with KU Professor Paul Kitos, Charles was funded by the National Institutes of Health to study the effects of organophosphate insecticides on embryonic development in chick embryos. His major teaching interests were focused on Embryology. He taught Principles of Biology, which grew from 60 to 300 students under his care.  He was recognized as a Hillteacher in 1968 and nominated for “Best Advisor in the College” in 1991. Charles retired in 1997 and continued to spend summers at Woods Hole and winters in Lawrence. Charles was married to Ellen Garnett (Ph.D., Botany, Indiana University), and they raised three children. In addition to science, Charles had an avid interest in classical music. He was a talented photographer, which began while recording marine organisms as an undergraduate assistant at Woods Hole. Charles was a fine colleague and truly interesting individual, and we will miss his many contributions to KU.

 

Erik Lundquist (professor) has been appointed Interim Associate Vice Chancellor for Research effective June 11. He will work alongside the Vice Chancellor for Research and two other Associate Vice Chancellors for Research to oversee the operations of the Office of Research, and to facilitate the research enterprise at KU. His oversight responsibilities include the Animal Care and Use program, university core laboratories and facilities, and the Higuchi Biosciences Center. In this position, he also serves as Vice President of the KU Center for Research. As this is a 50% appointment, Dr. Lundquist will continue research and teaching activities as a faculty member in Molecular Biosciences.

 

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) is the recipient of a National Institutes of Health (National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease) R01 grant entitled “The causes of balancing selection on immunity genes: from populations to molecular interactions”. The funding will be used to determine the forces that act to maintain allelic variation in antimicrobial peptides (small peptides that directly inhibit microbes) at the molecular, genetic and population levels.

 

Kristi Neufeld (professor) in collaboration with Yoshi Azuma (professor) are recipients of a J.R. And Inez Jay Award from KU Higuchi Biosciences for work entitled, "Novel function of APC tumor suppressor in DNA Topoisomerase II-mediated cell cycle checkpoint.” The funding will be used to assess interactions between APC and Topoisomerase II that control cell proliferation.

 

Yoshi Azuma (professor) and Steve Benedict (professor) are each recipients of University of Kansas Cancer Pilot Project Grants from the Cancer Biology Research Program. Azuma’s proposal is entitled “Impact of SUMOylation on cancer cell’s chromatin structure and fitness.” Benedict’s proposal is entitled, “Choice of co-stimulation of naïve T cells controls differentiation to anti-tumor Th1 cells.” 

 

Three Molecular Biosciences graduate students will be appointed to the National Institutes of Health Graduate Training Program in the Dynamic Aspects of Chemical Biology on July 1: Latavia Hill (Egan lab), David Ingham (Gamblin lab), and Cindy Ly (Davido lab). They will also be pursuing a KU Graduate Certificate in Chemical Biology along with their doctorate in our department.

 

Nikola Kenjic (graduate student, Lamb lab) has been named the Weaver Graduate Fellow for the 2018-2019 academic year.  This fellowship is awarded annually to an international student

 

June 2018 News   

Recently, the Molecular Biosciences department gathered together to celebrate scientific career of Peter Gegenheimer (associate professor) and his more than thirty years as a faculty colleague at KU. Peter was presented with painting of RNAse P - a molecule Peter worked on extensively - decorated with comments from his friends and colleagues. Peter joined the Biochemistry Department (now Molecular Biosciences) in 1985 after very productive doctoral work in the laboratory of Dr. David Apirion at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and postdoctoral work with Dr. John Abelson at UC San Diego. Peter’s research, then and since, has mainly focused on the mechanism and evolution of transfer RNA processing enzymes. Among his many scientific contributions, his 2000 paper published in the journal RNA especially stands out in providing the first direct confirmation that the chloroplast RNAse P enzyme is a protein enzyme rather than an all RNA enzyme. This is considered by many to be a landmark piece of work and it has been heavily cited. Peter trained numerous undergraduate and graduate students in his laboratory who have gone on to very productive careers around the country. We all wish Peter the very best.

 

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) in collaboration with Berl Oakley (Irving S. Johnson Distinguished Professor) are recipients of a J.R. And Inez Jay Award from KU Higuchi Biosciences for work entitled, "Blocking quorum sensing to potentiate antibiotics in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.” The funding will be used to identify and study novel inhibitors of quorum sensing, a type of cell-cell communication that is critical for many bacterial pathogens to cause disease. Ajai Dandekar (University of Washington) will collaborate on the study.

 

Audrey Lamb (professor) is the recipient of a Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence Bridging Award for her proposal entitled “Opine Metallophores from Bacterial Pathogens.” The goal of this work is to provide fundamental understanding of the enzymes that generate a recently discovered metal acquisition system, one used by bacterial pathogens that are becoming increasingly antibiotic resistant. 

 

Kristi Neufeld (professor) and Eileen Hotze (lecturer) were recognized as “Favorite Professors” by the Biology Class of 2018 at the University of Kansas Undergraduate Biology Recognition Ceremony on May 12.

 

David Davido (associate professor) chaired the "Herpesvirus-host interactions" session at the Colorado Alphaherpesvirus Latency Symposium in Vail, CO on May 16-19 and served on its planning committee.  

 

Molecular Biosciences participated in the University of Kansas Doctoral Hooding Ceremony on May 12.  From left to right:  Hikmat Al Hashimi and his mentor Matthew Buechner, Berl Oakley mentor to Tori Paolillo, Kara Evans (her mentor, Josie Chandler, is not shown), Mahekta Gujar and her mentor Erik Lundquist, Lingfei LiangTrey Ronnebaum and his mentor Audrey Lamb, and Susan Egan (mentor to Lingfei).

 

Molecular Biosciences participated in the University of Kansas Master’s Hooding and Undergraduate Distinction/Highest Distinction Ceremony on May 12. From left to right: Susan Egan (mentor to Nicole), Nicole MassaReshma Bhattacharya, Berl Oakley (mentor to Reshma).

 

Ranjan Preet (postdoc, Dixon lab) received a Digestive Disease Week 2018 Basic Science Travel Awardto gave a talk in the Gastrointestinal Oncology Distinguished Abstract Plenary session entitled “RNA binding protein HuR regulates extracellular vesicle secretion in colorectal cancer” at the Digestive Disease Week 2018 American Gastroenterological Association Annual Meetingin Washington, DC on June 4.

 

Cindy Ly (graduate student, Davido lab) received the Kathleen McCluskey-Fawcett Woman Mentoring Women Award at the Emily Taylor Center Recognition Program. This award is given to a "woman-identified student, staff, or faculty who has demonstrated outstanding commitment to supporting and mentoring women at the University of Kansas."

Jenna Lea joined the Unckless lab in May 2018 as a research assistant. Jenna recently graduated from the University of Georgia where she was an undergraduate working in the labs of Andrew Park, Kelly Dyer, and Courtney Murdock. Jenna will study the evolutionarygenetics of meiotic drive in Drosophilaaffinis.

 

Aubrie Stricker (undergraduate student, Lundquist lab) has been named a Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) Star Trainee. The K-INBRE Star Trainee Program is designed “to identify outstanding prospective biomedical researchers during their junior year in college, and provide financial support during the senior year.” Aubrie will use the model organism nematode worm to investigate the molecular mechanisms of axon pathfinding during nervous system development. These studies have implications for human neurodevelopmental disorders and recovery after central nervous system injury.

Letty Beltran (undergraduate, Hefty Lab) won the Sigma Xi and the Outstanding Presenter Awards at the 2018 Undergraduate Research Symposium. Letty was also admitted to the 2018/19 KU PREP program.

 

May 2018 News   

Dean Stetler (associate professor) is retiring from the University of Kansas after 42 total years of association with the university. Dean is a KU alumnus, earning a BA (1976) and a PhD (1980) in Microbiology, working in the laboratory of George Boguslavski where he studied Histoplasma capsulatum. Dean completed postdoctoral training in the lab of Sam Jacob in the Department of Pharmacology at Pennsylvania State University where he began his long term study of autoimmune diseases, cancer and RNA polymerases. Dean was recruited to the Department of Pharmacology and Specialized Cancer Research Center at Penn State in 1982 as an Assistant Professor. In 1985, Dean was recruited back to KU to the department of Biochemistry as an Assistant Professor, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1989.  Throughout his career Dean contributed strong and creative research.  He was first to describe that antibodies against RNA polymerase are part of the anti-nuclear antibody array associated with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE), an observation that continues to provide diagnostic information in the clinic. Dean generated three US patents on diagnosing and monitoring severity of autoimmune diseases, and he developed the first model to induce SLE in mice without genetic alteration. More recently, he turned his attention to human genetics with research that links gene expression with violent crime. His research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, American Cancer Society, and the Arthritis Foundation. Dean’s teaching scope at KU was extensive, contributing to 17 undergraduate and graduate courses and he demonstrated a strong commitment to training undergraduate students in his lab to conduct research. During his career, Dean trained over a dozen pre-doctoral and postdoctoral investigators who went on to successful careers.  As DNA analysis was becoming important for the legal system and experts were needed to explain the process and probabilities to attorneys, judges and juries, Dean established himself as such an expert and contributed to over 275 legal cases in 11 states and Canada. During this time, he was frequently invited to conduct workshops to legal professionals on the topics associated with DNA analysis. Dean’s service to the University was extensive. Most notable, he served as director of Graduate Studies for the Department of Molecular Biosciences and Director of the Genetics Program.  Dean also served as the Director of Undergraduate Biology, during which time he founded the Undergraduate Biology Graduate Recognition Ceremony, planned this year for May 12. Dean has had a varied and successful career, and the University of Kansas is better for his many contributions. He has been respected member of the KU faculty and he will be missed by his colleagues who wish him well as he enters the next stage of his life.

Dr. Stuart Macdonald has been promoted to full professor. Dr. Macdonald earned his D.Phil at the University of Oxford, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California at Irvine before starting his lab at KU in 2006. The Macdonald group seeks to understand the genetic basis of complex traits in the Drosophila model system using a combination of genetic mapping, genomics, computational analysis, and functional genetics.

 

Haifa Alhadyian (graduate student, Rob Ward lab) won the Outstanding International Woman Student Award as part of the Emily Taylor Center Recognition Program. This award recognizes an international student who has demonstrated academic achievement and has made a contribution to the campus and/or community through involvement. 

 

Lingfei Liang (graduate student, Egan/Tang lab) is the recipient of the 2018 Philip and Marjorie Newmark Award, given annually to a graduate student who has demonstrated excellence in biochemical research. Lingfei determined the crystal structures of bacteriophage proteins that are important in understanding virion assembly and viral DNA delivery into their hosts.

 

Jeff McFarlane (graduate student, Lamb lab) is the recipient of an American Heart Association (AHA) Predoctoral Fellowship for his project entitled, “Staphylopine biosynthesis as an antimicrobial target in Staphylococcus aureus infective endocarditis.” The AHA states the purpose of this program is “to enhance the integrated research and clinical training of promising students who are matriculated in pre-doctoral or clinical health professional degree training programs and who intend careers as scientists, physician-scientists or other clinician-scientists, or related careers aimed at improving global cardiovascular health.” Jeff plans to determine the structures and functional mechanisms of the proteins required to generate staphylopine, a metallophore linked to pathogenesis.

The Department of Molecular Biosciences would like to thank our Graduate Student Organization for organizing this year’s SEARCH symposium. We are very proud of our students’ hard work and dedication to put on such a successful event. The SEARCH symposium (Scientists Exploring non-Academic caReer CHoices) was held on April 21, 2018 at the University of Kansas’ new Burge Union. The symposium, co-organized by the Molecular Biosciences (MB) and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology (EEB) Graduate Student Organizations, brought in 16 professionals from a wide variety of non-academic career paths to speak to symposium attendees. The SEARCH symposium welcomed over 100 graduate students and post-doctoral researchers from KU-Lawrence, KU Medical Center, The Stowers Institute for Medical Research, and Kansas State University. Attendees had the opportunity to listen to, ask questions, and network with industry professionals through spotlight talks, topic-based panels, and a networking/“meet the professionals” event at the conclusion of the day. To learn more about the symposium, the speakers, or the goals of the symposium, please visit Search Symposium

Cara Davis (undergraduate student, Lamb lab) has been named a Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) Star Trainee. The K-INBRE Star Trainee Program is designed “to identify outstanding prospective biomedical researchers during their junior year in college, and provide financial support during the senior year.” Cara aims to determine the structure and function of the enzymes involved in yersinopine biosynthesis, a metallophore generated by the bacteria that causes plague.

Jasmine Deng (undergraduate, Oakley lab) has been named a TRIO McNair Scholar.  The award provides resources and support to prepare and earn placement in graduate programs to pursue doctoral degrees. Jasmine is a senior from Merriam, majoring in biochemistry with research interests in secondary metabolite discovery and neurodegenerative disease.

 

April 2018 News  

David Davido (associate professor), and Andrea Bertke (assistant professor, Virginia Tech University) are the recipients of a two-year National Institutes of Health Exploratory/ Developmental Research Grant (R21) entitled “Identification of novel HSV-1 ICP0 E3 ligase targets by mass spectrometry in neurons.”  Herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) causes recurrent cold and ocular sores and has the capacity to infect sensory neurons; the viral protein, ICP0, plays an important role in HSV-1 pathogenesis.  The goal of this grant is to identify cellular proteins ICP0 destabilizes that contribute to HSV-1 lytic replication in neurons.

 

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) received a Genetics editor’s choice award in Population and Evolutionary Genetics. The article is featured in Genes to Genomes.

 

Liang Xu (professor) published the paper "Time-lapse live cell imaging to monitor doxorubicin release from DNA origami nanostructures" in Journal of Materials Chemistry B that featured as the front cover image, and was selected as “hot paper” of 2018.

 

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) was invited to teach in an international short course entitled “Microbial Signaling” held from March 19th to 23rd at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The course was supported by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation and attended primarily by students in the Graduate Program in Cellular and Molecular Biology at Oswaldo Cruz and the Microbiology Graduate Program at the Federal University in Rio de Janairo (Brazil). The seminar series covered basic and advanced aspects of microbial signaling within and between microbes and is based on the book chapter “Microbial Signaling” co-authored by Dr. Chandler and others published recently in the book “Molecular Diversity of Environmental Prokaryotes" (CRC Press 2016, pages 147-175).

 

Taybor Parker (graduate student, Neufeld lab) was selected to represent the University of Kansas at the 15th Annual Capitol Graduate Research Summit  in Topeka, KS on March 27, 2018. Parker and twelve other graduate students from KU and KU Medical Center joined peer students from other Kansas universities, including Emporia State University, Fort Hays State University, Kansas State University, Pittsburg State University, and Wichita State University.  Each participant presented a research poster for State government and education officials, as well as for the general public.  Parker won the KU Presentation Award for his poster, “Stopping Colorectal Cancer Before it Starts: The Many Roles of the APC Protein.”

 

Cara Davis (undergraduate, Lamb lab) is the recipient of a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship,  the nation’s premier undergraduate award for academically gifted students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Cara will be studying enzymes involved in metal ion acquisition in the bacterial pathogen that causes plague.  Read more about KU’s nominees in KU Today article.

 

March 2018 News   

Dan Dixon (associate professor) joins the Department of Molecular Biosciences faculty. Dr. Dixon is transferring his laboratory from the KU Medical Center campus where he is the Cancer Prevention & Survivorship Program Co-Leader at the University of Kansas National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated Cancer Center. The Dixon lab will continue their research exploring the role of post-transcriptional gene regulation in cancer.

 

Kristi Neufeld (professor) was appointed as a Frank B Tyler professor in Cancer Research. Frank B. Tyler was a 1947 University of Kansas graduate who died in 2003, leaving a gift to advance cancer research efforts. The funding will support Neufeld’s research which aims to define the underlying mechanisms for growth control of normal intestinal tissue, explaining how alterations in a specific tumor suppressor gene, APC, lead to colorectal cancer development. See pg. 19 of Beyond The Bench.

 

Jinan Wang (postdoc, Miao Lab) joins the department from the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Dr. Wang will mainly work on method development and computer simulations of biomolecular recognition, such as protein-protein/nucleic acid interactions and ligand binding.

 

February 2018 News   

Mizuki Azuma (associate professor) is the recipient of a National Cancer Institute Small Grant Program (R03) award for her proposal entitled "O-GlcNAcylation of Ewing sarcoma proteins in chromosomal maintenance." This is a multi-PI grant with Mizuki Azuma and Chad Slawson of KUMC.  The goal of this project is to understand DNA mutations in a rare form of childhood bone cancer (Ewing sarcoma) by looking at how the chromosomes change after a sugar is attached to proteins implicated in disease progression.

 

Christian Ray (assistant professor) was selected to organize a conference, Computation by Natural Systems at the UK Royal Society with co-organizers Dominique Chu (University of Kent,UK) and Mikhail Prokopenko (University of Sydney, Australia). The conference will be held in Kavli Royal Society Centre in Buckinghamshire, UK from March 21-22, 2018.

 

Vaughn Craddock (undergraduate, Chandler Lab) and Mary Mitchell (undergraduate, Macdonald Lab) were the recipients of K-INBRE undergraduate research fellowships for the Spring/Summer 2018. Vaughn’s project is entitled, “Quorum sensing control of antibiotic resistance in the pathogenic bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa." Mary’s project is entitled, "The Genetic Basis of Sleep Deprivation in Drosophila melanogaster."

 

Cara Davis (undergraduate, Lamb lab) was awarded first place for her podium presentation at the annual symposium of the Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence in Overland Park, KS on January 13.  Cara’s talk was entitled, “Biosynthesis of yersinopine: an opine metallophore from Yersinia pestis.

 

Emily Freeburne (undergraduate, Timmons lab) has received a KU Undergraduate Research Award for Spring 2018 for her project: “Identification of Three Genes Required for RNAi in C. elegans.”

 

Emily Smith (undergraduate, Timmons lab) has received a KU Undergraduate Research Award for Spring 2018 for her project: “Dimerization Partners of Half Transporters.” 

 

January 2018 News 

The Department of Molecular Biosciences mourns the passing of Dr. Marjorie Newmark.  Marge came to KU as a Research Associate in 1954, working with Dr. Byron Wenger.  She became a Lecturer in 1962, was promoted to Assistant Professor in 1964, and Associate Professor in 1974. During the early part of her career, Marge carried out research on arterial metabolism and atherogenesis. Marge taught a variety of biochemistry courses, but is probably best remembered for the challenging introductory biochemistry lab course that she developed. She obtained National Science Foundation funding for equipment to set up this lab in 1971, teaching it almost every fall until her retirement in 1991. Marge was nominated for the prestigious H.O.P.E. Award, which means she was one of five faculty members to receive the most “outstanding professor” nominations from a KU senior class. She can also take credit for building the biochemistry graduate program from a mere handful of students to a thriving program of over 40 students during her tenure as Director of Graduate Studies for the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, a predecessor of the Molecular Biosciences Department.  The Newmark Award was established in 1964 after the untimely death of Marge’s husband, Phillip, who was also a biochemistry professor at KU, and more recently honored Marge’s accomplishments as well.  The award is presented annually to a graduate student in biochemistry at a named lecture presented by a world-renowned biochemist.  We send our sincere condolences to Marge’s three children, and all those who remember a remarkable teacher, colleague and friend.

We are saddened by the passing of Dr. Rolf Borchert on November 23, 2017. Rolf was a professor of plant physiological ecology in the Biology Division from 1968-2002, and for several years chaired the department of Physiology and Cell Biology, a predecessor of the Molecular Biosciences Department.  Before arriving at KU, Rolf was faculty at Universidad de los Andes in Bogota, Colombia from 1962-1968. There he became interested in understanding how plants in tropical dry forests respond to seasons of intense drought with respect to leaf bud break, flowering, and growth. At KU, he continued researching and publishing in this area, and carried out extensive field work in Costa Rica. He led undergraduate KU Study Abroad programs in Bonn, Germany, and San Jose, Costa Rica, and spent sabbaticals in Massachusetts and Darmstadt (Germany).  He also spent a sabbatical at the Harvard Forest, where he received a Bullard Fellowship.  Rolf collaborated with many colleagues from Latin America, Asia, and Germany while analyzing large data sets to better understand phenological patterns in response to environmental cues. In one of his most significant contributions, Rolf collaborated with colleagues to show that tropical trees can use small changes in sunset or sunrise timing to produce synchronous flowering across large areas, and this work was published in the journal Nature in 2005.  Rolf was married to Laura Borchert of Lawrence, KS and raised three daughters and enjoyed the company of his six grandchildren. Our deepest sympathies go out to Dr. Borchert’s family and all those whose lives he touched.  He will be greatly missed.

 

The Center for the Molecular Analysis of Disease Pathways NIH COBRE project was funded for a second five-year, $10.8 million phase. Dr. Erik Lundquist (professor) is co-investigator on the project along with Dr. Susan Lunte (Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Chemistry) as the Principal Investigator and Dr. Blake Peterson (Medicinal Chemistry) as co-investigator. The project enables biomedical research on the KU campus through three core laboratories, the Genome Sequencing Core, the Microfabrication and Microfluidics Core, and the Synthetic Chemical Biology Core, and funds program grants and pilot projects. Dr. Lundquist leads the Genome Sequencing Core in Haworth Hall, which as a result of the renewal of this project, will obtain and house an Illumina Nextseq high-throughput sequencing instrument as well as a BioRad dropSEQ single cell sequencing instrument. Read the article here.

 

Vincent Czerwinski (undergraduate, Lundquist lab) has received a KU Undergraduate Research Award for his project “The role of the Cadherin CDH-3 in cell migration”.

Aubrie Stricker (undergraduate, Lundquist lab) has received a KU Undergraduate Research Award for her project “The Rho GEF RHGF-1 regulates growth cone microtubules in axon outgrowth”.

December 2017 News   

Berl Oakley (Irving S. Johnson distinguished professor) and collaborator Richard Todd at K-State have been notified that they were awarded a KCALSI (Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute) Nexus of Human and Animal Health Research Grant. The goal of this project is to determine the role of nitrogen sources and primary metabolism regulators in the regulation of important bioactive compounds called secondary metabolites, using the fungus Aspergillus nidulans as a model system. 

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) has been invited to serve as an Associate Editor for the journal Genes, Genomes, Genetics, a journal specializing in publishing foundational research in all areas of genetics.

Virangika Wimalasena (undergraduate, Slusky Lab) received a Biophysical Society Travel Award to go to the 2018 National Biophysical Society Meeting in San Francisco, California on February 17-21.

 

November 2017 News                         

David Davido (associate professor) will serve another three year term on the editorial board for Journal of Virology starting 2018.  

Erik Lundquist (professor) served as chair of the Neurodifferentiation, Plasticity, Regeneration, and Rhythmicity (NDPR) grant review study section for the National Institutes of Health on October 25th and 26th in Arlington, VA.

Kara Evans (graduate student, Chandler lab), received the American Society for Microbiology travel award to present at the 6th Annual ASM Cell-Cell Communication in Bacteria Meeting in Athens, GA on October 17-18. Her poster was entitled “Quorum sensing-controlled efflux pump protects cooperators during interspecies competition.” 

Kathryn Brewer and Cara Davis (undergraduates, Lamb lab) both received travel awards from the Center for Undergraduate Research to present their work at the Midwest Enzyme Chemistry Conference at Loyola University Chicago on October 14. Kathryn presented a poster entitled “Assessing the Post-translational Modification of PvdJ Module 2 in Pseudomonas aeruginosa,” whereas Cara’s was called “Structural and Functional Characterization of a Yersinia pestis Opine Dehydrogenase Involved in Metallophore Biosynthesis.” They presented the same posters a week later at the American Chemical Society Midwest Regional Meeting here at KU.

Katie Morales (undergraduate, Gamblin and Ackley labs) received a travel award from the Center for Undergraduate Research to present her research at the Society for Neuroscience’s 47th Annual Meeting November 11-15, 2017 in Washington DC.

 

October 2017 News                            

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) joins the Department of Molecular Biosciences faculty. Dr. Miao received his Ph.D. at the Indiana University in the lab of Peter Ortoleva. He subsequently completed his postdoctoral research with Jeremy Smith and Jerome Baudry at the University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he studied drug-processing enzymes. He then moved to Andy McCammon’s lab at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and University of California San Diego, where he worked on both method developments and applications in accelerated biomolecular simulations and drug discovery of the G-protein-coupled receptors. The Miao lab at KU will continue to work on biomolecular modeling, cellular signaling and computer-aided drug design.  Welcome Dr. Miao!

Joanna Slusky (assistant professor) is the recipient of an NIH Director's New Innovator Award (DP2) for a proposal entitled "Designed Beta-Strands for Inhibiting Efflux Pumps and Disabling Antibiotic Resistance.” This program’s goal is to support a few exceptionally creative and promising early stage investigators who propose bold and highly innovative new research approaches and is part of the NIH High-Risk, High-Reward Research Program. Information about this Program which comprises four different types of awards can be found on the NIH website.

Mark Richter (professor) has been awarded an NIH Phase 2 SBIR grant in collaboration with Pinnacle Technology Inc. in Lawrence to develop a biosensor that measures the concentration of the neuroactive compound gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) in the brains of model animals. GABA is the major neuroinhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain and it plays a critical role in processes ranging from newborn seizures to anxiety, Alzheimer's, Huntington's, and Parkinson's diseases. The biosensor will measure changes in GABA concentration on a second by second basis in normal and diseased brains.

Joanna Slusky (assistant professor) and her lab’s research is the cover story, “The Protein in the Freezer,” for KU's alumni magazine for September. 

 

September 2017 News

David Davido (associate professor) served as selection committee chair for the Priscilla Schaffer Graduate Student and Postdoctoral Travel Awards at the 42nd International Herpesvirus Workshop in Ghent, Belgium, from July 29-August 2, 2017.  He also gave a talk entitled "Inhibition of Viral DNA Replication Limits the Efficacy of an HSV-1 Neuro-attenuated Vaccine in Mice.”

Ilya Vakser (professor) received the competitive renewal of his National Institute of General Medical Sciences, NIH Research Project Grant (R01) entitled "Integrated resource for protein recognition studies."  The goal of this four- year project is to develop protein docking methodology and an accompanying molecular recognition data resource for studies of protein interfaces and development of docking and scoring techniques.

Dr. Sonia Hall, who obtained her PhD from Rob Ward's lab in Molecular Biosciences, was recently profiled by the KU College of Graduate Affairs for their Alumni Spotlight series. Dr. Hall currently works for the Genetics Society of America as their Director of Engagement and Development.

Dr. Adam Norris, a 2011 Ph.D. graduate of the Lundquist lab, has started a position as assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX. Adam was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. John Calarco in the FAS Institute for Systems Biology at Harvard University, where he studied regulation of RNA processing in neurons and developed CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing techniques in C. elegans.

Jeff McFarlane (graduate student, Lamb lab) is the recipient of the Borgendale Award for his talk at the 2017 Graduate Student Symposium. Jeff’s research talk was entitled “Biosynthesis of opine metallophores by bacterial pathogens.”  

Christian Gomez (graduate student, Neufeld lab) was the recipient of a travel award from the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) to help defray expenses associated with attending the Gastrointestinal Tract XVII: Current Biology of the GI tract, Mucosa, Microbiota, and Beyond FASEB Science Research Conference.  At the Conference, held July 30 - August 4 in Steamboat Springs, CO, Gomez gave an oral presentation entitled “Increased Levels of APC in Goblet Cells Linked to Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress and Non-O Glycosylated Muc2.”

Taybor Parker (graduate student, Neufeld lab) was the recipient of a travel award from the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) to help defray expenses associated with attending the Gastrointestinal Tract XVII: Current Biology of the GI tract, Mucosa, Microbiota, and Beyond FASEB Science Research Conference. At the Conference, held July 30 - August 4 in Steamboat Springs, CO, Parker presented a poster entitled “Wnt-dependent asymmetric distribution of the ß-catenin destruction complex in the mammalian intestine.”

The Annual MB Graduate Student Symposium was held at The Oread on August 18th with guest speaker Mary Dasso as this year’s John C. Davis Memorial Lecture speaker. Her seminar was entitled, Poring over the Nuclear Pore: Nucleoporin functions in interphase and mitosis.”

 

August 2017 News

Erik Lundquist (professor), along with co-investigator David Miller at Vanderbilt University, was awarded an R21 Exploratory/ Developmental Research Grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (one of the National Institutes of Health) entitled “The Role of ETR-1/CELF, an RNA-Binding Protein, in Neuronal Migration.” This project involves identification of mRNA targets of ETR-1 processing that are involved in migration of neuroblasts in C. elegans. The project will utilize fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) coupled with mutant analysis and whole transcriptome mRNA sequencing (RNAseq) to identify targets regulated by ETR-1.

Dana K. Tucker (postdoc, Ackley lab; fellow in the KU IRACDA program) is starting a faculty appointment at the University of Central Missouri on August 1. Dana’s work has focused on how neurons sense directions to properly orient axon growth during development. She has identified mutations in a set of genes that contribute to axon guidance. Mutations in these genes are linked to Autism Spectrum Disorder in humans, and thus this work will advance our understanding of how brain development may be affected in people with ASD. Dana and the Ackley lab will continue to collaborate on this project.

Kara Hinshaw (graduate student, Chandler lab) is the recipient of several honors. She is the recipient of the E.L. And Mildred Pursell Wolf Scholarship covering summer tuition and a Molecular Biosciences Summer Research Fellowship. Kara was also awarded the Ida H. Hyde Scholarship for Women in Science to study at a non-KU research laboratory, which she used to travel to Maine to take the Environmental Genomics 2017 course at the MDI Biological Laboratory. The course focused on teaching participants how to design, analyze and interpret population-scale genomics studies on environmental stress.

The University of Kansas Cancer Center (KUCC) officially renewed their National Cancer Institute (NCI) designation for five years.The University of Kansas Cancer Center remains one of only 69 nationally designated centers by the NCI. Molecular Biosciences faculty members are active in two of the four research programs of the KUCC. Kristi Neufeld serves as co-leader of the Cancer Biology (CB) program, which uses model systems to identify targets for drug development and analyze potential chemotherapeutic agents. Many of the chemical compounds evaluated by the CB group are generated by members of the Drug Discovery, Delivery and Experimental Therapeutics (D3ET) program. 

The Chancellor’s Office held a surprise birthday celebration for Del Shankel (emeritus professor for Molecular Biosciences and former KU Chancellor) on Wednesday, August 9. Dr. Shankel celebrated his 90th birthday and was greeted by his fellow colleagues. From left to right: Profs.Matthew Buechner, Kzysztof Kuczera, Del Shankel, Susan Egan, Steve Benedict, and Dean Stetler.  

Del served in the Army until 1952, where he learned about Lab Technology. Following his Army service, he earned a doctorate in bacteriology from The University of Texas. In 1959, Del came to KU as an Assistant Professor in the Microbiology Department. Del’s prolific career at KU has spanned over 50 years, and with his many roles he has influenced many colleagues. He has held the title of chancellor, executive vice chancellor, acting vice chancellor for academic affairs, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, chair of the Department of Microbiology, interim director of intercollegiate athletics, and interim president of the KU Alumni Association. He is currently an emeritus professor in the Department of Molecular Biosciences and Chancellor Emeritus. Del and his wife Carol established the Del & Carol Shankel Biomedical Scholarship to sponsor undergraduates in biology who are planning a career in biomedical sciences. In 2004, the Delbert M. Shankel Structural Biology Center was named in his honor. Read moreabout Dr. Shankel and the naming of SBC.

 

July 2017 News

Cora Downs Hall honors the first woman to receive a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas. She earned that degree in 1924 after receiving her undergraduate and master’s degrees from KU. She became one of KU’s most outstanding scientists, working first in 1917 as an instructor of bacteriology and rising to become a professor of microbiology. She remained a member of the faculty until her retirement in 1963, save for a hiatus during World War II when she led 40 scientists in a top secret biological warfare project. Dr. Down’s awards are many, including the Citation for Distinguished Service, KU’s highest honor.  Read more about Dr. Downs on the Emily Taylor Center for Women and Gender Equity website.

Liang Tang (associate professor) is a co-investigator of a Resource-Related Research Project Cooperative Agreement from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences for the Midwest Consortium for High Resolution Cryoelectron Microscopy.  Wen Jiang (Purdue) is leading this project.  The main goal of this project is to establish a resource for direct electron detection and state-of-the-art cryoEM data collection at the host university (Purdue) shared by 11 participating member universities in the region.

David Davido (associate professor) co-chaired the graduate student and post-doctoral trainee presentation session at the Colorado Alphaherpesvirus Latency Symposium in Vail, CO, May 17-20 and served on its planning committee.  He also gave a presentation at this year’s meeting entitled "Inhibition of viral DNA replication limits the efficacy of an HSV-1 neuro-attenuated vaccine in mice."

Kristi Neufeld (professor) was a recipient of the 2017 Robert Weaver Graduate Mentor Award in the Biological Sciences, which is given in recognition of outstanding graduate student mentorship. 

Five Molecular Biosciences faculty from were recipients of Pilot Project Awards from the Center for Biomedical Research Excellence in Protein Structure and Function.

Robert Unckless (assistant professor) will lead a project entitled "A Functional dissection of the maintenance of genetic variation in immune genes”.  The major goal of this project is to understand how peptides involved in immune defense vary within species and how this variation influences antimicrobial activity.

Eric Deeds (associate professor) will lead a project entitled “Characterizing and developing inhibitors of proteasome assembly”. The major goal of this proposal is to structurally characterize the binding of assembly inhibitors to the proteasome, and to leverage those results in the design of more potent inhibitors.

Kristi Neufeld (professor) will direct a project entitled “Structure function analysis of tumor suppressor APC protein”.  This project aims to identify structural features that facilitate interactions between APC and binding partners beta-catenin and Topoisomerase.

Krzysztof Kuczera (professor) will lead a project entitled “Fast processes in optogenetic systems: experiments and modeling”. The major goal of this proposal is the study the light-induced conformational transition in the bacterial phytochrome of D. radiodurans , aimed at understanding the microscopic mechanism and design of improved tools for optogenetic manipulation.

Liang Xu (professor) will lead a project entitled “Fragment based drug discovery of probes for Musashi-2.”  The major goal of this proposal is to carry out fragment-based drug screening for new hits/probes of the Musashi-2 oncoprotein.

Katelyn Soules (graduate student, Hefty lab) will be appointed to the National Institutes of Health funded Graduate Training Program in the Dynamic Aspects of Chemical Biology on July 1 for a term of two years.

 

June 2017 News

Molecular Biosciences participated in the University of Kansas Doctoral Hooding Ceremony on May 13.  From left to right:  Yamini MutrejaKelly Harrison and her mentor Scott Hefty, Chris Gamblin (mentor to Yamini), Kristi Neufeld and her student Andy Wolfe, Jenny Gleason (mentor to Denny), Jiaqin Li (Computational Biology), Denny Swarzlander, Susan Egan (mentor to Jiaqin), Andrew Beaven (Chemistry) and his mentor Wonpil Im.

Molecular Biosciences participated in the University of Kansas Masters Hooding and Undergraduate Distinction/Highest Distinction Ceremony on May 13.  From left to right:  Yuxiao Guo (masters) and her mentor Liang Xu, and Emily Binshtok (Xu lab undergraduate awarded university honors).

On May 6, several graduating undergraduate students participated in the Undergraduate Honors Symposium, presenting original, independent research carried out in MB labs. Left to right: Michael Cory and Aidan Dmitriev (both mentored by Scott Hefty), Mackenzie Bloom (mentored by Kristi Neufeld), Alex Kohlenberg (mentored by Andrew Short from EEB), Tamara Tyner (mentored by James Thorp from EEB), Adam Reeves(mentored by Stuart Macdonald), Emily Binshtok (mentored by Liang Xu), Margaret Hornick (mentored by Chris Gamblin), and Kyle Rampetsreiter (mentored by Arghya Paul from Engineering). In the fall, Michael will attend graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania, Aidan will enter the MD/PhD program at the University of Pittsburg, MacKenzie will attend graduate school at St. Jude Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Adam will attend graduate school at Stanford, Emily will enter the MD/PhD program at UT Southwestern, and Maggie will attend medical school at KUMC. We wish all our graduating students the best of luck with their future careers.

Linda Wiley, Administrative Assistant for Molecular Biosciences since 1998, is retiring from the University of Kansas after 29 years of service.  Linda’s association with KU, however, began many years earlier, as an undergraduate student earning a bachelor’s degree in Psychology with a minor in painting and drawing.  She began her first full-time position at KU working with Continuing Education in 1987, and then worked with the French and African Studies Departments before joining our department.  Linda has a great interest in cultures and peoples of the world, having studied a variety of international music traditions, four different languages, and has interacted with people from around the world by teaching English as a second language for many years.  Linda plans to spend much of her newfound time with family, especially her parents, children and grandchildren. We will miss Linda’s wisdom and broad perspective, her kindness and sense of humor.  We wish her and her family all the best!

Mizuki Azuma (associate professor) is the recipient of a University of Kansas Cancer Pilot Project Grant for her proposal entitled “Role of O-GlcNAcylation of Ewing sarcoma proteins in chromosomal instability.”  Mizuki will work in collaboration with Chad Slawson (KUMC).  The goal of this project is to understand DNA mutations in a rare form of childhood bone cancer (Ewing sarcoma) by looking at how the chromosomes change after a sugar is attached to proteins implicated in disease progression.

Aubrie Stricker (undergraduate, Lundquist Lab) was selected as a K-INBRE Undergraduate Scholar for Spring and Summer of 2017.  Her work will involve the role of Rho GTPase signaling and microtubules in axon guidance in C. elegans.

Sarah MullinaxJoanne Chapman and Rob Unckless (all members of the Unckless lab) participated in the University of Kansas Research Sprint from May 15th to May 19th.  The Research Sprints paired researchers with librarians to tackle a library-based project. The goal of the Unckless lab Sprint was to create and curate a comprehensive database of insect immune peptide function with the long term goal of understanding the links between amino acid sequence and antimicrobial activity. Librarians Rebecca Orozco, Erin Wolfe and Michael Peper helped construct search queries, conduct searches and extract data from papers. Scott Hanrath and Tom Shorock assisted in database construction. 

 

May 2017 News

Yoshiaki Azuma has been promoted to full professor.  Dr. Azuma earned his Ph.D. as Kyushu University, was a post-doctoral research fellow at the National Institute of Health (NIH), Bethesda, MD and joined the department in 2005. His laboratory focuses on understanding the mechanism of chromosome segregation regulated by the essential protein modifier Small Ubiquitin-like MOdifier (SUMO).

P. Scott Hefty has been promoted to full professor. Dr. Hefty earned his Ph.D. at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center before performing his post-doctoral studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Hefty joined the faculty at the University of Kansas in 2006. His research interests are in a better understanding of the basic biology and pathogenesis of Chlamydia

Professor James Orr is retiring from the University of Kansas after 42 dedicated years of service. Jim received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1974 before joining the faculty in the Department of Physiology and Cell Biology at KU in 1975. He was promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure in 1980 and to Professor in 1987. Jim’s time at KU was marked by multiple professional successes in research, teaching and service. His work on cardiac/respiratory physiology led to over 50 publications in peer reviewed journals and funding from, among other places, The American Heart Association.  Jim was the recipient of an Established Investigator award from the American Heart Association from 1981 to 1986.  Jim was an accomplished and cherished instructor, having been voted “Favorite Professor” four times (2013, 2008, 2000 & 1995). But, it was not only the students who appreciated Jim’s teaching, Jim was twice a finalist for the Honor for Outstanding Progressive Educator (HOPE) award from the University, received both the Kemper Fellow and the Ned Fleming Award for Excellence in Teaching (2005), was named a National Academies of Education Fellow in the Life Sciences in 2006, and received the Chancellor’s Club Career Teaching Award in 2013. In addition to his teaching success, Jim served on numerous committees and in leadership positions both within and outside the University, including the Chair of the Division of Biological Sciences (1992-2006), and the President of the Kansas Affiliate of the American Heart Association (1992-1993).   Jim worked tirelessly to improve access to biological research, especially for underrepresented minorities. This work started in 1999 with the funding of the 500 Nations Bridge Program, which “enhances the successful transfer of American Indian students from Haskell Indian Nations University to four-year institutions, including KU.” Jim worked with faculty at KU and the Haskell Indian Nations University, including Dr. Estela Gavosto (Mathematics), Dr. Marigold Lindon (KU Provost’s Office), Dr. Mary Lou Michaelis (Pharmacology and Toxicology) and Dr. Dennis O’Malley (HINU) on obtaining and administering NIH-funded initiatives including the Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Awards program (IRACDA), Initiative to Maximize Student Development (IMSD), KU Post-Baccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP) and RISE: Advancing Biomedical Research for Indians. Jim is an admired and convivial colleague, and he will be missed by his colleagues who wish him all the best as he moves on to the next chapter of his life.

Audrey Lamb (professor) is a recipient of a K. Barbara Schowen Undergraduate Research Mentor Award.  This award honors the contribution of faculty who mentor undergraduate researchers to their students' development and to their own discipline.  The award was presented at the Undergraduate Research Symposium banquet on April 22.  Read the KU Today article.

Kara Hinshaw (graduate student, Chandler lab) was the recipient of the best poster award at the American Society for Microbiology Missouri Valley Branch Meeting in Springfield, Missouri held on March 16-17 for her poster entitled “Quorum sensing control of antibiotic resistance protects cooperating bacterial cells during interspecies competition.”

Aaron Rudeen (graduate student, Neufeld lab) was the recipient of the Graduate Research Competition Award for the 2016-17 academic year. This award was based on his poster presentation entitled, “Investigating a role for tumor-suppressor Adenomatous polyposis coli in chemotherapeutic drug resistance in colorectal cancer” at the Graduate Research Competition, on April 6.

Kathryn Brewer (undergraduate, Lamb lab) is a recipient of a Sally Mason Woman Student in Science Award from the Emily Taylor Center for Women and Gender Equity.  This award honors female undergraduate students in the sciences who have demonstrated academic excellence, involvement in campus activities, and leadership in their academic department. 

Cara Davis (undergraduate, Lamb lab) was the recipient of a best poster presentation award at the KU Undergraduate Research Symposium on April 22.  Her poster was entitled “Structural and functional characterization of a Yersinia pestis opine dehydrogenase involved in metallophore biosynthesis.”

 

April 2017 News 

Liang Xu (professor) is a co-investigator of a National Cancer Institute Project Grant entitled “Synthetic Lethal Targeting of Growth Factor Receptors.”  Blake Peterson (KU School of Pharmacy) is leading this project.  The goal of this project is to develop a new cancer therapy targeting multiple receptors.

Sarah Mullinax (graduate student, Unckless lab) is the recipient of a Madison and Lila Self Graduate Fellowship.  The fellowship provides four years of support for doctoral students who “demonstrate the promise to make significant contributions to their fields of study and society as a whole.”  Sarah will study the function of insect antimicrobial peptides. 

Aaron Rudeen (graduate student, Neufeld lab) was selected to represent the University of Kansas at the 14th Annual Capitol Graduate Research Summit in Topeka, KS on March 10, 2017. Rudeen and seven other graduate students from KU joined peer students from other Kansas universities, including KUMC, Kansas State and Wichita State. Each participant presented a research poster for State government and education officials, as well as the general public.

Kathryn Brewer (undergraduate, Lamb lab) has been nominated by the University of Kansas for a Goldwater Scholarship, a premier undergraduate award to encourage excellence in science, engineering and mathematics.  Kathryn will be studying the enzymes of siderophore biosynthesis.  Read more in the KU Today article.

Cara Davis (undergraduate, Lamb lab) is the recipient of a Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence Star Trainee Award.  The scholarship enables Cara to continue her research on the biosynthesis of a novel metallophore from Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of plague.  Understanding nutrient acquisition by pathogenic bacteria provides new pathways for antimicrobial drug design.

The Molecular Bioscience Graduate Student Organization (MB-GSO) hosted a science education program for Japanese high school students from the global science education program at the University of Fukui, Japan.  From March 20 to 24, fifteen Japanese high school students shadowed research activity in seven laboratories in our department.  Graduate students in each laboratory mentored high schools students in laboratory experiments and preparation of a presentation.

 

March 2017 News

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) recently published a paper in Genetics entitled “Evolution of resistance against CRISPR/Cas9 Gene Drive” that was highlighted on the cover of the journal (see right).  The article was featured in NatureThe AtlanticQuanta Magazine, and on NovaNext.

Robert Ward (associate professor) is the recipient of a National Science Foundation award from the Division of Integrative Organismal Systems for his project entitled “Investigating novel functions of septate junction proteins during morphogenesis in Drosophila.” The final shape of an animal is determined by developmental events that rely on morphogenetic (change in form) processes including cell shape changes and cell rearrangements. The Ward lab conducted a genetic screen in Drosophila(fruit flies), and discovered that proteins that make up the occluding (septate) junction in the fly are also required for morphogenetic processes. The goal of this grant is elucidate the molecular mechanisms by which this collection of proteins regulates morphogenesis during embryogenesis in the fly.

Liang Xu (Professor) is a co-investigator of a recently funded National Cancer Institute Research Project Grant with Jonathan Brody (PI, Thomas Jefferson University School of Medicine) entitled “Targeting HuR to improve a synthetic lethal therapy for pancreatic cancer.” The goal of this project is to determine the role of HuR in promoting a resistance mechanism for pancreatic adenocarcinoma exposed to PARP inhibitors.

Audrey Lamb (professor) is a co-investigator on a recently funded National Institute of General Medical Sciences Research Project Grant entitled “Towards exome analyses: Surprising outcomes from mutating non-conserved positions.”  Liskin Swint-Kruse (KUMC) is leading this project, in collaboration with Aron Fenton (KUMC) and Paul Smith (KState).  The goal of this work is to understand the functional effect of protein variants at rheostat positions for soluble, allosteric enzymes.

Chris Gamblin (professor) and Berl Oakley (Irving S. Johnson distinguished professor) are the recipients of a renewal award from the H. L. Snyder Medical Foundation for their proposal entitled “Development of novel anti-tau agents for treatment of Alzheimer's disease.”  The goal of this work is to develop compounds based on fungal natural products that disassemble tau aggregates and counteract the neuropathological effects of tau in Alzheimer's disease and other dementias.

 

February 2017 News 

Audrey Lamb (professor) is a member of the team assembled by Liskin Swint-Kruse (KUMC) and Aron Fenton (KUMC) that recently was funded by the W. M. Keck Foundation for their proposal entitled “Defining the Rules for Rheostatic Modulation of Protein Function.”  The goal of this project is to understand the functional consequences of amino acid variation at non-conserved sites in membrane and intrinsically unstructured proteins, and soluble proteins that are not allosterically regulated.

Irving S. Johnson (distinguished professor) is the recipient of an award from Acidophil for his proposal entitled “Heterologous expression of a fungal Non-ribosomal peptide synthetase gene.”  This grant provides support for the transferral of a biosynthetic gene from another fungus into Aspergillus nidulans with the goal of expressing it at high levels. The gene is involved in the production of an agriculturally and medically important compound.  Dr. Oakley’s contract with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory entitled “Expression of Polyketide Synthase Genes and Terpene Synthases and Cyclases in Aspergillus nidulans” was also renewed.  The goal of this work is to stimulate the expression of compounds that are useful as biofuels or as cost-effective starting materials for synthesis of high value compounds.Berl Oakley 

Joanne Chapman joined the Unckless lab in January 2016 as a postdoctoral researcher.  She will study the evolution of antimicrobial peptides via gene duplication and loss in Drosophila.  Joanne is originally from New Zealand, but completed her PhD at the University of Oxford and was previously a postdoc at Lund and Linnaeus Universities in Sweden.

Won Suk Lee has joined the Lundquist lab as a post-doctoral researcher. Won Suk completed his Ph.D. at Rutgers University/UMDNJ. He will study the roles of guidance receptors in axon outgrowth in the developing nervous system using C. elegans.

Trey Ronnebaum (graduate student, Lamb lab) was the recipient of a Graduate Scholarly Presentation Travel Fund award from the KU Office of Graduate Studies.  Trey presented a poster entitled “Investigating ‘Stuffed’ Domains of NRPS Assembly Lines: PchF and PchE of Pyochelin Biosynthesis” at the 25th Enzyme Mechanisms Conference in St. Pete Beach, Florida, January 4-8.

Adam Reeves (undergraduate, Mcdonald lab) won the outstanding oral presentation award for his invited presentation “Patterns of Transposable Element Expression in Heads During Drosophila Aging” at the 2017 K-INBRE Symposium, Manhattan Kansas, January 13-15.

 

January 2017 News

Lynn Hancock (associate professor) is the recipient of a National Institutes of Health Exploratory/Developmental Research (R21) Grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease for his project entitled “The role of peptide signaling in Enterococcus faecalis biofilm development.”  E. faecalis is an opportunistic pathogen that normally inhabits the gastrointestinal tract without causing infection, but is capable of infecting the bloodstream, the urinary tract and heart valves.   The goal of this work is to characterize peptide importers and exporters to understand the role of these proteins complexes during infection.

Kristi Neufeld (professor) was the guest research presenter at the annual KU Center for Research Inc. board meeting on December 16.  The title of her talk was “Go with your gut: the study of proteins to fight colon cancer.”

Maggie Hornick (undergraduate, Gamblin lab) has received a KU Undergraduate Research Award for Spring 2017 for her project “Effects of Increased Pseudohyperphosphorylation on Tau in Alzheimer’s Disease Pathology”

Katie Morales (undergraduate, Gamblin lab) has received a KU Undergraduate Research Award for Spring 2017 for her project “Comparative differences between human tau isoforms in models of Alzheimer’s disease."

December 2021 News

Ronak Tilvawala received a collaborative NCI U01 $3.8 M grant for the project entitled, "Engineering Native E. coli to Detect Report and Treat Colorectal Cancer " in collaborations with faculty from the University of San Diego, University of Florida, Illinois Institute of Engineering, and the University of Rochester. The Tilvawala lab will receive a total of $660,000 over the next five years.  Ronak also had a CBID CoBRE grant renewed under Phase II for the project entitled, "Host Substrate Profiling of coronoavirus Protease" in collaboration with Anthony Fehr.

 

Josephine Chandler was awarded a Research Supplement to Promote Diversity in a Health-related Research Program under her parent award NIH R35 GM133572 “Quorum sensing evolution and function in mixed microbial communities.” This supplement will be used to support two years of training of Blanca Rodriguez, a second-year graduate student in the KU Ecology and Evolutionary Biology PhD program.  Josie also donated an image of her bacterial colonies to the BioNexusKC fundraiser and it raised $1000 for Kansas City area STEM education.

 

Mizuki Azuma was selected as a Review Editor for Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology.

 

Eileen Hotze has been successfully promoted to Associate Teaching Professor. Congratulations Dr. Hotze!

 

 

October 2021 News

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) received a competitive NSF Major Research Instrumentation grant with Brian Laird (PI, Chemistry), Ward Thompson (Chemistry), and Suzanne Shontz (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science). It will allow us to purchase a high-performance computing cluster nicknamed “BigJay” for science and engineering research at the University of Kansas.

Joanna Slusky (associate professor) was named an associate editor for PloS Computational Biology.

The KU Office of Research recently established the KU Center for Genomics. The mission of the center is to coalesce genomic researchers from across the campus. Activities include seminars, symposia, a postdoctoral fellowship, early career mentoring, and pilot grants. Rob Unckless (associate professor) will be the director of the center and Erik Lundquist (professor) will serve on the advisory board. A website will be published soon at genomics.ku.edu.

David Davido (professor) and Rob Unckless were awarded an NSF EAGER grant entitled “Toward a tractable genetic model of a DNA virus – Drosophila interaction”.

The Center for Biomedical Research Excellence in Chemical Biology of Infectious Disease (COBRE CBID) funding has been renewed for the next five years. Scott Hefty (professor) was recently awarded the competitive renewal grant by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He will work in association with John Tunge (professor) of the Department of Chemistry, as well as with other researchers from KU and other academic institutions in Kansas. Together, they will continue to encourage research scientists to conduct research in the chemical biology of infectious disease field.

Erik Lundquist is recipient of The Grant Goodman Undergraduate Mentor Award, recognizing faculty members who are selfless with their time and experience, and continue to have lasting mentoring relationships with students long after they leave the classroom.

Berl Oakley (professor) has been elected an American Society for Cell Biology Fellow.

Elizabeth Everman (postdoc, Macdonald lab) is Principal Investigator on a new NIH Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00) entitled “Linking Genomic, Physiological and Behavioral Responses using a Drosophila Model of Heavy Metal Stress”. This highly competitive NIH program provides independent support to help outstanding postdoctoral researchers transition to an independent academic research career. Dr. Everman also received matching funds provided by the KU Office of Research to support her K99/R00 project. Dr. Everman will continue her investigations into the effects of copper toxicity, assisted by Dr. Macdonald, and leverage several genetic and genomic resources available in the Macdonald group.

Jessie Perlmutter (postdoc, Unckless lab) received a DeLill Nasser award for Professional Development in Genetics from the Genetics Society of America (GSA).

September 2021 News

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) received a grant from the National Science Foundation, “A public workflow for predicting peptide binding structures” (Number: 2121063, role: PI), 09/01/21 - 08/31/24.

Liang Xu (professor) received an award from The Midwest Biomedical Accelerator Consortium (MBArC), an NIH Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hub (REACH) program, entitled: “Improve cancer immunotherapy by targeting RNA-binding protein HuR”.  MBArC bridges the gap between academic research and industry by providing proof-of-concept funding and training to researchers to perform experiments and generate data that can attract follow-on funding from federal sources, investors and strategic partners to continue commercialization of the technology. KU provides 1:1 matching fund to the project.

Ilya Vakser (professor) received a competing renewal of NIH R01 grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, entitled Integrated Resource for Protein Recognition Studies.  He also received a grant from the KU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences within Research Excellence Initiative (REI), entitled Deep Learning of the Cell.

Summer 2021 News

Dan Dixon (professor) received a Pilot Project Award from the KU Cancer Center, entitled Colon Cancer Chemoprevention Through Inhibition of Exportin 1 (XPO1).

Erik Lundquist (professor) was the recipient of the 2021 Grant Goodman Undergraduate Mentor Award through the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.

Liang Xu (professor) in collaboration with Dr. Yong Zeng at University of Florida, received an NIH multi-PI R33 grant from the National Cancer Institute, entitled Integrative Functional Profiling of Tumor-Derived Extracellular Vesicles.

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) received an OpenEye Outstanding Junior Faculty Award in Computational Chemistry provided by the American Chemical Society in fall 2021.

Jessie Perlmutter (postdoc, Unckless lab) was awarded an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship for her work on the evolution of a novel mutualism.

Jennifer Amrein (graduate student, Dixon lab) was awarded trainee support by the University of Kansas Cancer Center match position to the NIH funded Chemistry Biology Training Grant.

Evan Kauffman (undergraduate, Dixon lab) was selected to be a 2021 Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) Translational Scholar.

Hunter Duke joined the Unckless lab as a research assistant. They will work on genetic conflict in Drosophila. 

May 2021 News

Yinglong Miao

From the Yinglong Miao lab: The recent GaMD review in WIREs Computational Molecular Science has been highlighted in Advanced Science NewsA “time-accelerated computational microscope” provides biologists with powerful insights.

 

Angelica Lang

Angelica Lang (undergraduate, Lundquist lab) will enter the Genetics Ph.D. program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in fall of 2021.  Congratulations Angelica!

 

 

Collette Wright

Collette Wright (undergraduate Neufeld lab) was selected to be a 2021 Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) Star Trainee.  Congratulations Collette!

 

April 2021 News

Alicia Brown

Alicia Brown (graduate student, Chandler lab) has received a Madison and Lila Self Graduate Fellowship, which will cover her stipend and tuition from 2021-2025. She will be doing her dissertation studying toxins produced by a bacterial pathogen called Burkholderia pseudomallei.  Congratulations Alicia!

A research article by Taybor Parker (PhD, Neufeld lab) and Kristi Neufeld, APC controls Wnt-induced beta-catenin destruction complex recruitment in human colonocytes received 3,180 article downloads in 2020, placing it as one of the top 100 downloaded cell and molecular biology papers for Scientific Reports in 2020.

Emma Pagella (undergraduate, Unckless lab) has accepted an offer of admission for a PhD program at the University of Kansas Medical Center. Congratulations Emma!

March 2021 News

Rob Unckless

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) is featured in a KU Today news story: Study of Virus in Fruit Flies Points to the Repeatability of Evolution.

 

 

Josie Chandler

Josie Chandler (associate professor) was invited to become an associate editor at the journal Frontiers in Microbiology.

 

 

 

Berl Oakley

Berl Oakley (professor) has been elected to the University of Kansas Distinguished Professors Steering Committee.

 

 

 

Jessie Perlmutter

Jessie Perlmutter (postdoc, Unckless lab) was awarded a Kansas INBRE Postdoctoral Award for her proposal entitled "Evolving mutualism: Rescue of a host embryonic development defect by a parasite”. Congratulations Jessie!

 

 

Kade Townsend

Kade Townsend (undergraduate, Chandler lab) was one of five undergraduates from KU-Lawrence invited to share his research work at the Undergraduate Research Days, meant to showcase research from Kansas state institutions to state lawmakers and the general public.

 

We are pleased to announce that these first-year students have found their research lab homes!

  • Kervens Accilien joins the Unckless lab and will work on the evolution of antimicrobial peptides from both biochemical and genetic perspectives.
  • Alicia Brown joins the Chandler lab.
  • Alexandra Cutter joins the Hefty lab.
  • Vedant Jain joins the Lundquist lab where he will be studying Hox gene transcriptional programs in neuroblast migration.
  • Anika James joins the Neufeld lab and will be studying the role of APC in normal colon biology, inflammation, and cancer suppression.
  • Jacob Kroh joins the Tilvawala lab where he will work on a project called Elucidation of the role of Thrombin citrullination in coagulation.
  • Brielle McKee joins the Chandler lab.
  • Gabby Perkins joins the Holmstrom lab where she will be using lasers and microscopes to “watch” RNA and protein molecules interact with each other in order to learn how certain proteins help RNAs fold into intricate 3D shapes that can perform important biological functions.

 

February 2021 News

Mark Richter

It is with deep sadness that the Department of Molecular Biosciences shares that Professor Mark Richter passed away on December 26, 2020 following an extended fight with COVID-19. Mark grew up in Australia and earned bachelor’s and PhD degrees in Biochemistry from the University of New South Wales. He came to the US in 1981 and held post-doctoral positions at Florida State University and then Cornell University. Mark joined the University of Kansas faculty as an Assistant Professor in 1987 in the Department of Biochemistry (later Molecular Biosciences), and was promoted through the ranks to Professor. In his 33 years at KU, Mark was a colleague, friend, collaborator and mentor to many faculty members and students. He twice provided steadfast leadership to the department as Chair/ Acting Chair overseeing the departmental mergers that resulted in the current Molecular Biosciences department in the late 1990s, and later as Chair of Molecular Biosciences from 2010-2014. Mark received numerous awards for his teaching and student mentoring while at KU, including the Mortar Board Outstanding Educator award (1991), the Kemper Teaching Excellence award (2002), the Dean’s Scholar’s Mentor award (1999, 2000), the J. Michael Young Outstanding Graduate Advisor award (2005) and the Byron A. Alexander CLAS Graduate Mentor award (2005). Some joked his Australian accent helped him win these honors, but his deep sense of fairness and compassion were likely the primary factors. Mark mentored 26 graduate students, 10 postdoctoral associates and more than 70 undergraduate students in his research lab at KU, and taught many hundreds of students in the classroom. Three of his graduate students will complete their degrees in coming months. Mark’s research applied his knowledge of enzymes, protein purification, spectroscopy, and evolving enhanced enzymatic capabilities to a range of topics. His research initially focused on the ATP synthase central to energy generation in chloroplasts and mitochondria, which led to an interest in the Parkin protein associated with an inherited form of Parkinson’s disease, and recently focused on development of biosensors, including those for real-time detection of brain molecules relevant to diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. Through his kindness, easy humor and generosity, Mark developed and maintained deep and long-lasting friendships with his former students, collaborators, many other colleagues, and fellow soccer players. We miss him greatly, and offer our sincerest condolences to Mark’s family and all who mourn his loss. The family will establish the Mark Richter Fund through the KU Endowment and a memorial service will be held later this year in Lawrence - once it’s safe to gather in person.

The Departments of Molecular Biosciences and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and the Undergraduate Biology Program mourn the passing of Brian Van Schmus, manager of the research-supply Biostore. Brian was diagnosed with stomach cancer two years ago and passed away on January 22, 2020. Brian grew up in Lawrence as the son of a KU faculty member and graduated from KU with a degree in Political Science in 1986. He began his position in the Biostore in early 2018, and expertly managed the diverse operations of the store until his passing. Brian will be remembered and missed by the many colleagues, friends, customers and student workers he encountered through the Biostore for his hard work, efficiency, kindness and warm smile. Our sincerest condolences go out to Brian’s wife, their two sons and all his friends and family. The family will plan a memorial service later in 2021.
 

Robert Unckless

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) was named Edward & Thelma Wohlgemuth Faculty Scholar by the Provost of the University of Kansas.

 

 

The 19th Annual K-INBRE Symposium was held virtually on January 14-15, 2021.  Molecular Biosciences was very well represented!  Congratulations to all our undergraduate researchers for continuing to excel, despite the pandemic.

  • Zakria Abdullah (Hancock Lab)
  • Angelo Andoyo (Xu Lab) – Outstanding Poster Award
  • Andres Cordova (Slusky Lab) – Honorable Mention
  • Nathan Do (Ackley Lab)
  • Emily Hughes (Hefty Lab) – Honorable Mention
  • Natasha LaGrega (Ackley Lab) – Outstanding Poster Award
  • Payton Markley (Dixon Lab)
  • Bryn O’Meara (Ackley Lab) – Honorable Mention
  • Emma Pagella (Unckless Lab)
  • Eduardo Ramirez Cuellar (Timmons Lab)
  • Hunter Woosley (Davido Lab)

 

Cheyenne Loo

Cheyenne Loo (undergraduate, Chandler lab) was selected to be a 2021 K-INBRE Undergraduate Scholar, working on a research project entitled “Eavesdropping by competing bacteria using quorum-sensing communication systems”.

 

 

Kade Townsend

Kade Townsend (undergraduate, Chandler lab) was accepted into the NIH-funded Maximizing Access to Research Careers (MARC) Program. As part of this program, Kade will do research in the Chandler lab.  Kade was also selected to present at the KU Undergraduate Research Day at the Capital, where he will present a poster on his research in the Chandler lab to Kansas State legislators.

 

Collette Wright

Collette Wright (undergraduate, Neufeld lab) was selected to be a 2021 K-INBRE Undergraduate Scholar.

 

 

January 2021 News

Robert Unckless

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) was named an Associate Editor for the journal Evolution.

 

 

 

Berl Oakley

Berl Oakley (professor) has been appointed a Review Editor for Frontiers in Fungal Biology.

 

 

 

Zoe Dimond (PhD recipient, Hefty lab) successfully defended her PhD dissertation entitled “Genome-wide Investigation into Chlamydial Factors Important in Host-Specific Pathogenesis” on Nov. 10, 2020.  She has begun her post-doctoral position at the National Institutes of Health-Rocky Mountain Laboratories with Ted Hackstadt.

 

Thelma Chiremba (PhD recipient, Neufeld lab) successfully defended her PhD dissertation entitled “Functional Characterization of Musashi1 in Mouse Postnatal Development and Intestinal Homeostasis” on December 10, 2020.  In January, Thelma begins a postdoctoral fellowship at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in the laboratory of Ron Yu.

Shivani JM (MS recipient, M Azuma lab) successfully defended her MS thesis on December 16, 2020.

Kade Townsend

Kade Townsend (undergraduate, Chandler lab) has been awarded a McNair Scholarship. Kade is a sophomore microbiology major.

 

 

December 2020 News

Congratulations to Catherine Kerr (graduate student, Fehr lab) for being named Best Student Speaker at the 3rd HBC Biomedical Sciences Symposium, held virtually November 6, 2020.  Congratulations also go to David Ingham (graduate student, Lundquist lab) for his first place (tie) Best Poster Award, and Wendy Aquino Nunez (graduate student, Ackley lab) for her second place (tie) Best Poster Award out of 42 total posters.  A great representation from Molecular Biosciences!

Dr. Dana Hawkinson (assistant professor, KUMC) received his master's degree from the Buechner lab.  He has since become somewhat of a celebrity, featured in this Kansas Alumni Magazine story called Hope is Real.  Thank you Dr. Hawkinson!

Payton Markley (undergraduate, Dixon lab) was awarded the Erma Reed Peterson Scholarship for Pre-Medicine Seniors.

November 2020 News

Ronak Tilvawala (assistant professor) in collaboration with Tony Fehr (assistant professor) received a CBID CoBRE grant entitled "Host Substrate Profiling of SARS-CoV-2 Virus Protease".

Eric Lundquist

Erik Lundquist (professor) received an NIH R01 research award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke entitled “Regulation of Directed Neuroblast Migration by the Extracellular Matrix and MAB-5/Hox”.

 

 

Dan Dixon

Dan Dixon (professor) was awarded a voucher from the IDeA National Resource for Quantitative Proteomics to examine inflammation-associated exosomes.

 

 

Liang Xu

image

Liang Xu (professor) received a Pilot Project Award from KU Cancer Center, entitled “Drug the Undruggable Musashi Oncoprotein by Fragment-based Drug Discovery”. Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) is a co-investigator on this project.

 

Dan Dixon

image

Kristi Neufeld

Three Molecular Biosciences faculty were selected for The University of Kansas Cancer Center 2020 Director’s Awards in recognition of “individuals who have significantly contributed to the Cancer Center’s mission of reducing the burden of cancer in our region.” Dan Dixon and Liang Xu received the William Jewell Team Science Award and Kristi Neufeld received the Director’s Mentoring Award. Dixon and Neufeld, who serve as Cancer Center program co-leaders each planned and moderated several sessions during KUCC research week, October 26-30.

 

Tom Hill

Tom Hill (postdoc, Unckless lab) accepted a position as a Bioinformatics Analyst at the National Cancer Institute at Frederick in Frederick, Maryland. Congratulations Tom!

 

 

October 2020 News

Tony Fehr

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) received an R35 MIRA award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) for a project entitled Determining Mechanisms of Innate Immune Modulation by ADP-ribosylation.

 

image

David Davido (professor) has been reappointed to serve another three-year term on the editorial board for Journal of Virology starting January 2021.  

 

 

image

Kristi Neufeld (professor) is featured in this KU Medical Center News article discussing the effort to gain comprehensive cancer center status.  Alumna Dr. Lisa Harlan-Williams (PhD recipient, Benedict lab) is also featured.

 

Heba Mostafa (PhD recipient, Davido lab) has been named a Hawk to Watch, recognizing her important work on COVID-19 testing.  Dr. Mostafa is now the director of the Molecular Virology Lab at Johns Hopkins as well as an assistant professor of pathology.

 

image

Christian Gomez (PhD recipient, Neufeld lab) successfully defended his dissertation entitled “Novel Role for APC in Goblet Cells, Inflammation, and Cell Stress” on September 21.  In October, Christian will start a new position in the Dixon lab as a postdoctoral fellow in the IRACDA program.

 

Sam Glaser (undergraduate, Fehr lab) was one of eight recipients of an Undergraduate Research Award (UGRA) this fall for his project entitle “Role of the Coronavirus Macrodomain Highly-Conserved GIF Loop in Virus Replication.”

 

September 2020 News

Aaron Rudeen (PhD recipient, Neufeld lab) successfully defended his dissertation entitled “The 15-aa Repeat Region of Adenomatous Polyposis Coli: Association with β-catenin and Interplay with Cell Cycle Regulator Topoisomerase IIα” on July 30.  Aaron has started a new position with Deciphera Pharmaceuticals, right here in Lawrence, KS.

 

image

Matt Ochs (PhD recipient, Lundquist lab) started a position with the life sciences and pharmaceutical product development company Catalent, located in Houston, TX.

 

 

image

Taybor Parker (PhD recipient, Neufeld lab) started a position with Catalent, Inc. in Kansas City, MO.

 

 

 

Clinton Rice

Clint Rice (IRACDA postdoc with Rob Ward and Rob Unckless) accepted a position at Catalent, Inc. in Madison Wisconsin. Congratulations Clint!

 

 

Ben Smith (former undergrad in the Lamb lab) has joined the Chandler lab as a research technician.

 

August 2020 News

image

David Davido (professor) is recipient of a grant from the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases (NIH) for his project entitled “Identifying functional targets of HSV‐1 ICP0‐directed degradation.”

 

 

image

Mizuki Azuma (associate professor) is recipient of a BioNexus KC grant for her work on Ewing sarcoma.

 

 

 

image

Joanna Slusky (associate professor) is recipient of a grant from the KU Medical Center Research Institute as mentor for Jimmy Budiardjo for the project entitled “Designing peptide‐based inhibitors of bacterial efflux pumps.”

 

 

image

Shivani JagannathanMurali (graduate student, M. Azuma lab) was recipient of the Kenneth B. Armitage Award for Excellence in Teaching, Principles of Biology Laboratory this past spring.

 

 

Catherine Kerr (graduate student, Fehr lab) was awarded a Chemical Biology Training Grant.

 

The Fehr Lab was featured in this Business Wire new study announcement.

In the spring, a Beckman Coulter SW 41 Ti Swinging‐Bucket Rotor Package was offered to HBC participants as part of an award competition. Congratulations to Drs. Yoshiaki Azuma and Dan Dixon, both from molecular biosciences, who applied for the rotor and agreed to share its use.

This month, three researchers joined the Unckless lab: Wen-Juan Ma (research associate), Clint Rice (postdoc) and Isaac Nevarez-Saenz (technician). Wen-Juan is coming from a position at Amherst College and will work on meiotic drive. Clint is switching from Rob Ward’s lab at KU and will work on antimicrobial peptides. Isaac is a former KU undergraduate and PREP scholar and will work on antimicrobial peptides as well. 

 

July 2020 News

image

image

Kristi Neufeld (professor) and Eileen Hotze (lecturer) were recognized as “Favorite Professors” by the Biology Class of 2020 at the University of Kansas Undergraduate Biology Virtual Recognition Ceremony on May 16.

 

Tori Paolillo (post-doc, Lundquist lab; PhD recipient, Oakley lab) started a position as Genome Analyst in the Genomic Medicine Center at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, MO.

Jennifer Klaus (PhD recipient, Chandler lab) successfully defended her dissertation entitled "Genetic and functional characterization of antimicrobial secondary metabolites produced by Burkholderia species" on June 11.

Matt Ochs (PhD recipient, Lundquist lab) successfully defended his dissertation entitled "New insights into the regulatory network controlling neuroblast migration in C. elegans" on June 18.

Taybor Parker (PhD recipient, Neufeld lab) successfully defended his dissertation entitled "Wnt signaling in human colonocytes: roles for the tumor suppressor APC inβ-catenin cytoplasmic retention and destruction complex localization"on June 2.

Zhe Yang (PhD recipient, Buechner lab) successfully defended his dissertation entitled "Terminal Web and Associated Proteins Mediate Signaling to Promote Nematode Single-Cell Tubulogenesis" on May 6.

Jennifer Amrein (PhD candidate, Dixon lab) was awarded trainee support by the University of Kansas Cancer Center match position to the NIH funded Chemistry Biology Training Grant.

 

June 2020 News

image

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) is a co-Investigator with Professor Michael Wolfe (PI, Medicinal Chemistry) on an awarded NIH-NIA R01 research grant entitled “Structure and Function of Gamma-Secretase in Familial Alzheimer's Disease”.

 

Audrey Lamb (professor) is the recipient of the 2020 Louise Byrd Graduate Educator Award.  Congratulations Audrey!

 

Angelica Lang

Angelica Lang (undergraduate, Lundquist lab) is the recipient of an Astronaut Scholarship, one of 56 nationally. The Astronaut Scholarships recognize “the brightest and most talented college students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics” “To aid the United States in retaining its world leadership in technology and innovation by supporting the very best and brightest scholars in science, technology, engineering and mathematics while commemorating the legacy of America’s pioneering astronauts.” Angelica is also a Beckman Scholar and Goldwater Scholar.

The following graduate students have almost a year of study under their belts and we are happy to announce that they have now found research homes!

  • Samalee Banerjee joined the Chandler lab and will be studying antibiotic resistance and cell-cell communication in the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
  • Eldric Carreon joined the Neufeld lab to study the role of tumor suppressor protein APC in Wnt signal transmission.
  • Katherine (Katie) Hanson joined the Macdonald lab and will carry out experimental and computational genomics studies to understand the genetic basis of complex, biomedically-relevant traits using the fruit fly model system.
  • Bunu Lama joined the Yoshi Azuma lab and will be studying role of SUMOylated DNA Topoisomerase IIalfa/PICH interaction on novel mitotic checkpoint regulation and mitotic chromosomal organization.
  • Hana Mayfield joined the Yoshi Azuma lab and will be studying biochemical/cell biological aspect of DNA topoisomerase IIalfa binding to specific chromatin with histone methylation for faithful chromosome segregation.
  • Joseph O’Connor joined the Fehr lab and will be studying how PARP14 enhances the IFN response to virus infections.
  • Maxim Rodzkin joined the Dixon lab and will studying the control of cancer exosome secretion.

Congratulations to these stellar undergraduates for receiving Outstanding Presentation Awards at the 2020 Online Undergraduate Research Symposium:

  • Maya Bluitt is a behavioral neuroscience major from Lenexa.  Her presentation was entitled “Do Flavin Monooxygenases Function in the Celsr/Flamingo Pathway During Neural Development?” and her mentor is Brian Ackley.
  • Dasha Frank is a biochemistry major from Tonganoxie.  Her presentation was entitled “Effect of Vitamin C on Glycogen Phosphorylase b” and her mentor is Roberto de Guzman.
  • Hailey Young is a biology major from Overland Park.  Her presentation was entitled “Retrospective docking of y-secretase modulators” and her mentors are Yinglong Miao and Apurba Bhattari.

Also of note, Brian Ackley (associate professor) was a nominee for the K. Barbara Schowen Undergraduate Research Mentor Award while Taybor Parker (graduate student-Neufeld lab) was a nominee for the Undergraduate Research Mentor Award.

 

May 2020 News

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) is an expert on the Coronavirus and has been interviewed numerous times over the course of the pandemic.  You can check out just a couple news items, a Kansas City FOX-4 News story and one from an interview with an Arizona news station.

 

Liang Xu

Liang Xu (professor) with co-PIs Dr. Yong Zeng (SOE) and Dr. Fen Wang (KUMC) were awarded a Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) Partnership for Translational Research Training grant entitled “Novel NanoChip to detect exosomal biomarkers in liquid biopsy of non-small cell lung cancer patients with metastasis”.

 

image

Stuart Macdonald (professor) was one of four recipients of the University Scholarly Achievement Award for 2020.  Congratulations Stuart!

 

 

Emily Hughes (undergraduate, Hefty lab) and Anton Barybin (undergraduate, Lunte lab) have been named 2020 Beckman Scholars.

Angelo Andoyo (undergraduate, Xu lab) obtained a K-INBRE Translational Summer Scholar award to work on the HuR protein in breast cancer.

Spencer Tye (PREP student, Ward lab) was awarded the NSF GRFP fellowship and will attend graduate school as a member of the Genetics Program at the University of Wisconsin. 

Congratulations to Khushi Kohli (Olathe North High School student, Miao lab) for winning 1st place in the Computational Biology category and 2nd place overall in the 2020 Greater Kansas City Science Fair!

 

April 2020 News

image

image

Josie Chandler and Joanna Slusky were recently promoted to associate professor.  Congratulations Josie and Joanna!

 

 

Dan Dixon

Dan Dixon was promoted to full professor.  Congratulations Dan!

 

 

 

Two KUMB scientists have contributed to efforts to help set up COVID-19 diagnostic testing. Pratik Koirala (graduate student, Chandler lab) helped set up early testing in his country (Nepal), and alumna Heba Mostafa helped set up testing at Johns Hopkins.

KUMB is here for you!  Susan Egan (professor), Scott Hefty (professor), and Erik Lundquist (professor) worked together to accept supplies from across campus to aid in COVID-19 testing efforts.  You can read about it in this LJWorld article.

 

image

Angelica Lang (undergraduate, Lundquist lab) is the recipient of a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, the nation’s premier undergraduate award for academically gifted students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Angelica will be studying the role of basement membrane collagen as a guidance cue for directed neuronal migration. Collette Wright (undergraduate, Lamb lab) is one of three other students to be nominated by KU.  Collette is studying the regulation of an enzyme that could serve as a target for diabetes and personalized medicine.  Read more about KU’s nominees in KU Today article.

 

Andie Cassity (postdoc, Lamb lab) is the recipient of a postdoctoral fellowship from the Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) for her project entitled “Nicotianamine Synthases of Opine Metallophore Biosynthesis.”  Andie will be studying the structure and function of enzymes required by bacteria to acquire metal ions from the environment.

Tom Hill (postdoc, Unckless lab) was awarded a Kansas INBRE postdoctoral fellowship for his project entitled “Understanding host-virus coevolution and viral trade-offs using a Drosophila DNA virus”.

 

March 2020 News

Tony Fehr

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) is quoted in the following Washington Post articles discussing the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.  He also acted as a panelist for a Coronavirus Fact vs Fiction Forum sponsored by the Center for East Asian Studies and Office of International Affairs at Marvin Hall on February 14, 2020.

 

50 KU students received Undergraduate Research Awards for spring 2020.  Six of these students are doing research in Molecular Biosciences labs:

  • Maya Bluitt, a senior from Lawrence: “Elucidating how Flamingo Selectively Regulates Anteroposterior Axonal Outgrowth of VD Motor Neurons Using MSRB-1 as a Model Protein,” mentored by Brian Ackley.
  • Vaughn Craddock, a senior from Wichita: “Screening of Aspergillus Nidulans Secondary Metabolites that Block Quorum Sensing in the Bacterium Pseudomonas Aeruginosa,” mentored by Josie Chandler.
  • Kelsey Hillyer, a senior from Shawnee: “In-vitro Study of FTDP-17 Tau Mutations,” mentored by T. Chris Gamblin.
  • Payton Markley, a junior from Hays: “Identification and Characterization of the ELAVL1 Promoter Region,” mentored by Dan Dixon.
  • Dania Shoaib, a senior from Elizabethtown, Kentucky: “Investigating the Role of Septate Junction Proteins in Border Cell Migration in Drosophila,” mentored by Robert Ward.
  • Hunter Woosley, a junior from Leawood: “Investigation of Cellular Protein Targeted by ICP0 for Degradation,” mentored by David Davido.

 

Jessie Perlmutter

Jessie Perlmutter joined the Unckless lab as a postdoctoral researcher. Jessie is from Colorado and recently completed her PhD at Vanderbilt University. She will work on host/microbe interactions in Drosophila.

 

 

Yousef Alhammad joined the Fehr lab as a postdoctoral researcher. Yousef is from Saudi Arabia but got his PhD in Australia at Monash University. He will work on coronavirus macrodomain functions and its role in replication.

 

February 2020 News

The Department of Molecular Biosciences at the University of Kansas invites applications for a faculty position at the tenure-track Assistant Professor level with expected start dates between August 2020 and May 2021.  We are seeking outstanding candidates to apply for a tenure-track faculty position at the Assistant Professor level in the area of Immunology with a focus on host-pathogen interactions whose research aligns with the NIH mission.  The university and department aspire to become a leader among its peer institutions in making meaningful and lasting progress in responding to the needs and concerns of minority and marginalized demographic groups. As such, applications from members of underrepresented groups in higher education are highly encouraged.

 

The Department of Molecular Biosciences is very sad to share that emeritus faculty member Dr. Dean Stetler passed away on February 9, 2020. Dean earned both bachelor’s and doctoral degrees from KU, and then pursued postdoctoral training at Penn State University. Following an initial faculty position at Penn State, Dean returned to KU in 1985 as a faculty member. Dean’s research initially focused on Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, an autoimmune disease, and later on the genetics of human behavior. Among his most noteworthy accomplishments, Dean’s research contributed to more accurate methods for diagnosing Lupus patients, and led to three US patents related to the diagnosis and severity-monitoring of autoimmune diseases. He also developed an important mouse model of Lupus used for research studies. Dean taught 17 different undergraduate and graduate courses in his years at KU, and provided research training to many undergraduate students in his lab. He trained over a dozen graduate students and postdoctoral researchers who went on to successful careers. Dean established himself as an expert in DNA evidence for the legal system and contributed to nearly 300 legal cases and conducted frequent workshops for legal professionals. Dean’s service to KU was also extensive, including serving as Director of Graduate Studies for Molecular Biosciences, Director of the Genetics Program, and Director of Undergraduate Biology, during which time he founded the Undergraduate Biology Graduate Recognition Ceremony. Dean will be missed by current and former KU faculty, staff and students. Funeral services were held shortly after his passing. We offer our sincerest condolences to Dean’s family members and all those mourning his loss.

 

Rob Unckless

Rob Unckless organized the Great Plains Genetic Conflict 2020 meeting that occurred on January 25th in Lawrence, KS. Rob also gave a talk entitled “The genetics of sex-ratio meiotic drive in Drosophila affinis”.

 

 

Vaughn Craddock (undergraduate, Chandler lab) received a KU Undergraduate Research Award (UGRA) from the KU Center for Undergraduate Research for the spring 2020 semester to do research focused on identifying fungal secondary metabolites that can inhibit quorum sensing in the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

 

Payton Markley (undergraduate, Dixon lab) was awarded an Undergraduate Research Award (UGRA) from the KU Center for Undergraduate Research for the spring 2020 semester for her project entitled “Identification and Characterization of the ELAVL1 Promoter Region”.

Jennifer Amrein

Jennifer Amrein (graduate student, Dixon lab) received Honorable Mention recognition at the 18th Annual K-INBRE Symposium for her poster presentation entitled “The RNA-binding protein Tristetraprolin: A key factor of intestinal cell differentiation and microbial homeostasis in colorectal cancer”.

Colby Spiess (undergraduate, Dixon lab) received Honorable Mention recognition at the 18th Annual K-INBRE Symposium for his oral presentation entitled “Overexpression of the RNA binding protein HuR promotes chemoresistance by stabilizing AKT in colorectal cancer cells”.

Emma Pagella (undergraduate, Unckless lab) was awarded a K-INBRE Undergraduate Scholarship for her work on Drosophila immunity.

Eduardo Ramirez (undergraduate, Timmons lab) was selected as a 2020 K-INBRE Undergraduate Scholarship Program recipient.>

January 2020 News

The natural sciences departments at the University of Kansas are excited to offer a one-day Graduate Admissions Workshop on April 18th, 2020. Sessions will include CV and personal statement writing, navigating the admissions process and more. Admission is free, reasonable travel will be covered and preference will be given to people from backgrounds underrepresented in the sciences. Participating departments include Chemistry, EEB, Molecular Biosciences and Physics & Astronomy. Application deadline is March 15th.

 

Erik Lundquist

Erik Lundquist (professor) has been appointed Associate Vice Chancellor for Research effective January 1, a position in which he has served as interim since June of 2018. He will work alongside the Vice Chancellor for Research and two other Associate Vice Chancellors for Research to oversee the operations of the Office of Research, and to facilitate the research enterprise at KU. His oversight responsibilities include the Animal Care and Use program, university core laboratories and facilities, and the Higuchi Biosciences Center. In this position, he also serves as Vice President of the KU Center for Research. As this is a 50% appointment, Dr. Lundquist will continue research and teaching activities as a faculty member in Molecular Biosciences.

 

Erik Lundquist

Erik Lundquist (professor) has been awarded an R03 research grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke entitled “Regulation of growth cone polarity and protrusion in axon guidance”. The focus of the project is to use CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing in C. elegans to tag axon guidance receptor molecules with Green Fluorescent Protein in order to visualize their distribution in the growth cone during directed axon guidance. These studies will test critical predictions of the polarity/protrusion model in axon guidance, which has the potential to guide strategies to treat central nervous system damage after traumatic injury or stroke.

 

Tom Hill

Tom Hill (postdoc, Unckless lab) was awarded a KU Research Postdoctoral Achievement Award. The award was established in 2018 to recognize the numerous contributions of postdoctoral researchers to the KU research mission. It provides $5,000 in funds to be used for approved research or professional development activities. He will officially recognized at a ceremony on April 22 from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Burge Union, where the recipients of the KU Research Staff Achievement Award and Steven F. Warren Research Achievement Award will also be recognized.

 

image

Kent Smith (graphic artist at KU) collaborated with Rob Unckless (assistant professor) to create journal cover artwork for a special issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society (B Series) on gene drives. The artwork depicts the Red Queen from Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass”. The Red Queen is invoked in a theory about coevolution between different entities such that both players keep evolving in reaction to each other but never actually improve their fitness. 

Kelsey Hillyer (undergraduate, Gamblin lab) was awarded an Undergraduate Research Award (UGRA) from the KU Center for Undergraduate Research for her project entitled “In vitro study of FTDP-17 tau mutations”.

December 2019 News

The Department of Molecular Biosciences is very sad to share that Professor Stephen Benedict passed away on December 2, 2019.  Steve earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Kentucky, and a PhD in Microbiology from Vanderbilt University.  Following professional positions at two research hospitals, Steve joined the faculty at the University of Kansas in 1990.  At KU, he excelled in all aspects of an academic career: research and scholarship; teaching and mentoring; and service and collegiality.  Steve’s primary professional passion was his research, which focused on understanding and potentially controlling T-cell function. This research has potential applications to diseases such as cancer, Type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis.  His research led to the publication of nearly 90 papers and the receipt of 6 US Patents.  Steve mentored 12 doctoral students – 6 of whom have successful academic faculty careers, and one who will complete her degree in the coming weeks.  Steve was also an award-winning educator who taught and touched the lives of large numbers of KU students (among other classes, he taught immunology to more than 100 students per year for 22 years). Among his teaching and mentoring accolades were a Del Shankel Teaching Excellence Award (2000), the Kemper Teaching award (2002), the Robert Weaver Graduate Mentoring award (2014), the J. Michael Young Academic Advisor Award (2014), and the Mortar Board Outstanding Educator award (2016-2017).  He also served as a Chancellors Club Teaching Professor from 2014 to 2019.  This prestigious five-year professorship is awarded in honor of excellence in teaching over a number of years, and includes a substantial annual salary supplement. Perhaps Steve’s crowning teaching achievement was the receipt of the Favorite Biology Professor award five times in the last 15 years (2006, 2009, 2014, 2016 and 2019 – despite a pool of ~50 biology faculty members).  In honor of this remarkable student recognition of Steve, this award will be renamed the Stephen Benedict Favorite Biology Professor award.  Steve will be greatly missed by countless current and former KU faculty, staff and students.  We offer our sincerest condolences to Steve’s family and all those mourning his loss.  A celebration of life service is planned for Jan. 18, 2020, in Lawrence.

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) had the cover image for the November issue of G3.

Kristi Neufeld (professor) was awarded a Pilot Project Grant from the KU Cancer Center for her project entitled– Generating a mouse to test musashi 1 inhibitors as anti-tumor agents”.

Brian Ackley (associate professor) and Scott Hefty (professor) attended the national conference for the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science in Honolulu October 31 to November 2 where they served as mentors and poster judges.

Audrey Lamb (professor) and Latavia Hill (graduate student, Egan lab) attended the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students in Anaheim on November 13-26 where they served as mentors and poster judges.  

Molecular Biosciences Graduate Students Jennifer Amrein (Dixon lab), Wendy Aquino Nunez (Ackley lab), Oindrila De (Ward lab), Shivani Jagannathan Murali (M. Azuma lab), and Srivatsan Parthasarathy (Hancock lab) were finalists in the university-wide Three Minute Thesis Competition on November 5 (all of the finalists are pictured above with Interim Dean of Graduate Studies Audrey Lamb).  Shivani took second place (pictured right giving her award winning presentation). You can read all about it in the University Daily Kansan.  We are proud of their accomplishments!

David Ingham (graduate student, Gamblin lab) received a Roofe Fellowship in Neuroscience Research from the Institute for Neurological Discoveries at the University of Kansas Medical Center. This award will support his research project entitled “Development of in vitro disease-relevant strains of tau for PSP drug discovery”.

Taybor Parker (graduate student, Neufeld lab) won first place at the KU Cancer Center Annual Symposium on November 8 for his poster entitled, APC-dependent localization of the β-catenin destruction complex during Wnt stimulation”.

November 2019 News

Assistant or Associate Professor in Biochemical Mechanisms of Cancer - The Department of Molecular Biosciences at the University of Kansas invites applications for a faculty position as a tenure-track assistant professor or associate professor using biochemical or chemical biology approaches to investigate the molecular mechanisms of cancer. Candidates are expected to develop an internationally visible, rigorous, and externally-funded research program and to effectively teach and mentor undergraduate and graduate students in the area of biochemistry. A full job description and instructions for applying are available at the KU Human Resources Management website.

Anthony Fehr (assistant professor) was awarded a CBID CoBRE Research Project Grant through NIGMS for his project entitled “Deciphering the distinct roles of macrodomain ADP-ribose binding and hydrolysis in coronavirus replication”.

Mizuki Azuma (associate professor) was awarded a 2-year term grant from The Children's Mercy Hospital Midwest Alliance Partners Advisory Board for her work entitled "The role of a sugar (O-GlcNAc) modification of EWS-FLI1 in malignant progression of Ewing sarcoma and its therapeutic potential"

October 2019 News

Assistant or Associate Professor in Biochemical Mechanisms of Cancer - The Department of Molecular Biosciences at the University of Kansas invites applications for a faculty position as a tenure-track assistant professor or associate professor using biochemical or chemical biology approaches to investigate the molecular mechanisms of cancer. Candidates are expected to develop an internationally visible, rigorous, and externally-funded research program and to effectively teach and mentor undergraduate and graduate students in the area of biochemistry. A full job description and instructions for applying are available at the KU Human Resources Management website.

Ilya Vakser (professor) received a grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences to enhance computing infrastructure for a project entitled "Integrated resource for protein recognition studies”. The goal of the project is to develop docking methodology and an accompanying molecular recognition data resource for studies of protein interfaces and development of docking and scoring techniques.

We are excited to welcome the new graduate student class for fall 2019!

  • 1st Row: Benjamin Bunnell, Kehinde Akinseye, Hana Mayfield, Samalee Banerjee, Katherine Hanson
  • 2nd Row: Eldric Jonn Carreon, Bunu Lama, Maxim Rodzkin, Benjamin May, Vaishnavi Kulkarni
  • 3rd Row: Hongping Hao, Joseph O'Connor

September 2019 News

Erik Lundquist (professor) is part of a collaborative research group with the Scripps Research Institute that has published their findings in Science entitled “Genetic behavioral screen identifies an orphan anti-opioid system”. In this study, the research team used the nematode C. elegans to identify a gene encoding a negative regulator of the opioid response that is conserved in mice and humans and that has potential as a target for increased opioid safety.

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) published a paper that was also highlighted with an image on the cover of The Journal of Physical Chemistry. The image depicts specific G protein coupling to adenosine G-protein-coupled receptors revealed from all-atom enhanced sampling simulations.

Tom Hill (postdoc, Unckless lab) won the award for best postdoc talk for his talk entitled “Host/virus coevolution in Drosophila innubila” at the Midwest Population Genetics Conference 2019 in Chicago, IL, August 16-17, 2019.

August 2019 News

Dr. Simon Atkinson (professor) joins the faculty of the Department of Molecular Biosciences. Dr. Atkinson has been selected to lead the University of Kansas Office of Research as the new vice chancellor for research. Atkinson will advocate for research on and off campus, implement research integrity requirements, and, through the KU Center for Research (KUCR), oversee the administration of research grants and contracts at the Lawrence campus. Atkinson was the vice chancellor for research at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), and the associate vice president for research for Indiana University. Atkinson was a chancellor's professor at IUPUI as well as professor of biology in the School of Science and an adjunct professor of medicine and of biochemistry and molecular biology. He studies acute kidney injury with the goal of developing strategies to prevent or treat kidney injuries that can be caused by heart failure, cardiac surgery, and toxins. Dr. Atkinson obtained a bachelor’s degree in cell and molecular biology from King’s College London, from there he got his doctorate in molecular biology from the University of Cambridge, and then was a post-doctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Welcome Dr. Atkinson to KU and to the department of Molecular Biosciences!

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) received an R35 (MIRA) grant from the NIH/NIGMS entitled “The evolution and function of quorum sensing in mixed microbial communities.” This grant will fund research in the Chandler lab over the next five years. The work will investigate how bacterial communication systems regulate interactions among members of complex microbial communities such as those found in infections.

Erik Holmstrom (assistant professor) was awarded a Research Project from the Center for Molecular Analysis of Disease Pathways (CMADP), an NIH Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE). This award provides support for his Research Project entitled, “Molecular mechanisms of Hepatitis C Virus nucleocapsid-like particle assembly.” The goal of this project is to understand how key biomolecular interactions govern viral assembly using an integrative combination of single-molecule fluorescence experiments, microfluidics, and biochemical inhibitors.

Audrey Lamb (professor) is the recipient of a Collaborative Research Grant entitled “The Chemistry of Riboflavin Biosynthesis” from the Chemistry of Life Processes program at the National Science Foundation.  Riboflavin (Vitamin B2) is essential in all organisms, facilitating biological reactions that include cellular energy production, photosynthesis, DNA repair and response to oxidative stress. Working with Prof. Graham Moran at the Loyola University Chicago, the focus of this research is to define the enzymatic mechanisms of the unusual deformylation reactions of RibA and RibB and the unconventional multi-activity of RibD. This basic science knowledge may provide strategies for the development of antimicrobial drugs.

David Davido (professor) served as co-chair of the Priscilla Schaffer Lecture and selection committee chair for the Priscilla Schaffer Graduate Student and Postdoctoral Travel Awards at the 44th International Herpesvirus Workshop in Knoxville, TN, from July 20-24, 2019.  He also presented a poster entitled "Simple and rapid high-throughput assay to examine HSV-1 ICP0 transactivator function”.

Jennifer Amrein (graduate student, Dixon lab) was awarded a Young Investigator award to attend the Genomic Medicine Short Course, September 9-12 at Children's Mercy Hospital. 

Wendy Aquino Nunez (graduate student, Ackley lab) was appointed to the National Institutes of Health Graduate Training Program in the Dynamic Aspects of Chemical Biology on July 1.  She will also be pursuing a KU Graduate Certificate in Chemical Biology along with her doctorate in our department.

David Ingham (graduate student, Gamblin lab) and Meghan Franklin (graduate student, Slusky lab) were awarded Graduate Certificates in Chemical Biology on July 17.

Anupama Kante (Deeds Lab) became one of the winners of the graduate student Poster Competition at the Protein Society’s 33rd Annual Symposium, in Seattle, Washington, Jun 30-Jul 3, 2019, where she presented her poster, "Kinetic Trapping and Robustness in Proteasome assembly”.

Jenn Klaus (graduate student, Chandler lab) presented a poster entitled “The role of malleilactone, a Burkholderia pseudomallei cytotoxic polyketide, in bacterial iron acquisition” at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology conference in Washington DC on July 21. She also won the Carol D. Litchfield Outstanding Student Poster Presentation Award.

Nikola Kenjic (graduate student, Lamb lab) successfully defended his dissertation entitled “The Road Less Travelled: utilization of formate in two biochemical reactions in Gram-negative bacteria” on July 2.

Congratulations to Sonia Hall, who received her PhD from MB working with Rob Ward, for her selection as the new President and CEO of BioKansas.

July 2019 News

Ilya Vakser (professor) received a grant from the National Science Foundation entitled "Structural modeling of interactome to assess phenotypic effects of genetic variation.” The goal of the project is the development of high-throughput, structure-based methodologies and public resources for modeling of protein interaction networks and assessing the function of single amino acid variation. The project is a collaboration with Professor Michael Sternberg at the Imperial College London.

Tori Paolillo (postdoc, Lundquist lab) received a K-INBRE post-doctoral award to study the transcriptomics of neuroblast migration in C. elegans.

Jeff McFarlane (graduate student, Lamb lab) successfully defended his dissertation entitled “The Biosynthesis of Opine Metallophores” on June 21.  In August, Jeff will become an Assistant Professor at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado.

Rhea Abisado (graduate student, Chandler lab) gave an invited talk at the American Society of Microbiology Microbe meeting in San Francisco on June 24 entitled “Quorum sensing control of tobramycin resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

The 22nd International C. elegans Meeting was held at UCLA in Los Angeles, June 26-29.  The main sponsor of the meeting, the Genetics Society of America, was represented by former KUMB graduate students, Sonia Hall and Erin Suderman, both from Rob Ward’s lab.  Three current KUMB students had poster presentations at the meeting:  Zhe Yang(graduate student, Buechner lab) “The RNA-Binding Proteins EXC-7 and MSI-1 Upregulate Serotonin Signaling in the Male Tail”, Snehal Mahadik (graduate student, Lundquist lab) “SRC-1 Is the Negative Regulator of UNC-5 in the Polarity/Protrusion Model of Directed Growth Cone Outgrowth”, and Matthew Ochs (graduate student, Lundquist lab) “Using Fluorescence-Activated Cell Sorting and RNA-Seq to Identify mRNA Targets of ETR-1/CELF that Regulate Q Neuroblast Migration”

June 2019 News

Dan Dixon (associate professor) and Liang Xu (professor), with Yong Zeng (associate professor, Chemistry) were awarded a Multi-PI Research Project Grant (R01) from the National Cancer Institute  (NCI) entitled "Nano-Engineered Lab-on-a-Chip for Assessing HuR-Regulated Exosomes for Cancer Monitoring and Targeted Therapy”. The goal of this award is to develop new technologies for analysis of circulating exosomes and potential exosomal biomarkers and blood-based tests for precision diagnosis and treatment of cancers.

Josephine Chandler (assistant professor) was awarded a National Institutes of Health COBRE Chemical Biology of Infectious Diseases pilot project award for her project entitled, “Chemical biology studies of malleilactone, a small-molecule toxin produced by Burkholderia pseudomallei.” The goal of this project is to understand how secondary metabolites influence the disease process and evaluate secondary metabolites as novel therapeutic targets for combatting infections.

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) published a paper in PLos Pathogens entitled, The coronavirus macrodomain is required to prevent PARP-mediated inhibition of virus replication and enhancement of IFN expression. It was highlighted as Featured Research on the PLos Pathogens website and a press release was also issued to Eurekalerts.

Mizuki Azuma (associate professor) and Steve Benedict (professor) were recognized as “Favorite Professors” by the Biology Class of 2019 at the University of Kansas Undergraduate Biology Recognition Ceremony on May 18.

Erik Lundquist (professor) was recognized with the McNair Mentor Award on May 2, 2019. Dr. Lundquist was mentor for McNair Scholars Program participant Aubrie Stricker(undergraduate) who was awarded the McNair Exceptional Research Award.

Jenn Klaus (graduate student, Chandler lab) received the 2019 Phillip and Marjorie Newmark Award for Excellence in Biochemistry Research for her project entitled, “Novel iron acquisition mechanisms in the pathogenic bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei.” The other finalist for the prize was Meghan Franklin (Slusky lab). The 2019 invited Newmark lecturer was Stephen H. White of the University of California - Irvine.  Jenn was also awarded the 2019 Hirata Summer Fellowship which will provide full summer support for research, manuscript writing, and thesis defense preparation. Finally, Jenn was awarded a KU Robert H. Ammar Graduate Teaching Award (Microbiology), for excellence in teaching of the class BIOL507 (Bacterial Infectious Diseases Lab) in the spring of 2019.

Elizabeth Everman (postdoc, Macdonald lab) received a two-year F32 Postdoctoral Fellowship from the NIH for her project "Genetic dissection and characterization of variation in copper resistance in Drosophila melanogaster". The goal of her work is to genetically dissect the response to toxic levels of copper sulfate using the fruit fly model system, and to identify the genes and genetic networks that confer resistance via genetic mapping, expression profiling, and genome editing. In addition to using large, sequenced laboratory panels of flies, she will also use flies collected from multiple wild populations known to have experienced high levels of toxic metal contamination (e.g., Superfund sites) to examine the effect of toxic metal exposure on the evolution of metal resistance in natural populations.

Molecular Biosciences participated in the University of Kansas Doctoral Hooding Ceremony on May 19, 2019.

From left to right: Jeff McFarlane and his mentor Audrey Lamb, Mark Richter, mentor to Jittasak Khowsathit, and Lisa Timmons, mentor to Vaishnavi Nagarajan

Lauren Jennings (undergraduate, Neufeld lab) has received a KU Undergraduate Research Award for Summer 2019 for her project: “Analysis of Axin1 in Destruction Complex Localization Following Wnt ligand presentation.”

Kirsten Kent (undergraduate, Dixon Lab) received a 2019 Undergraduate Research Award (UGRA) from the Center for Undergraduate Research to study the regulation of the cell cycle in colon cancer.

Aubrie Stricker (undergraduate, Lundquist lab) received a BS MCDB degree with Honors from Biological Sciences. She will begin PhD studies in the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in the Biomedical and Biological Sciences at Vanderbilt University in the fall of 2019.

Sierra Mortimer (undergraduate, Lundquist lab) received a BS MCDB degree with Honors from Biological Sciences. She will begin PhD studies in the Human Genetics program at the University of Michigan in the fall of 2019.

Natalie Eppler (undergraduate, Chandler lab) will be entering the interdisciplinary PhD program in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Kansas Medical Center in the fall 2019.

Skye Perkins joined the Unckless Lab for a summer research program through the KU-Haskell Bridge partnership and will be working on Inhibition of Drosophila pathogens by natural plant compounds.

May 2019 News

David Davido (professor) has been promoted to full professor. Dr. Davido earned his Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis. Following postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Würzburg, University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard Medical School, he joined the faculty in the Department of Molecular Biosciences in 2005.  The Davido Laboratory studies the roles that viral and host factors play in controlling the lytic and latent phases of the herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) life cycle. 

Cindy Ly (graduate student, Davido Lab) received an Honorable Mention from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for her Graduate Research Fellowship application entitled “Identifying Ubiquitinome Profiles and Pathways Targets by HSV-1 ICP0.”

Nikola Kenjic (pictured) and Jeff McFarlane (graduate students, Lamb lab) won travel awards from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology to attend the Experimental Biology conference in Orlando, FL (April 6-9).  Both participated in the career development programming and presented posters.  Nikola’s poster was titled “3,4-dihydroxy-2-butanone 4-phosphate synthase (RibB) of riboflavin biosynthesis has a mononuclear magnesium active site,” and Jeff’s poster was “An opine on opines: the biosynthesis of opine metallophores.”

Haifa Alhadyian (graduate student, Ward lab) moderated the Undergraduate Panel of the New Faculty Forum at the 60th Drosophila Research Conference in Dallas, TX on March 27, 2019. She also presented her work in a poster format.

Congratulations to the incoming 2018 graduate student class!  As their first year winds down, we are pleased to announce that home labs have been secured and research projects have begun.

  • Sahida Afroz has joined the Dixon lab and will be studying the role of exosomes in colorectal cancer.
  • Jennifer Amrein has joined the Dixon lab and will be studying how RNA decay impacts the intestinal microbiome and immune function in colorectal cancer.
  • Wendy Aquino Nunez has joined the Ackley Lab, and will study the mechanisms of how tau aggregation results in neuronal dysfunction in vivo.
  • Kelsey Ferguson has joined the Lundquist lab and will investigate the role of the axon guidance cue UNC-6/Netrin on growth cone behavior in C. elegans.
  • Paul Ikujuni has joined the Slusky lab and will be studying how efflux pumps can be disabled to make resistant bacteria more susceptible to antibiotics.
  • Catherine Kerr has joined the Fehr Lab and will be studying how cellular PARP enzymes impact coronavirus replication and pathogenesis.
  • Kent Mulkey has joined the Unckless Lab and will be studying the mechanisms of DNA virus infection and virulence in Drosophila.
  • Parker Sperstad has joined the Richter lab working on directed evolution of a nicotine sensing enzyme for monitoring nicotine levels in the brain.
  • Sutton Stegman has joined the Timmons lab where he will investigate environmental contributions to gene regulatory mechanisms using Caenorhabditis elegans.
  • Nicholas Wagner has joined the Macdonald lab and will be working on an array of computational biology projects that seek to investigate the genetic basis of complex trait variation in Drosophila.
  • Qi Zhang has joined the Xu Lab and will be studying the role of RNA-binding proteins in resistance to cancer immunotherapy.
  • Bailey Huser (undergraduate, Davido Lab) received a K-INBRE undergraduate scholarship to study how HSV-1 alters the stability of cellular proteins during productive infection.
  • Mariaelena Nabors (undergraduate, Unckless Lab) was named a Kansas IDEA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (KINBRE) Star Trainee. This program identifies outstanding biomedical researchers and provides financial support during their senior year.
  • Cara Davis (undergraduate, Lamb lab) will be entering the Biological Chemistry graduate program at the University of Michigan in the fall.

 

April 2019 News

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) is the recipient a National Institute of Heath Project Grant (R01) for his project entitled “Enhanced Sampling of G-Protein-Coupled Receptor–G protein interactions”. The major goal of this project is to develop a novel computational approach to enhance sampling of protein-protein interactions and determine molecular mechanisms of selective coupling and allosteric modulation of G-Protein-Coupled ReceptorG protein interactions through complementary computer simulations and experiments.

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) co-organized a workshop entitled “Intro to the Drosophila microbiome: How can I control the microbiome in my research?” at the Drosophila Research Conferencein Dallas, TX on March 28, 2019.

Jinan Wang (post doc, Miao lab) won a Travel Award to attend the Biophysical Society Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland in March 2019. He also served as a Co-Chair for session “Platform: Membrane Receptors and Signal Transduction” and presented an oral talk entitled “Mechanism of specific G protein coupling to adenosine receptors”.  

Haeyoung Kim (graduate student, Mizuki Azuma lab) received an award for the KU Cancer Center KUCC Summer Research Training Program . Her research is focused on the pediatric bone cancer Ewing sarcoma by investigation of the crucial role of EWS protein during the mitosis and interrelationship between genomic integrity and tumor progression. 

Angelica Lang (undergraduate, Lundquist lab) received a Beckman Scholars award for 2019/2020. Angelica will conduct research on the role of the extracellular matrix in neuroblast migration in C. elegans.

 

March 2019 News

Erik D. Holmstrom (assistant professor) joins the Department of Molecular Biosciences faculty. Dr. Holmstrom received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Colorado working in the Nesbitt lab where he studied the kinetics and thermodynamics of RNA folding. Afterwards, he traveled to the Schuler lab in Zurich, Switzerland for his postdoctoral training where he investigated interactions between intrinsically disordered proteins and nucleic acids. While there, he was awarded a Long-term Postdoctoral Fellowship from the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) This allowed him to build a research program that aims to use state-of-the-art single-molecule fluorescence techniques to probe RNA-protein interactions that regulate viral nucleocapsid assembly. The Holmstrom lab will continue to develop this program at KU. Welcome Dr. Holmstrom!

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) was awarded a Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence Bridging Award for her proposal entitled: “Quorum sensing evolution and function in mixed microbial communities.” The goal of this work is to provide a fundamental understanding of how bacterial communication systems regulate interactions between and among members of a population in complex microbial communities, such as those found in many infections.

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) served as a discussion leader in the “Mining peptide diversity and functionality across species” session of the 2019 Antimicrobial Peptide Gordon Research Conference in Tuscany, Italy in February.

Sanjana Sundararajan (graduate student, Yoshi Azuma lab) won the “People’s Choice Award” for KU’s first participation in the 3-minute Thesis Competition for her talk on her work, “Because Small Things Do Go a Long Way!”

Zoe Dimond (graduate student, Hefty lab) received a research award from BioKansas at the 16th annual Capital Graduate Summit Research Summit. Read more about the summit

 

February 2019 News

BECKMAN SCHOLARS PROGRAM

Dr. Susan Egan (professor and chair), along with David Benson (associate professor, chemistry) and Lynn Hancock (associate professor) were awarded a 3 year grant from the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation to support the Beckman Scholars Program at KU. This prestigious award supports mentored undergraduate research in participating faculty laboratories from the departments of Molecular Biosciences and Chemistry. 

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) was officially awarded a K22 grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) entitled “Investigating How ADP-ribosyation Impacts Innate Immunity During Coronavirus Infection”. ADP-ribosylation is an understudied protein modification that inhibits coronavirus replication and enhance the immune response to these viruses. In this project we will work to identify how ADP-ribosylation impacts these events at a molecular level, which will have implications for therapeutics and vaccine design need to limit disease caused by coronaviruses.

Stuart Macdonald (professor) was awarded a Research Project Grant (R01) from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) entitled "Toxicogenomics of metal response in genetically-variable Drosophila populations". The goal of this award is to use fruit flies to model the response to toxic levels of the metals cadmium, lead, manganese, and mercury. The Macdonald lab will use a combination of genetic mapping, high-throughput genomewide expression analysis, and epigenetic profiling to understand the neurotoxicity of environmental metal exposure, and isolate genes and genetic pathways mediating variable responses to metals in populations.

Berl Oakley (distinguished professor) has been elected to the Board of Trustees of the Kansas University Center for Research (2019-2023) and appointed to the Executive Committee of The Kansas University Center for Research (2019)

Dan Dixon (associate professor) published a Correspondence in Nature entitled “Stolen-colon storm could boost cancer screening.” 

Joanna Slusky (assistant professor) published an article in eLife entitled, “Evolutionary pathways of repeat protein topology in bacterial outer membrane proteins.” The importance of this work was also described in an Insight article in eLife.

Thelma Chiremba (graduate student, Neufeld lab) was awarded a Graduate Student and Post-Doctoral Travel (GPT) grant within the 2019 Research Excellence Initiative. This fund will support Thelma’s travel to attend The Gastrointestinal Tract XVIII Conference: Integrated Biology of the GI-Super Organ to be held in Steamboat Springs, Colorado from July 28 to August 2, 2019.

Nikola Kenjic and Jeff McFarlane (graduate students, Lamb lab) were both recipients of the Graduate Scholarly Presentation Awards from KU Graduate Studies to attend the Enzyme Mechanisms Conference in New Orleans, January 6-9. Nikola presented a poster entitled “3,4-dihydroxy-2-butanone 4-phospahte synthase (RibB) of riboflavin biosynthesis has a mononuclear magnesium active site.”  Jeff’s poster was called “An opine on opines: the biosynthesis of opine metallophores in bacterial pathogens.”

Natalie Eppler (undergraduate, Chandler lab) was awarded a K-INBRE undergraduate scholarship(spring/summer 2019) and a KU Undergraduate research assistance ship (spring 2019) to perform research in my lab centered around discovering antimicrobials produced by the bacterium Burkholderia thailandensis.

Collette Wright (undergraduate, Lamb lab) has been named to the K-INBRE Scholars Program for the spring and summer semesters. Collette will be studying the non-allosteric pyruvate kinase from Zymomonas mobilis, doing both kinetic and x-ray crystallography experiments. 

Colby Spiess (undergraduate, Dixon lab) was awarded a 2019 K-INBRE Undergraduate Scholarship to continue his studies of HuR regulation of the mTOR pathway in colon cancer.

Vaughn Craddock (undergraduate, Chandler lab) was invited to give a talk at the K-INBRE symposiumin Overland Park in January and won the award for best talk! His talk was titled “Quorum sensing control of antibiotic resistance in the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa.”

Lindsay Ussher joined the Unckless lab as an assistant researcher. Lindsay's main responsibilities will be to oversee the Drosophila CRISPR genome editing work in the lab. He graduated from KU in December 2018 with a degree in Biology and worked in Rob Ward's (KU MB) lab. 

January 2019 News

Audrey Lamb (professor) has been appointed Interim Dean of Graduate Studies. In this role, she will support the success of graduate students and the growth and quality of graduate programs at KU. Audrey will continue research and teaching activities as a faculty member in Molecular Biosciences.

Chris Gamblin (professor) received a $15,000 KU Research Grant Opportunity grant from the University of Kansas Office of Research for a collaborative project with Dr. Berl Oakley entitled “Development of Fungal Natural Products as Potential Therapeutics for Alzheimer’s Disease”.

Krzystof Kuczera (professor) published an article “Helix-Coil Transition Courses Through Multiple Pathways and Intermediates: Fast Kinetic Measurements and Dimensionality Reduction”. His work was highlighted with the cover image for the December issue of The Journal of Physical Chemistry B.

Emma Pagella (Unckless lab) was awarded a KU Center for Undergraduate Research Travel Award to attend the 2019 Drosophila Genetics Research Conference in Dallas, Texas. Emma will present her work on the characterization of microbes infecting wild Drosophila.

Jordyn Koehn joined the Unckless lab as an assistant researcher. Jordyn’s main responsibilities will be to oversee the Drosophila CRISPR genome editing work in the lab. She graduated from KU in December 2018 with a degree in Biology and worked in Jamie Walters' (KU EEB) lab.

Sierra Mortimer (undergraduate, Lundquist lab) received an Undergraduate Research Award from the Center for Undergraduate Research to continue her studies of Onecut transcription factors in neuroblast migration in C. elegans.

Audrey Lamb (professor) is the recipient of a National Institutes of Health (National Institutes of General Medical Sciences) Research Project Grant (R01) for her project entitled “Novel and essential metallophores from multidrug resistant bacterial pathogens.”  The goal of this work is to provide a fundamental understanding of the enzymes that generate a recently discovered metal acquisition system used by bacterial pathogens that are becoming increasingly antibiotic resistant. Indeed, the enzymes to be studied have only very recently been documented in bacterial pathogens, and their structures and mechanisms are not well-studied, or are missing from the literature across all kingdoms of life. This crucial basic science knowledge can then be exploited in the generation of new antimicrobial therapeutics.

 

December 2018 News

Audrey Lamb (professor) was elected to be a voting member of Council for the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

 

Brian Ackley (associate professor) and Scott Hefty (professor) attended the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students in Indianapolis November 14-17 where they served as mentors and poster judge.  Andrea Darby (undergraduate, Unckless lab, pictured) also attended and presented a poster entitled “Strong immune response in Drosophila can lead to tradeoffs in reduced fitness during environmental stress.”

 

The new edition of the textbook Biological Inorganic Chemistry features a protein structure determined by Audrey Lamb (professor) on the cover.

 

November 2018 News

Molecular Biosciences at KU makes GRE scores optional for applications to our PhD programs

As part of ongoing efforts to attract strong, motivated students to our program, and continue to enhance the diversity of our graduate community, the department recently eliminated the GRE requirement for applicants to our doctoral programs. Students are welcome to submit GRE scores if they feel the scores will help us better assess their academic potential, but equally students who do not choose to provide GRE scores will not be penalized. Our department will continue to carefully examine all aspects of each applicant's package in a holistic fashion during admissions decisions. Applicants, or advisors of potential applicants, should feel free to reach out to Dr. Stuart Macdonald, our Director of Graduate Studies, if they have any questions about this change.

 

Lynn Hancock (associate professor) co-chaired the 7th International Conference on Gram-Positive Pathogens held October 14-17, 2018 in Omaha, NE.

 

Audrey Lamb (professor) attended the annual meeting of the Society for Advancing Chicanos/Hispanics & Native Americans in Science in San Antonio, Texas, October 11-13 where she served as a mentor judge and was the host of the biochemistry room for the Conversations with Scientists dinner.

 

Kara Evans (recent PhD, Chandler lab) started a new position as a Genomics and Microbiome Scientist at DuPont Nutrition & Health in Madison, Wisconsin on October 15. She will be conducting research on bacteria in the human microbiome and probiotic product development.

 

Yamini Mutreja (recent PhD, Gamblin lab) has accepted a postdoctoral position in the laboratory of Domenico Praticò in the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University. Yamini’s new position is expected to begin in early 2019.

 

Cara Davis (undergraduate, Lamb lab) was one of two undergrads to win a poster award for her presentation “Biosynthesis of opine metallophores from Yersinia pestis and Clostridium argentinense” at the Midwest Enzyme Chemistry Conference at Northwestern University on October 20.  Cara is pictured on the far left.

 

October 2018 News

 

Joanna Slusky (assistant professor) published a paper in the September issue of Structure titled "Efflux Pumps Represent Possible Evolutionary Convergence onto the β-Barrel Fold". The paper has also been chosen as the cover article for Structure and was recommended by F1000Prime.

 

Xiaoqing (Sarah) Wu (assistant research professor, Xu lab) and mentor Dr. Liang Xu, was awarded $450,000 by the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation for the project entitled: “Chemo-sensitization of triple negative breast cancer by targeting HuR.” The major goals are to explore HuR as a potential target for overcoming TNBC chemo-resistance, and to validate the potent and specific HuR inhibitor KH-3 as a new class of chemotherapy that sensitizes TNBC via HuR overexpression.

 

Hikmat Al-Hashimi a 2018 Ph.D. graduate of the Buechner lab, has been hired as a Senior Scientist I at Deciphera, Inc. based in Lawrence, KS.

 

Helen Peng (undergraduate, De Guzman lab) received the NIH Summer Internship Program in Biomedical Research. She spent the summer 2018 in Bethesda, Maryland as an undergraduate researcher at the National Institutes of Health where she worked in the laboratory of Dr. Robert Yarchoan of the National Cancer Institute. She participated in research investigating the effect of Pomalidomode, an immunomodulatory drug known to increase virus-infected tumor cell sensitivity to cells. She had an incredibly enriching experience thanks to her research mentors and their eagerness to show her the impact of their research in terms of its relationship to clinical trials and patients. Helen presented the results of her research at a poster conference at the NIH Summer Poster Day, on August 9.

 

September 2018 News   

Anthony Fehr (assistant professor) joins the Department of Molecular Biosciences faculty.  Dr. Fehr received his Ph.D. at Washington University-St. Louis in the lab of Dong Yu where he studied the molecular biology of Human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV). He subsequently completed his postdoctoral research with Stanley Perlman at the University of Iowa, where he studied the role and mechanisms by which coronavirus genes impact virus replication and pathogenesis. The Fehr lab at KU will continue to study the mechanisms that these genes use to overcome host anti-viral defenses, and identify novel compounds that can target these genes and act as anti-viral therapeutics. Welcome Dr. Fehr!

 

Krzysztof Kuczera (professor) was awarded an NSF grant from the Chemistry of Life Processes Program in the Division of Chemistry along with co-investigator Carey Johnson (Chemistry) and Gouri Jas (Pharmacy) for work entitled, “Dynamic Elements: effects of co-solvents on peptide folding pathways”. The goal is to combine ultra-fast spectroscopy and molecular modeling to elucidate the folding pathways of structured peptides in the presence of stabilizing and destabilizing co-solvents, such as urea, guanidinium chloride and proline.

 

Liang Xu (professor) is co-investigator and PI of a sub award on a National Institutes of Health Research Grant entitled “Robust rational design of chemical tools to inhibit RNA-binding proteins.”  The PI is John Karanicolas (Fox Chase Cancer Center), and the goal of the project is to identify novel inhibitors of protein-RNA interaction with a new computational modeling.

 

Erik A. Lundquist (professor) will serve as chair of the National Institutes of Health grant review study section Neurodifferentiation, Plasticity, Regeneration, and Rhythmicity.  Dr. Lundquist will lead the thrice-yearly meetings at which researchers from across the country review ~70 applications for funding related to neuronal development, funtion, circuitry, and physiology.

 

Steve Benedict (professor) was one of six speakers at the KU memorial service honoring the late Del Shankel and his many contributions to the university that stretched across nearly 60 years of service. Professor Shankel contributed as a faculty member and in a long list of administrative positions including athletic director and chancellor of the university. Steve’s comments highlighted Del’s contributions to the field of microbiology with his co-founding of a sub-discipline of science, his love of a good (and bad) joke, especially when they could enhance his teaching efforts, and his remarkable kindness toward everyone. Del adopted Kansas and KU as his permanent home. He was known throughout the state with affection, and represented our interests nationally and internationally with enthusiasm. He is remembered as a gentleman, a scientist, a teacher, a mentor, an administrator, a friend and a Kansan; and he is always remembered with a smile.

 

Elizabeth Everman (postdoc, Macdonald lab) is the recipient of a Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) Postdoctoral Fellowship entitled "Genetic dissection of variation in copper resistance across multiple life stages in Drosophila melanogaster". Dr. Everman will use funds to continue her work to determine the genes and gene networks responsible for variable metal response.

 

Catie Shelton (former post doc, Lamb lab) began an assistant professor position in the department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the Northern Kentucky University on August 15.  Catie will be teaching biochemistry at this Primarily Undergraduate Institution, and will continue the research goals she started during her time here at KU, including structural biology and mechanistic enzymology of proteins from human pathogens.

 

Trey Ronnebaum (graduate student, Lamb lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled “Adenylation and tailoring activities in the nonribosomal peptide synthesis of the siderophore pyochelin” on August 17. Trey will be starting a postdoctoral position at the University of Pennsylvania in the laboratory of David Christianson at the beginning of September.

 

Letty Beltran joined the De Guzman lab as a part of KU’s PREP Program after spending a year in Dr. Scott Hefty’s lab studying C. trachomatis. In Dr. De Guzman's lab she will be studying the binding between the tip and translocon proteins of the Type 3 Secretion System in Burkholderia pseudomallei

 

August 2018 News   

Molecular Biosciences is deeply saddened by the passing of former Chancellor Del Shankelon July 12, 2018.  Del came to KU in 1959 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology (later Molecular Biosciences). Among the faculty he joined in Microbiology were Dr. David Paretsky (former University Distinguished Professor) and Dr. Cora Downs (the first woman to receive a PhD at KU and namesake of the new Downs residence hall). Del was hired to begin research and teaching programs in the area of Microbial Genetics, a new field at the time. Del continued the research he began in graduate school on the effects and prevention of mutations caused by environmental exposures, using bacteria as model systems. The latter part of his research career involved the identification and study of compounds (often plant derived compounds such as those from green tea) that can prevent or reduce the effects of environmental mutagens – an area dubbed anti-mutagenesis. He was an active member of the American Society for Microbiology and the Environmental Mutagen Society for many years, and mentored more than 30 graduate students in their Masters or PhD research in his lab. Del also found great joy in classroom teaching of students, which he continued until his retirement in 1996, and was a strong supporter of undergraduate student research through establishment of the Del and Carol Shankel Biomedical Research Award. Of course, Del is widely known at KU for the many administrative positions he held – 13 positions over the course of his 37 years on the KU faculty, most notably serving twice as chancellor. In 2010, the Shankel Structural Biology Center was named to honor Del’s service to KU. Our sincerest condolences go out to Del’s wife Carol, their two daughters, and everyone whose life he touched. We will miss Del’s counsel, his benevolence, and his humor.

A memorial service will be held on the KU campus on Saturday, August 18, 2018, at 4 p.m. in Woodruff auditorium, Kansas Union, followed by a reception at the Adams Alumni Center. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that contributions be made to the Del and Carol Shankel Biomedical Research Award at the KU Endowment Association.

 

Audrey Lamb (professor) served as the organizer of the Power Hour at the Enzymes, Coenzymes, and Metabolic Pathways Gordon Research Conference in Waterville Valley on July 23. The Power Hour is designed to help address the challenges women face in science and support professional growth by providing an open forum for discussion and mentoring.

 

Andrea Darby joined the Unckless lab as part of KU's PREP Program. Drea joins us from Allen Gibbs' lab at UNLV. She will continue to work on the role of immunity and the microbiome in adaptation to desiccation.  

 

July 2018 News   

Molecular Biosciences mourns the passing of Professor Emeritus Charles Wyttenbach on June 11. Charles earned Bachelors and Master’s degrees in Zoology at Indiana University. During that time he became a research assistant to Sears Crowell at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) at Woods Hole in Massachusetts, an affiliation he would continue throughout his career. Charles earned a doctorate from Johns Hopkins University in three years, supported by a National Science Foundation fellowship. After earning his doctorate, Charles became an Instructor and then Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago. In 1966, Charles accepted a position at KU as a member of the (former) Department of Zoology. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1970 and to Professor in 1975. He served as chairman of the Department of Physiology and Cell Biology (a direct predecessor of Molecular Biosciences) from 1976-1983. Charles’ research interests included nervous system development in chick embryos (carried out at KU) and stolon growth in colonial hydroids (carried out during summers at Woods Hole). In collaboration with KU Professor Paul Kitos, Charles was funded by the National Institutes of Health to study the effects of organophosphate insecticides on embryonic development in chick embryos. His major teaching interests were focused on Embryology. He taught Principles of Biology, which grew from 60 to 300 students under his care.  He was recognized as a Hillteacher in 1968 and nominated for “Best Advisor in the College” in 1991. Charles retired in 1997 and continued to spend summers at Woods Hole and winters in Lawrence. Charles was married to Ellen Garnett (Ph.D., Botany, Indiana University), and they raised three children. In addition to science, Charles had an avid interest in classical music. He was a talented photographer, which began while recording marine organisms as an undergraduate assistant at Woods Hole. Charles was a fine colleague and truly interesting individual, and we will miss his many contributions to KU.

 

Erik Lundquist (professor) has been appointed Interim Associate Vice Chancellor for Research effective June 11. He will work alongside the Vice Chancellor for Research and two other Associate Vice Chancellors for Research to oversee the operations of the Office of Research, and to facilitate the research enterprise at KU. His oversight responsibilities include the Animal Care and Use program, university core laboratories and facilities, and the Higuchi Biosciences Center. In this position, he also serves as Vice President of the KU Center for Research. As this is a 50% appointment, Dr. Lundquist will continue research and teaching activities as a faculty member in Molecular Biosciences.

 

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) is the recipient of a National Institutes of Health (National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease) R01 grant entitled “The causes of balancing selection on immunity genes: from populations to molecular interactions”. The funding will be used to determine the forces that act to maintain allelic variation in antimicrobial peptides (small peptides that directly inhibit microbes) at the molecular, genetic and population levels.

 

Kristi Neufeld (professor) in collaboration with Yoshi Azuma (professor) are recipients of a J.R. And Inez Jay Award from KU Higuchi Biosciences for work entitled, "Novel function of APC tumor suppressor in DNA Topoisomerase II-mediated cell cycle checkpoint.” The funding will be used to assess interactions between APC and Topoisomerase II that control cell proliferation.

 

Yoshi Azuma (professor) and Steve Benedict (professor) are each recipients of University of Kansas Cancer Pilot Project Grants from the Cancer Biology Research Program. Azuma’s proposal is entitled “Impact of SUMOylation on cancer cell’s chromatin structure and fitness.” Benedict’s proposal is entitled, “Choice of co-stimulation of naïve T cells controls differentiation to anti-tumor Th1 cells.” 

 

Three Molecular Biosciences graduate students will be appointed to the National Institutes of Health Graduate Training Program in the Dynamic Aspects of Chemical Biology on July 1: Latavia Hill (Egan lab), David Ingham (Gamblin lab), and Cindy Ly (Davido lab). They will also be pursuing a KU Graduate Certificate in Chemical Biology along with their doctorate in our department.

 

Nikola Kenjic (graduate student, Lamb lab) has been named the Weaver Graduate Fellow for the 2018-2019 academic year.  This fellowship is awarded annually to an international student

 

June 2018 News   

Recently, the Molecular Biosciences department gathered together to celebrate scientific career of Peter Gegenheimer (associate professor) and his more than thirty years as a faculty colleague at KU. Peter was presented with painting of RNAse P - a molecule Peter worked on extensively - decorated with comments from his friends and colleagues. Peter joined the Biochemistry Department (now Molecular Biosciences) in 1985 after very productive doctoral work in the laboratory of Dr. David Apirion at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and postdoctoral work with Dr. John Abelson at UC San Diego. Peter’s research, then and since, has mainly focused on the mechanism and evolution of transfer RNA processing enzymes. Among his many scientific contributions, his 2000 paper published in the journal RNA especially stands out in providing the first direct confirmation that the chloroplast RNAse P enzyme is a protein enzyme rather than an all RNA enzyme. This is considered by many to be a landmark piece of work and it has been heavily cited. Peter trained numerous undergraduate and graduate students in his laboratory who have gone on to very productive careers around the country. We all wish Peter the very best.

 

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) in collaboration with Berl Oakley (Irving S. Johnson Distinguished Professor) are recipients of a J.R. And Inez Jay Award from KU Higuchi Biosciences for work entitled, "Blocking quorum sensing to potentiate antibiotics in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.” The funding will be used to identify and study novel inhibitors of quorum sensing, a type of cell-cell communication that is critical for many bacterial pathogens to cause disease. Ajai Dandekar (University of Washington) will collaborate on the study.

 

Audrey Lamb (professor) is the recipient of a Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence Bridging Award for her proposal entitled “Opine Metallophores from Bacterial Pathogens.” The goal of this work is to provide fundamental understanding of the enzymes that generate a recently discovered metal acquisition system, one used by bacterial pathogens that are becoming increasingly antibiotic resistant. 

 

Kristi Neufeld (professor) and Eileen Hotze (lecturer) were recognized as “Favorite Professors” by the Biology Class of 2018 at the University of Kansas Undergraduate Biology Recognition Ceremony on May 12.

 

David Davido (associate professor) chaired the "Herpesvirus-host interactions" session at the Colorado Alphaherpesvirus Latency Symposium in Vail, CO on May 16-19 and served on its planning committee.  

 

Molecular Biosciences participated in the University of Kansas Doctoral Hooding Ceremony on May 12.  From left to right:  Hikmat Al Hashimi and his mentor Matthew Buechner, Berl Oakley mentor to Tori Paolillo, Kara Evans (her mentor, Josie Chandler, is not shown), Mahekta Gujar and her mentor Erik Lundquist, Lingfei LiangTrey Ronnebaum and his mentor Audrey Lamb, and Susan Egan (mentor to Lingfei).

 

Molecular Biosciences participated in the University of Kansas Master’s Hooding and Undergraduate Distinction/Highest Distinction Ceremony on May 12. From left to right: Susan Egan (mentor to Nicole), Nicole MassaReshma Bhattacharya, Berl Oakley (mentor to Reshma).

 

Ranjan Preet (postdoc, Dixon lab) received a Digestive Disease Week 2018 Basic Science Travel Awardto gave a talk in the Gastrointestinal Oncology Distinguished Abstract Plenary session entitled “RNA binding protein HuR regulates extracellular vesicle secretion in colorectal cancer” at the Digestive Disease Week 2018 American Gastroenterological Association Annual Meetingin Washington, DC on June 4.

 

Cindy Ly (graduate student, Davido lab) received the Kathleen McCluskey-Fawcett Woman Mentoring Women Award at the Emily Taylor Center Recognition Program. This award is given to a "woman-identified student, staff, or faculty who has demonstrated outstanding commitment to supporting and mentoring women at the University of Kansas."

Jenna Lea joined the Unckless lab in May 2018 as a research assistant. Jenna recently graduated from the University of Georgia where she was an undergraduate working in the labs of Andrew Park, Kelly Dyer, and Courtney Murdock. Jenna will study the evolutionarygenetics of meiotic drive in Drosophilaaffinis.

 

Aubrie Stricker (undergraduate student, Lundquist lab) has been named a Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) Star Trainee. The K-INBRE Star Trainee Program is designed “to identify outstanding prospective biomedical researchers during their junior year in college, and provide financial support during the senior year.” Aubrie will use the model organism nematode worm to investigate the molecular mechanisms of axon pathfinding during nervous system development. These studies have implications for human neurodevelopmental disorders and recovery after central nervous system injury.

Letty Beltran (undergraduate, Hefty Lab) won the Sigma Xi and the Outstanding Presenter Awards at the 2018 Undergraduate Research Symposium. Letty was also admitted to the 2018/19 KU PREP program.

 

May 2018 News   

Dean Stetler (associate professor) is retiring from the University of Kansas after 42 total years of association with the university. Dean is a KU alumnus, earning a BA (1976) and a PhD (1980) in Microbiology, working in the laboratory of George Boguslavski where he studied Histoplasma capsulatum. Dean completed postdoctoral training in the lab of Sam Jacob in the Department of Pharmacology at Pennsylvania State University where he began his long term study of autoimmune diseases, cancer and RNA polymerases. Dean was recruited to the Department of Pharmacology and Specialized Cancer Research Center at Penn State in 1982 as an Assistant Professor. In 1985, Dean was recruited back to KU to the department of Biochemistry as an Assistant Professor, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1989.  Throughout his career Dean contributed strong and creative research.  He was first to describe that antibodies against RNA polymerase are part of the anti-nuclear antibody array associated with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE), an observation that continues to provide diagnostic information in the clinic. Dean generated three US patents on diagnosing and monitoring severity of autoimmune diseases, and he developed the first model to induce SLE in mice without genetic alteration. More recently, he turned his attention to human genetics with research that links gene expression with violent crime. His research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, American Cancer Society, and the Arthritis Foundation. Dean’s teaching scope at KU was extensive, contributing to 17 undergraduate and graduate courses and he demonstrated a strong commitment to training undergraduate students in his lab to conduct research. During his career, Dean trained over a dozen pre-doctoral and postdoctoral investigators who went on to successful careers.  As DNA analysis was becoming important for the legal system and experts were needed to explain the process and probabilities to attorneys, judges and juries, Dean established himself as such an expert and contributed to over 275 legal cases in 11 states and Canada. During this time, he was frequently invited to conduct workshops to legal professionals on the topics associated with DNA analysis. Dean’s service to the University was extensive. Most notable, he served as director of Graduate Studies for the Department of Molecular Biosciences and Director of the Genetics Program.  Dean also served as the Director of Undergraduate Biology, during which time he founded the Undergraduate Biology Graduate Recognition Ceremony, planned this year for May 12. Dean has had a varied and successful career, and the University of Kansas is better for his many contributions. He has been respected member of the KU faculty and he will be missed by his colleagues who wish him well as he enters the next stage of his life.

Dr. Stuart Macdonald has been promoted to full professor. Dr. Macdonald earned his D.Phil at the University of Oxford, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California at Irvine before starting his lab at KU in 2006. The Macdonald group seeks to understand the genetic basis of complex traits in the Drosophila model system using a combination of genetic mapping, genomics, computational analysis, and functional genetics.

 

Haifa Alhadyian (graduate student, Rob Ward lab) won the Outstanding International Woman Student Award as part of the Emily Taylor Center Recognition Program. This award recognizes an international student who has demonstrated academic achievement and has made a contribution to the campus and/or community through involvement. 

 

Lingfei Liang (graduate student, Egan/Tang lab) is the recipient of the 2018 Philip and Marjorie Newmark Award, given annually to a graduate student who has demonstrated excellence in biochemical research. Lingfei determined the crystal structures of bacteriophage proteins that are important in understanding virion assembly and viral DNA delivery into their hosts.

 

Jeff McFarlane (graduate student, Lamb lab) is the recipient of an American Heart Association (AHA) Predoctoral Fellowship for his project entitled, “Staphylopine biosynthesis as an antimicrobial target in Staphylococcus aureus infective endocarditis.” The AHA states the purpose of this program is “to enhance the integrated research and clinical training of promising students who are matriculated in pre-doctoral or clinical health professional degree training programs and who intend careers as scientists, physician-scientists or other clinician-scientists, or related careers aimed at improving global cardiovascular health.” Jeff plans to determine the structures and functional mechanisms of the proteins required to generate staphylopine, a metallophore linked to pathogenesis.

The Department of Molecular Biosciences would like to thank our Graduate Student Organization for organizing this year’s SEARCH symposium. We are very proud of our students’ hard work and dedication to put on such a successful event. The SEARCH symposium (Scientists Exploring non-Academic caReer CHoices) was held on April 21, 2018 at the University of Kansas’ new Burge Union. The symposium, co-organized by the Molecular Biosciences (MB) and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology (EEB) Graduate Student Organizations, brought in 16 professionals from a wide variety of non-academic career paths to speak to symposium attendees. The SEARCH symposium welcomed over 100 graduate students and post-doctoral researchers from KU-Lawrence, KU Medical Center, The Stowers Institute for Medical Research, and Kansas State University. Attendees had the opportunity to listen to, ask questions, and network with industry professionals through spotlight talks, topic-based panels, and a networking/“meet the professionals” event at the conclusion of the day. To learn more about the symposium, the speakers, or the goals of the symposium, please visit Search Symposium

Cara Davis (undergraduate student, Lamb lab) has been named a Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) Star Trainee. The K-INBRE Star Trainee Program is designed “to identify outstanding prospective biomedical researchers during their junior year in college, and provide financial support during the senior year.” Cara aims to determine the structure and function of the enzymes involved in yersinopine biosynthesis, a metallophore generated by the bacteria that causes plague.

Jasmine Deng (undergraduate, Oakley lab) has been named a TRIO McNair Scholar.  The award provides resources and support to prepare and earn placement in graduate programs to pursue doctoral degrees. Jasmine is a senior from Merriam, majoring in biochemistry with research interests in secondary metabolite discovery and neurodegenerative disease.

 

April 2018 News  

David Davido (associate professor), and Andrea Bertke (assistant professor, Virginia Tech University) are the recipients of a two-year National Institutes of Health Exploratory/ Developmental Research Grant (R21) entitled “Identification of novel HSV-1 ICP0 E3 ligase targets by mass spectrometry in neurons.”  Herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) causes recurrent cold and ocular sores and has the capacity to infect sensory neurons; the viral protein, ICP0, plays an important role in HSV-1 pathogenesis.  The goal of this grant is to identify cellular proteins ICP0 destabilizes that contribute to HSV-1 lytic replication in neurons.

 

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) received a Genetics editor’s choice award in Population and Evolutionary Genetics. The article is featured in Genes to Genomes.

 

Liang Xu (professor) published the paper "Time-lapse live cell imaging to monitor doxorubicin release from DNA origami nanostructures" in Journal of Materials Chemistry B that featured as the front cover image, and was selected as “hot paper” of 2018.

 

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) was invited to teach in an international short course entitled “Microbial Signaling” held from March 19th to 23rd at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The course was supported by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation and attended primarily by students in the Graduate Program in Cellular and Molecular Biology at Oswaldo Cruz and the Microbiology Graduate Program at the Federal University in Rio de Janairo (Brazil). The seminar series covered basic and advanced aspects of microbial signaling within and between microbes and is based on the book chapter “Microbial Signaling” co-authored by Dr. Chandler and others published recently in the book “Molecular Diversity of Environmental Prokaryotes" (CRC Press 2016, pages 147-175).

 

Taybor Parker (graduate student, Neufeld lab) was selected to represent the University of Kansas at the 15th Annual Capitol Graduate Research Summit  in Topeka, KS on March 27, 2018. Parker and twelve other graduate students from KU and KU Medical Center joined peer students from other Kansas universities, including Emporia State University, Fort Hays State University, Kansas State University, Pittsburg State University, and Wichita State University.  Each participant presented a research poster for State government and education officials, as well as for the general public.  Parker won the KU Presentation Award for his poster, “Stopping Colorectal Cancer Before it Starts: The Many Roles of the APC Protein.”

 

Cara Davis (undergraduate, Lamb lab) is the recipient of a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship,  the nation’s premier undergraduate award for academically gifted students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Cara will be studying enzymes involved in metal ion acquisition in the bacterial pathogen that causes plague.  Read more about KU’s nominees in KU Today article.

 

March 2018 News   

Dan Dixon (associate professor) joins the Department of Molecular Biosciences faculty. Dr. Dixon is transferring his laboratory from the KU Medical Center campus where he is the Cancer Prevention & Survivorship Program Co-Leader at the University of Kansas National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated Cancer Center. The Dixon lab will continue their research exploring the role of post-transcriptional gene regulation in cancer.

 

Kristi Neufeld (professor) was appointed as a Frank B Tyler professor in Cancer Research. Frank B. Tyler was a 1947 University of Kansas graduate who died in 2003, leaving a gift to advance cancer research efforts. The funding will support Neufeld’s research which aims to define the underlying mechanisms for growth control of normal intestinal tissue, explaining how alterations in a specific tumor suppressor gene, APC, lead to colorectal cancer development. See pg. 19 of Beyond The Bench.

 

Jinan Wang (postdoc, Miao Lab) joins the department from the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Dr. Wang will mainly work on method development and computer simulations of biomolecular recognition, such as protein-protein/nucleic acid interactions and ligand binding.

 

February 2018 News   

Mizuki Azuma (associate professor) is the recipient of a National Cancer Institute Small Grant Program (R03) award for her proposal entitled "O-GlcNAcylation of Ewing sarcoma proteins in chromosomal maintenance." This is a multi-PI grant with Mizuki Azuma and Chad Slawson of KUMC.  The goal of this project is to understand DNA mutations in a rare form of childhood bone cancer (Ewing sarcoma) by looking at how the chromosomes change after a sugar is attached to proteins implicated in disease progression.

 

Christian Ray (assistant professor) was selected to organize a conference, Computation by Natural Systems at the UK Royal Society with co-organizers Dominique Chu (University of Kent,UK) and Mikhail Prokopenko (University of Sydney, Australia). The conference will be held in Kavli Royal Society Centre in Buckinghamshire, UK from March 21-22, 2018.

 

Vaughn Craddock (undergraduate, Chandler Lab) and Mary Mitchell (undergraduate, Macdonald Lab) were the recipients of K-INBRE undergraduate research fellowships for the Spring/Summer 2018. Vaughn’s project is entitled, “Quorum sensing control of antibiotic resistance in the pathogenic bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa." Mary’s project is entitled, "The Genetic Basis of Sleep Deprivation in Drosophila melanogaster."

 

Cara Davis (undergraduate, Lamb lab) was awarded first place for her podium presentation at the annual symposium of the Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence in Overland Park, KS on January 13.  Cara’s talk was entitled, “Biosynthesis of yersinopine: an opine metallophore from Yersinia pestis.

 

Emily Freeburne (undergraduate, Timmons lab) has received a KU Undergraduate Research Award for Spring 2018 for her project: “Identification of Three Genes Required for RNAi in C. elegans.”

 

Emily Smith (undergraduate, Timmons lab) has received a KU Undergraduate Research Award for Spring 2018 for her project: “Dimerization Partners of Half Transporters.” 

 

January 2018 News 

The Department of Molecular Biosciences mourns the passing of Dr. Marjorie Newmark.  Marge came to KU as a Research Associate in 1954, working with Dr. Byron Wenger.  She became a Lecturer in 1962, was promoted to Assistant Professor in 1964, and Associate Professor in 1974. During the early part of her career, Marge carried out research on arterial metabolism and atherogenesis. Marge taught a variety of biochemistry courses, but is probably best remembered for the challenging introductory biochemistry lab course that she developed. She obtained National Science Foundation funding for equipment to set up this lab in 1971, teaching it almost every fall until her retirement in 1991. Marge was nominated for the prestigious H.O.P.E. Award, which means she was one of five faculty members to receive the most “outstanding professor” nominations from a KU senior class. She can also take credit for building the biochemistry graduate program from a mere handful of students to a thriving program of over 40 students during her tenure as Director of Graduate Studies for the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, a predecessor of the Molecular Biosciences Department.  The Newmark Award was established in 1964 after the untimely death of Marge’s husband, Phillip, who was also a biochemistry professor at KU, and more recently honored Marge’s accomplishments as well.  The award is presented annually to a graduate student in biochemistry at a named lecture presented by a world-renowned biochemist.  We send our sincere condolences to Marge’s three children, and all those who remember a remarkable teacher, colleague and friend.

We are saddened by the passing of Dr. Rolf Borchert on November 23, 2017. Rolf was a professor of plant physiological ecology in the Biology Division from 1968-2002, and for several years chaired the department of Physiology and Cell Biology, a predecessor of the Molecular Biosciences Department.  Before arriving at KU, Rolf was faculty at Universidad de los Andes in Bogota, Colombia from 1962-1968. There he became interested in understanding how plants in tropical dry forests respond to seasons of intense drought with respect to leaf bud break, flowering, and growth. At KU, he continued researching and publishing in this area, and carried out extensive field work in Costa Rica. He led undergraduate KU Study Abroad programs in Bonn, Germany, and San Jose, Costa Rica, and spent sabbaticals in Massachusetts and Darmstadt (Germany).  He also spent a sabbatical at the Harvard Forest, where he received a Bullard Fellowship.  Rolf collaborated with many colleagues from Latin America, Asia, and Germany while analyzing large data sets to better understand phenological patterns in response to environmental cues. In one of his most significant contributions, Rolf collaborated with colleagues to show that tropical trees can use small changes in sunset or sunrise timing to produce synchronous flowering across large areas, and this work was published in the journal Nature in 2005.  Rolf was married to Laura Borchert of Lawrence, KS and raised three daughters and enjoyed the company of his six grandchildren. Our deepest sympathies go out to Dr. Borchert’s family and all those whose lives he touched.  He will be greatly missed.

 

The Center for the Molecular Analysis of Disease Pathways NIH COBRE project was funded for a second five-year, $10.8 million phase. Dr. Erik Lundquist (professor) is co-investigator on the project along with Dr. Susan Lunte (Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Chemistry) as the Principal Investigator and Dr. Blake Peterson (Medicinal Chemistry) as co-investigator. The project enables biomedical research on the KU campus through three core laboratories, the Genome Sequencing Core, the Microfabrication and Microfluidics Core, and the Synthetic Chemical Biology Core, and funds program grants and pilot projects. Dr. Lundquist leads the Genome Sequencing Core in Haworth Hall, which as a result of the renewal of this project, will obtain and house an Illumina Nextseq high-throughput sequencing instrument as well as a BioRad dropSEQ single cell sequencing instrument. Read the article here.

 

Vincent Czerwinski (undergraduate, Lundquist lab) has received a KU Undergraduate Research Award for his project “The role of the Cadherin CDH-3 in cell migration”.

Aubrie Stricker (undergraduate, Lundquist lab) has received a KU Undergraduate Research Award for her project “The Rho GEF RHGF-1 regulates growth cone microtubules in axon outgrowth”.

December 2017 News   

Berl Oakley (Irving S. Johnson distinguished professor) and collaborator Richard Todd at K-State have been notified that they were awarded a KCALSI (Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute) Nexus of Human and Animal Health Research Grant. The goal of this project is to determine the role of nitrogen sources and primary metabolism regulators in the regulation of important bioactive compounds called secondary metabolites, using the fungus Aspergillus nidulans as a model system. 

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) has been invited to serve as an Associate Editor for the journal Genes, Genomes, Genetics, a journal specializing in publishing foundational research in all areas of genetics.

Virangika Wimalasena (undergraduate, Slusky Lab) received a Biophysical Society Travel Award to go to the 2018 National Biophysical Society Meeting in San Francisco, California on February 17-21.

 

November 2017 News                         

David Davido (associate professor) will serve another three year term on the editorial board for Journal of Virology starting 2018.  

Erik Lundquist (professor) served as chair of the Neurodifferentiation, Plasticity, Regeneration, and Rhythmicity (NDPR) grant review study section for the National Institutes of Health on October 25th and 26th in Arlington, VA.

Kara Evans (graduate student, Chandler lab), received the American Society for Microbiology travel award to present at the 6th Annual ASM Cell-Cell Communication in Bacteria Meeting in Athens, GA on October 17-18. Her poster was entitled “Quorum sensing-controlled efflux pump protects cooperators during interspecies competition.” 

Kathryn Brewer and Cara Davis (undergraduates, Lamb lab) both received travel awards from the Center for Undergraduate Research to present their work at the Midwest Enzyme Chemistry Conference at Loyola University Chicago on October 14. Kathryn presented a poster entitled “Assessing the Post-translational Modification of PvdJ Module 2 in Pseudomonas aeruginosa,” whereas Cara’s was called “Structural and Functional Characterization of a Yersinia pestis Opine Dehydrogenase Involved in Metallophore Biosynthesis.” They presented the same posters a week later at the American Chemical Society Midwest Regional Meeting here at KU.

Katie Morales (undergraduate, Gamblin and Ackley labs) received a travel award from the Center for Undergraduate Research to present her research at the Society for Neuroscience’s 47th Annual Meeting November 11-15, 2017 in Washington DC.

 

October 2017 News                            

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) joins the Department of Molecular Biosciences faculty. Dr. Miao received his Ph.D. at the Indiana University in the lab of Peter Ortoleva. He subsequently completed his postdoctoral research with Jeremy Smith and Jerome Baudry at the University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he studied drug-processing enzymes. He then moved to Andy McCammon’s lab at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and University of California San Diego, where he worked on both method developments and applications in accelerated biomolecular simulations and drug discovery of the G-protein-coupled receptors. The Miao lab at KU will continue to work on biomolecular modeling, cellular signaling and computer-aided drug design.  Welcome Dr. Miao!

Joanna Slusky (assistant professor) is the recipient of an NIH Director's New Innovator Award (DP2) for a proposal entitled "Designed Beta-Strands for Inhibiting Efflux Pumps and Disabling Antibiotic Resistance.” This program’s goal is to support a few exceptionally creative and promising early stage investigators who propose bold and highly innovative new research approaches and is part of the NIH High-Risk, High-Reward Research Program. Information about this Program which comprises four different types of awards can be found on the NIH website.

Mark Richter (professor) has been awarded an NIH Phase 2 SBIR grant in collaboration with Pinnacle Technology Inc. in Lawrence to develop a biosensor that measures the concentration of the neuroactive compound gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) in the brains of model animals. GABA is the major neuroinhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain and it plays a critical role in processes ranging from newborn seizures to anxiety, Alzheimer's, Huntington's, and Parkinson's diseases. The biosensor will measure changes in GABA concentration on a second by second basis in normal and diseased brains.

Joanna Slusky (assistant professor) and her lab’s research is the cover story, “The Protein in the Freezer,” for KU's alumni magazine for September. 

 

September 2017 News

David Davido (associate professor) served as selection committee chair for the Priscilla Schaffer Graduate Student and Postdoctoral Travel Awards at the 42nd International Herpesvirus Workshop in Ghent, Belgium, from July 29-August 2, 2017.  He also gave a talk entitled "Inhibition of Viral DNA Replication Limits the Efficacy of an HSV-1 Neuro-attenuated Vaccine in Mice.”

Ilya Vakser (professor) received the competitive renewal of his National Institute of General Medical Sciences, NIH Research Project Grant (R01) entitled "Integrated resource for protein recognition studies."  The goal of this four- year project is to develop protein docking methodology and an accompanying molecular recognition data resource for studies of protein interfaces and development of docking and scoring techniques.

Dr. Sonia Hall, who obtained her PhD from Rob Ward's lab in Molecular Biosciences, was recently profiled by the KU College of Graduate Affairs for their Alumni Spotlight series. Dr. Hall currently works for the Genetics Society of America as their Director of Engagement and Development.

Dr. Adam Norris, a 2011 Ph.D. graduate of the Lundquist lab, has started a position as assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX. Adam was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. John Calarco in the FAS Institute for Systems Biology at Harvard University, where he studied regulation of RNA processing in neurons and developed CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing techniques in C. elegans.

Jeff McFarlane (graduate student, Lamb lab) is the recipient of the Borgendale Award for his talk at the 2017 Graduate Student Symposium. Jeff’s research talk was entitled “Biosynthesis of opine metallophores by bacterial pathogens.”  

Christian Gomez (graduate student, Neufeld lab) was the recipient of a travel award from the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) to help defray expenses associated with attending the Gastrointestinal Tract XVII: Current Biology of the GI tract, Mucosa, Microbiota, and Beyond FASEB Science Research Conference.  At the Conference, held July 30 - August 4 in Steamboat Springs, CO, Gomez gave an oral presentation entitled “Increased Levels of APC in Goblet Cells Linked to Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress and Non-O Glycosylated Muc2.”

Taybor Parker (graduate student, Neufeld lab) was the recipient of a travel award from the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) to help defray expenses associated with attending the Gastrointestinal Tract XVII: Current Biology of the GI tract, Mucosa, Microbiota, and Beyond FASEB Science Research Conference. At the Conference, held July 30 - August 4 in Steamboat Springs, CO, Parker presented a poster entitled “Wnt-dependent asymmetric distribution of the ß-catenin destruction complex in the mammalian intestine.”

The Annual MB Graduate Student Symposium was held at The Oread on August 18th with guest speaker Mary Dasso as this year’s John C. Davis Memorial Lecture speaker. Her seminar was entitled, Poring over the Nuclear Pore: Nucleoporin functions in interphase and mitosis.”

 

August 2017 News

Erik Lundquist (professor), along with co-investigator David Miller at Vanderbilt University, was awarded an R21 Exploratory/ Developmental Research Grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (one of the National Institutes of Health) entitled “The Role of ETR-1/CELF, an RNA-Binding Protein, in Neuronal Migration.” This project involves identification of mRNA targets of ETR-1 processing that are involved in migration of neuroblasts in C. elegans. The project will utilize fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) coupled with mutant analysis and whole transcriptome mRNA sequencing (RNAseq) to identify targets regulated by ETR-1.

Dana K. Tucker (postdoc, Ackley lab; fellow in the KU IRACDA program) is starting a faculty appointment at the University of Central Missouri on August 1. Dana’s work has focused on how neurons sense directions to properly orient axon growth during development. She has identified mutations in a set of genes that contribute to axon guidance. Mutations in these genes are linked to Autism Spectrum Disorder in humans, and thus this work will advance our understanding of how brain development may be affected in people with ASD. Dana and the Ackley lab will continue to collaborate on this project.

Kara Hinshaw (graduate student, Chandler lab) is the recipient of several honors. She is the recipient of the E.L. And Mildred Pursell Wolf Scholarship covering summer tuition and a Molecular Biosciences Summer Research Fellowship. Kara was also awarded the Ida H. Hyde Scholarship for Women in Science to study at a non-KU research laboratory, which she used to travel to Maine to take the Environmental Genomics 2017 course at the MDI Biological Laboratory. The course focused on teaching participants how to design, analyze and interpret population-scale genomics studies on environmental stress.

The University of Kansas Cancer Center (KUCC) officially renewed their National Cancer Institute (NCI) designation for five years.The University of Kansas Cancer Center remains one of only 69 nationally designated centers by the NCI. Molecular Biosciences faculty members are active in two of the four research programs of the KUCC. Kristi Neufeld serves as co-leader of the Cancer Biology (CB) program, which uses model systems to identify targets for drug development and analyze potential chemotherapeutic agents. Many of the chemical compounds evaluated by the CB group are generated by members of the Drug Discovery, Delivery and Experimental Therapeutics (D3ET) program. 

The Chancellor’s Office held a surprise birthday celebration for Del Shankel (emeritus professor for Molecular Biosciences and former KU Chancellor) on Wednesday, August 9. Dr. Shankel celebrated his 90th birthday and was greeted by his fellow colleagues. From left to right: Profs.Matthew Buechner, Kzysztof Kuczera, Del Shankel, Susan Egan, Steve Benedict, and Dean Stetler.  

Del served in the Army until 1952, where he learned about Lab Technology. Following his Army service, he earned a doctorate in bacteriology from The University of Texas. In 1959, Del came to KU as an Assistant Professor in the Microbiology Department. Del’s prolific career at KU has spanned over 50 years, and with his many roles he has influenced many colleagues. He has held the title of chancellor, executive vice chancellor, acting vice chancellor for academic affairs, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, chair of the Department of Microbiology, interim director of intercollegiate athletics, and interim president of the KU Alumni Association. He is currently an emeritus professor in the Department of Molecular Biosciences and Chancellor Emeritus. Del and his wife Carol established the Del & Carol Shankel Biomedical Scholarship to sponsor undergraduates in biology who are planning a career in biomedical sciences. In 2004, the Delbert M. Shankel Structural Biology Center was named in his honor. Read moreabout Dr. Shankel and the naming of SBC.

 

July 2017 News

Cora Downs Hall honors the first woman to receive a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas. She earned that degree in 1924 after receiving her undergraduate and master’s degrees from KU. She became one of KU’s most outstanding scientists, working first in 1917 as an instructor of bacteriology and rising to become a professor of microbiology. She remained a member of the faculty until her retirement in 1963, save for a hiatus during World War II when she led 40 scientists in a top secret biological warfare project. Dr. Down’s awards are many, including the Citation for Distinguished Service, KU’s highest honor.  Read more about Dr. Downs on the Emily Taylor Center for Women and Gender Equity website.

Liang Tang (associate professor) is a co-investigator of a Resource-Related Research Project Cooperative Agreement from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences for the Midwest Consortium for High Resolution Cryoelectron Microscopy.  Wen Jiang (Purdue) is leading this project.  The main goal of this project is to establish a resource for direct electron detection and state-of-the-art cryoEM data collection at the host university (Purdue) shared by 11 participating member universities in the region.

David Davido (associate professor) co-chaired the graduate student and post-doctoral trainee presentation session at the Colorado Alphaherpesvirus Latency Symposium in Vail, CO, May 17-20 and served on its planning committee.  He also gave a presentation at this year’s meeting entitled "Inhibition of viral DNA replication limits the efficacy of an HSV-1 neuro-attenuated vaccine in mice."

Kristi Neufeld (professor) was a recipient of the 2017 Robert Weaver Graduate Mentor Award in the Biological Sciences, which is given in recognition of outstanding graduate student mentorship. 

Five Molecular Biosciences faculty from were recipients of Pilot Project Awards from the Center for Biomedical Research Excellence in Protein Structure and Function.

Robert Unckless (assistant professor) will lead a project entitled "A Functional dissection of the maintenance of genetic variation in immune genes”.  The major goal of this project is to understand how peptides involved in immune defense vary within species and how this variation influences antimicrobial activity.

Eric Deeds (associate professor) will lead a project entitled “Characterizing and developing inhibitors of proteasome assembly”. The major goal of this proposal is to structurally characterize the binding of assembly inhibitors to the proteasome, and to leverage those results in the design of more potent inhibitors.

Kristi Neufeld (professor) will direct a project entitled “Structure function analysis of tumor suppressor APC protein”.  This project aims to identify structural features that facilitate interactions between APC and binding partners beta-catenin and Topoisomerase.

Krzysztof Kuczera (professor) will lead a project entitled “Fast processes in optogenetic systems: experiments and modeling”. The major goal of this proposal is the study the light-induced conformational transition in the bacterial phytochrome of D. radiodurans , aimed at understanding the microscopic mechanism and design of improved tools for optogenetic manipulation.

Liang Xu (professor) will lead a project entitled “Fragment based drug discovery of probes for Musashi-2.”  The major goal of this proposal is to carry out fragment-based drug screening for new hits/probes of the Musashi-2 oncoprotein.

Katelyn Soules (graduate student, Hefty lab) will be appointed to the National Institutes of Health funded Graduate Training Program in the Dynamic Aspects of Chemical Biology on July 1 for a term of two years.

 

June 2017 News

Molecular Biosciences participated in the University of Kansas Doctoral Hooding Ceremony on May 13.  From left to right:  Yamini MutrejaKelly Harrison and her mentor Scott Hefty, Chris Gamblin (mentor to Yamini), Kristi Neufeld and her student Andy Wolfe, Jenny Gleason (mentor to Denny), Jiaqin Li (Computational Biology), Denny Swarzlander, Susan Egan (mentor to Jiaqin), Andrew Beaven (Chemistry) and his mentor Wonpil Im.

Molecular Biosciences participated in the University of Kansas Masters Hooding and Undergraduate Distinction/Highest Distinction Ceremony on May 13.  From left to right:  Yuxiao Guo (masters) and her mentor Liang Xu, and Emily Binshtok (Xu lab undergraduate awarded university honors).

On May 6, several graduating undergraduate students participated in the Undergraduate Honors Symposium, presenting original, independent research carried out in MB labs. Left to right: Michael Cory and Aidan Dmitriev (both mentored by Scott Hefty), Mackenzie Bloom (mentored by Kristi Neufeld), Alex Kohlenberg (mentored by Andrew Short from EEB), Tamara Tyner (mentored by James Thorp from EEB), Adam Reeves(mentored by Stuart Macdonald), Emily Binshtok (mentored by Liang Xu), Margaret Hornick (mentored by Chris Gamblin), and Kyle Rampetsreiter (mentored by Arghya Paul from Engineering). In the fall, Michael will attend graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania, Aidan will enter the MD/PhD program at the University of Pittsburg, MacKenzie will attend graduate school at St. Jude Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Adam will attend graduate school at Stanford, Emily will enter the MD/PhD program at UT Southwestern, and Maggie will attend medical school at KUMC. We wish all our graduating students the best of luck with their future careers.

Linda Wiley, Administrative Assistant for Molecular Biosciences since 1998, is retiring from the University of Kansas after 29 years of service.  Linda’s association with KU, however, began many years earlier, as an undergraduate student earning a bachelor’s degree in Psychology with a minor in painting and drawing.  She began her first full-time position at KU working with Continuing Education in 1987, and then worked with the French and African Studies Departments before joining our department.  Linda has a great interest in cultures and peoples of the world, having studied a variety of international music traditions, four different languages, and has interacted with people from around the world by teaching English as a second language for many years.  Linda plans to spend much of her newfound time with family, especially her parents, children and grandchildren. We will miss Linda’s wisdom and broad perspective, her kindness and sense of humor.  We wish her and her family all the best!

Mizuki Azuma (associate professor) is the recipient of a University of Kansas Cancer Pilot Project Grant for her proposal entitled “Role of O-GlcNAcylation of Ewing sarcoma proteins in chromosomal instability.”  Mizuki will work in collaboration with Chad Slawson (KUMC).  The goal of this project is to understand DNA mutations in a rare form of childhood bone cancer (Ewing sarcoma) by looking at how the chromosomes change after a sugar is attached to proteins implicated in disease progression.

Aubrie Stricker (undergraduate, Lundquist Lab) was selected as a K-INBRE Undergraduate Scholar for Spring and Summer of 2017.  Her work will involve the role of Rho GTPase signaling and microtubules in axon guidance in C. elegans.

Sarah MullinaxJoanne Chapman and Rob Unckless (all members of the Unckless lab) participated in the University of Kansas Research Sprint from May 15th to May 19th.  The Research Sprints paired researchers with librarians to tackle a library-based project. The goal of the Unckless lab Sprint was to create and curate a comprehensive database of insect immune peptide function with the long term goal of understanding the links between amino acid sequence and antimicrobial activity. Librarians Rebecca Orozco, Erin Wolfe and Michael Peper helped construct search queries, conduct searches and extract data from papers. Scott Hanrath and Tom Shorock assisted in database construction. 

 

May 2017 News

Yoshiaki Azuma has been promoted to full professor.  Dr. Azuma earned his Ph.D. as Kyushu University, was a post-doctoral research fellow at the National Institute of Health (NIH), Bethesda, MD and joined the department in 2005. His laboratory focuses on understanding the mechanism of chromosome segregation regulated by the essential protein modifier Small Ubiquitin-like MOdifier (SUMO).

P. Scott Hefty has been promoted to full professor. Dr. Hefty earned his Ph.D. at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center before performing his post-doctoral studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Hefty joined the faculty at the University of Kansas in 2006. His research interests are in a better understanding of the basic biology and pathogenesis of Chlamydia

Professor James Orr is retiring from the University of Kansas after 42 dedicated years of service. Jim received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1974 before joining the faculty in the Department of Physiology and Cell Biology at KU in 1975. He was promoted to Associate Professor, with tenure in 1980 and to Professor in 1987. Jim’s time at KU was marked by multiple professional successes in research, teaching and service. His work on cardiac/respiratory physiology led to over 50 publications in peer reviewed journals and funding from, among other places, The American Heart Association.  Jim was the recipient of an Established Investigator award from the American Heart Association from 1981 to 1986.  Jim was an accomplished and cherished instructor, having been voted “Favorite Professor” four times (2013, 2008, 2000 & 1995). But, it was not only the students who appreciated Jim’s teaching, Jim was twice a finalist for the Honor for Outstanding Progressive Educator (HOPE) award from the University, received both the Kemper Fellow and the Ned Fleming Award for Excellence in Teaching (2005), was named a National Academies of Education Fellow in the Life Sciences in 2006, and received the Chancellor’s Club Career Teaching Award in 2013. In addition to his teaching success, Jim served on numerous committees and in leadership positions both within and outside the University, including the Chair of the Division of Biological Sciences (1992-2006), and the President of the Kansas Affiliate of the American Heart Association (1992-1993).   Jim worked tirelessly to improve access to biological research, especially for underrepresented minorities. This work started in 1999 with the funding of the 500 Nations Bridge Program, which “enhances the successful transfer of American Indian students from Haskell Indian Nations University to four-year institutions, including KU.” Jim worked with faculty at KU and the Haskell Indian Nations University, including Dr. Estela Gavosto (Mathematics), Dr. Marigold Lindon (KU Provost’s Office), Dr. Mary Lou Michaelis (Pharmacology and Toxicology) and Dr. Dennis O’Malley (HINU) on obtaining and administering NIH-funded initiatives including the Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Awards program (IRACDA), Initiative to Maximize Student Development (IMSD), KU Post-Baccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP) and RISE: Advancing Biomedical Research for Indians. Jim is an admired and convivial colleague, and he will be missed by his colleagues who wish him all the best as he moves on to the next chapter of his life.

Audrey Lamb (professor) is a recipient of a K. Barbara Schowen Undergraduate Research Mentor Award.  This award honors the contribution of faculty who mentor undergraduate researchers to their students' development and to their own discipline.  The award was presented at the Undergraduate Research Symposium banquet on April 22.  Read the KU Today article.

Kara Hinshaw (graduate student, Chandler lab) was the recipient of the best poster award at the American Society for Microbiology Missouri Valley Branch Meeting in Springfield, Missouri held on March 16-17 for her poster entitled “Quorum sensing control of antibiotic resistance protects cooperating bacterial cells during interspecies competition.”

Aaron Rudeen (graduate student, Neufeld lab) was the recipient of the Graduate Research Competition Award for the 2016-17 academic year. This award was based on his poster presentation entitled, “Investigating a role for tumor-suppressor Adenomatous polyposis coli in chemotherapeutic drug resistance in colorectal cancer” at the Graduate Research Competition, on April 6.

Kathryn Brewer (undergraduate, Lamb lab) is a recipient of a Sally Mason Woman Student in Science Award from the Emily Taylor Center for Women and Gender Equity.  This award honors female undergraduate students in the sciences who have demonstrated academic excellence, involvement in campus activities, and leadership in their academic department. 

Cara Davis (undergraduate, Lamb lab) was the recipient of a best poster presentation award at the KU Undergraduate Research Symposium on April 22.  Her poster was entitled “Structural and functional characterization of a Yersinia pestis opine dehydrogenase involved in metallophore biosynthesis.”

 

April 2017 News 

Liang Xu (professor) is a co-investigator of a National Cancer Institute Project Grant entitled “Synthetic Lethal Targeting of Growth Factor Receptors.”  Blake Peterson (KU School of Pharmacy) is leading this project.  The goal of this project is to develop a new cancer therapy targeting multiple receptors.

Sarah Mullinax (graduate student, Unckless lab) is the recipient of a Madison and Lila Self Graduate Fellowship.  The fellowship provides four years of support for doctoral students who “demonstrate the promise to make significant contributions to their fields of study and society as a whole.”  Sarah will study the function of insect antimicrobial peptides. 

Aaron Rudeen (graduate student, Neufeld lab) was selected to represent the University of Kansas at the 14th Annual Capitol Graduate Research Summit in Topeka, KS on March 10, 2017. Rudeen and seven other graduate students from KU joined peer students from other Kansas universities, including KUMC, Kansas State and Wichita State. Each participant presented a research poster for State government and education officials, as well as the general public.

Kathryn Brewer (undergraduate, Lamb lab) has been nominated by the University of Kansas for a Goldwater Scholarship, a premier undergraduate award to encourage excellence in science, engineering and mathematics.  Kathryn will be studying the enzymes of siderophore biosynthesis.  Read more in the KU Today article.

Cara Davis (undergraduate, Lamb lab) is the recipient of a Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence Star Trainee Award.  The scholarship enables Cara to continue her research on the biosynthesis of a novel metallophore from Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of plague.  Understanding nutrient acquisition by pathogenic bacteria provides new pathways for antimicrobial drug design.

The Molecular Bioscience Graduate Student Organization (MB-GSO) hosted a science education program for Japanese high school students from the global science education program at the University of Fukui, Japan.  From March 20 to 24, fifteen Japanese high school students shadowed research activity in seven laboratories in our department.  Graduate students in each laboratory mentored high schools students in laboratory experiments and preparation of a presentation.

 

March 2017 News

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) recently published a paper in Genetics entitled “Evolution of resistance against CRISPR/Cas9 Gene Drive” that was highlighted on the cover of the journal (see right).  The article was featured in NatureThe AtlanticQuanta Magazine, and on NovaNext.

Robert Ward (associate professor) is the recipient of a National Science Foundation award from the Division of Integrative Organismal Systems for his project entitled “Investigating novel functions of septate junction proteins during morphogenesis in Drosophila.” The final shape of an animal is determined by developmental events that rely on morphogenetic (change in form) processes including cell shape changes and cell rearrangements. The Ward lab conducted a genetic screen in Drosophila(fruit flies), and discovered that proteins that make up the occluding (septate) junction in the fly are also required for morphogenetic processes. The goal of this grant is elucidate the molecular mechanisms by which this collection of proteins regulates morphogenesis during embryogenesis in the fly.

Liang Xu (Professor) is a co-investigator of a recently funded National Cancer Institute Research Project Grant with Jonathan Brody (PI, Thomas Jefferson University School of Medicine) entitled “Targeting HuR to improve a synthetic lethal therapy for pancreatic cancer.” The goal of this project is to determine the role of HuR in promoting a resistance mechanism for pancreatic adenocarcinoma exposed to PARP inhibitors.

Audrey Lamb (professor) is a co-investigator on a recently funded National Institute of General Medical Sciences Research Project Grant entitled “Towards exome analyses: Surprising outcomes from mutating non-conserved positions.”  Liskin Swint-Kruse (KUMC) is leading this project, in collaboration with Aron Fenton (KUMC) and Paul Smith (KState).  The goal of this work is to understand the functional effect of protein variants at rheostat positions for soluble, allosteric enzymes.

Chris Gamblin (professor) and Berl Oakley (Irving S. Johnson distinguished professor) are the recipients of a renewal award from the H. L. Snyder Medical Foundation for their proposal entitled “Development of novel anti-tau agents for treatment of Alzheimer's disease.”  The goal of this work is to develop compounds based on fungal natural products that disassemble tau aggregates and counteract the neuropathological effects of tau in Alzheimer's disease and other dementias.

 

February 2017 News 

Audrey Lamb (professor) is a member of the team assembled by Liskin Swint-Kruse (KUMC) and Aron Fenton (KUMC) that recently was funded by the W. M. Keck Foundation for their proposal entitled “Defining the Rules for Rheostatic Modulation of Protein Function.”  The goal of this project is to understand the functional consequences of amino acid variation at non-conserved sites in membrane and intrinsically unstructured proteins, and soluble proteins that are not allosterically regulated.

Irving S. Johnson (distinguished professor) is the recipient of an award from Acidophil for his proposal entitled “Heterologous expression of a fungal Non-ribosomal peptide synthetase gene.”  This grant provides support for the transferral of a biosynthetic gene from another fungus into Aspergillus nidulans with the goal of expressing it at high levels. The gene is involved in the production of an agriculturally and medically important compound.  Dr. Oakley’s contract with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory entitled “Expression of Polyketide Synthase Genes and Terpene Synthases and Cyclases in Aspergillus nidulans” was also renewed.  The goal of this work is to stimulate the expression of compounds that are useful as biofuels or as cost-effective starting materials for synthesis of high value compounds.Berl Oakley 

Joanne Chapman joined the Unckless lab in January 2016 as a postdoctoral researcher.  She will study the evolution of antimicrobial peptides via gene duplication and loss in Drosophila.  Joanne is originally from New Zealand, but completed her PhD at the University of Oxford and was previously a postdoc at Lund and Linnaeus Universities in Sweden.

Won Suk Lee has joined the Lundquist lab as a post-doctoral researcher. Won Suk completed his Ph.D. at Rutgers University/UMDNJ. He will study the roles of guidance receptors in axon outgrowth in the developing nervous system using C. elegans.

Trey Ronnebaum (graduate student, Lamb lab) was the recipient of a Graduate Scholarly Presentation Travel Fund award from the KU Office of Graduate Studies.  Trey presented a poster entitled “Investigating ‘Stuffed’ Domains of NRPS Assembly Lines: PchF and PchE of Pyochelin Biosynthesis” at the 25th Enzyme Mechanisms Conference in St. Pete Beach, Florida, January 4-8.

Adam Reeves (undergraduate, Mcdonald lab) won the outstanding oral presentation award for his invited presentation “Patterns of Transposable Element Expression in Heads During Drosophila Aging” at the 2017 K-INBRE Symposium, Manhattan Kansas, January 13-15.

 

January 2017 News

Lynn Hancock (associate professor) is the recipient of a National Institutes of Health Exploratory/Developmental Research (R21) Grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease for his project entitled “The role of peptide signaling in Enterococcus faecalis biofilm development.”  E. faecalis is an opportunistic pathogen that normally inhabits the gastrointestinal tract without causing infection, but is capable of infecting the bloodstream, the urinary tract and heart valves.   The goal of this work is to characterize peptide importers and exporters to understand the role of these proteins complexes during infection.

Kristi Neufeld (professor) was the guest research presenter at the annual KU Center for Research Inc. board meeting on December 16.  The title of her talk was “Go with your gut: the study of proteins to fight colon cancer.”

Maggie Hornick (undergraduate, Gamblin lab) has received a KU Undergraduate Research Award for Spring 2017 for her project “Effects of Increased Pseudohyperphosphorylation on Tau in Alzheimer’s Disease Pathology”

Katie Morales (undergraduate, Gamblin lab) has received a KU Undergraduate Research Award for Spring 2017 for her project “Comparative differences between human tau isoforms in models of Alzheimer’s disease."

December 2016 News

Audrey Lamb (professor) is a co-investigator on a recently funded National Institute of General Medical Sciences Research Project Grant entitled “Dissecting allostery in pyruvate kinase.”  Aron Fenton (KU Medical Center) is leading this project, designed to understand the regulation of the enzyme pyruvate kinase in diabetes.

Kristi Neufeld (professor) was highlighted as one of KU’s most innovative researchers at the KU Elevate: Innovation in Action event in Wichita on Friday, October 28.  Neufeld gave a TED-style talk called “Go with your gut: the study of tumor-suppressing proteins” which can be viewed on YouTube.

Berl Oakley (Irving S. Johnson distinguished professor) had his research highlighted in an article called “A key regulator of secondary metabolites” in Nature Reviews Microbiology.

Eric Deeds and Scott Hefty (associate professors) and Audrey Lamb (professor) attended the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students in Tampa, Florida, November 9-12 where they served as mentors and poster judges.

 

November 2016 News

Scott Hefty (associate professor) and Thomas Prisinzano (Medical Chemistry) hosted U.S. Senator Jerry Moran and two representatives of the National Institute of Health: National Institute for General Medical Sciences Director Jon Lorsch and Center for Research Capacity Building Acting Director Fred Taylor on October 13th . The group came to hear a presentation about the recently NIH funded Center for Biomedical Research Excellence in Chemical Biology of Infectious Disease.  Drs. Prisinzano and Hefty led the Senator and NIH officials on a tour of the associated core laboratories following the presentation.

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor and Director of Graduate Studies) wrote successful Fellowship proposals on behalf of the Molecular Biosciences Graduate Program. KU Graduate Studies awarded the department two University Graduate Fellowships for the 2017-18 academic year, one of which is designated to recruit a domestic, underrepresented minority student. In addition, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences awarded Molecular Biosciences a 2017 Dean's Doctoral Fellowship, which can fund a doctoral student for up to two years. All three Fellowships will be used to enhance our recruitment of new graduate students.

Audrey Lamb (professor) was interviewed by John Augusto, Director of the KU Center for Undergraduate Research, for the center’s project on The Research Cycle.

IlyaVakser (professor) had a recent research article entitled “Challenges in structural approaches to cell modeling” highlighted in KU Today.

Liang Xu (professor) is a co-investigator of a recently funded NIH/NCI R21 grant with Dr. Qi Chen (PI, KUMC), entitled “New HuR inhibitor against pancreatic cancer EMT and CSCs.” The goal of this project is to study a new inhibitor of HuR on its activity and mechanism in inhabiting pancreatic cancer metastasis and cancer stem cells.

Tom Hill (postdoc, Unckless lab) is the recipient of Max Kade Fellowship for his proposal entitled “'The pathogenicity and host response of Drosophila innubila Nudivirus.”  The goal is to establish Drosophila innubila nudivirus (DiNV) as the DNA virus model for Drosophila.  This work will allow us to understand how other DNA viruses, such as Herpes viruses and Pox viruses, interact with the host, so we can better understand these human diseases.  Tom is also the recipient of an Austrian Federal Minister of Science, Research and Economy Award for Excellence 2016 for his doctoral dissertation entitled 'Hybrid dysgenesis in Drosophila simulans associated with a rapid global invasion of the P-element.”

 

October 2016 News

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) is a co-investigator on two recently funded grants.  First, she will be working with Mario Rivera (PI, chemistry), Blake Peterson (medicinal chemistry) and Richard Bunce (Oklahoma State) on a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease research project grant entitled “Chemical tools for perturbing iron homeostasis is P. aeruginosa.”  Josie and Mario will also be working on “Protein interactions regulate iron storage and utilization in bacteria,” a Division of Molecular and Cellular Bioscience award from the NSF.  Josie’s contribution to both projects will be to provide consultation on genetics and molecular biology approaches to evaluate some of the consequences of disrupting iron homeostasis in P. aeruginosa.

Joanna Slusky (assistant professor) is the recipient of a Chemical Biology of Infectious Disease NIH Center for Biomedical Research Excellence junior investigator award for her project entitled “Targeting TolC oligomerization to potentiate antibiotics.”  The goal of this work is to design peptides and peptidomimetics to disrupt TolC oligomerization thereby disabling antibiotic resistance.

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) is the recipient of two recently funded grants.  First, his proposal entitled “Pathology, host defense and population of Drosophila innubial Nudivirus” has been awarded by the Center for Molecular Analysis of Disease Pathway NIH Center for Biomedical Research Excellence.   The goal of this work is to develop an understanding of a recently discovered virus so that it may be used as a model to study DNA virus infection.  He is also the recipient of an Pathway to Independence Award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences for his project entitled “Antimicrobial peptides as models for the evolution of gene duplication.”  The goal of this work is to understand the forces that lead to differences in the copy number of individual genes using the immune system as a model.

Berl Oakley (Irving S. Johnson Distinguished Professor) has been named to the advisory board for the Fungal Genetics Stock Center.  The FGSC is the largest repository of mutant fungal strains and is a resource for fungal researchers around the world.

Liang Xu (professor) and Co-PI Danny Welch (Cancer Biology, KUMC) were awarded a Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program Breakthrough Award Level 2 Grant entitled “Blocking breast cancer metastasis by targeting RNA-binding protein HuR.” They will explore the RNA-binding protein HuR as a novel target for blocking breast cancer metastasis.

The Lamb lab welcomes a new postdoctoral fellow.  Catie Shelton joins the lab as a postdoctoral researcher after completing her PhD in Molecular Genetics at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine earlier this summer.  Catie is part of the Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Award program, and will be investigating the enzymes of siderophore biosynthesis with structural biology and mechanistic enzymology approaches.

 

September 2016 News

Rob Unckless has joined the Department of Molecular Biosciences as an Assistant Professor.  Dr. Unckless received his PhD from the University of Rochester with John Jaenike and H. Allen Orr, and completed his postdoctoral work with Brian Lazzaro and Andy Clark at Cornell University. The Unckless lab at KU will continue to work on the genetics and evolution of immune response and host-pathogen interactions in Drosophila species, using a combination of classical genetics, genomics and modeling.

David Davido (associate professor) served as selection committee chair for the Priscilla Schaffer Graduate Student and Postdoctoral Awards at the 41th International Herpesvirus Workshop in Madison, WI, from July 23-27, 2016.  He also presented a poster at this year's Workshop entitled "Two Amino Acid Substitutions in HSV-1 ICP6 Impair Acute Viral Replication and Latency in Mice and Constitutes a Potential Vaccine Against HSV-1."

Dr. Erik Lundquist received an R56 bridging grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke entitled "Regulation of growth cone protrusion in Netrin-mediated axon repulsion”. Axon guidance is a fundamental mechanism of wiring the nervous system into circuits during development.  Work supported by this award will delve into the basic mechanisms of axon guidance in the model organism nematode C. elegans, which will be relevant to human neurodevelopment disorders and nervous system recovery after stroke or physical trauma.

Rita-Marie McFadden (postdoctoral researcher, Neufeld lab) was selected to serve as a member of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) Education and Professional Development Committee.  As the only postdoc on the committee, Dr. McFadden is tasked with providing input regarding education and training needs for scientists early in their career development, particularly with respect to graduate student and postdoctoral training.  ASBMB has a wide range of programs in education and training.

The Unckless lab welcomes two new members.  Tom Hill joins the lab as a postdoctoral researcher after completing his PhD in Evolutionary Biology and Population Genetics at Vetmeduni Vienna in early 2016.  He is interested in establishing the recently discovered Drosophila innubila nudivirus (DiNV) as the DNA virus model for Drosophila. Specifically, he is interested in understanding how the virus infects Drosophila, and characterizing the host immune response.  Brittny Smith, a KU alum, joins the lab as a research assistant after spending several years in the Macdonald lab.  In the past, Brittny has worked on understanding natural genetic variation and its influence on various traits.  She will continue this work in the Unckless lab working specifically on bacterial immunity.

Bryce Blankenfeld (graduate student, Gamblin lab) and Kara Hinshaw (graduate student, Chandler lab) participated in the Chemistry-Biology Interface Career Development Workshop at the University of Michigan, August 7-9.  Bryce and Kara were two of six graduate students chosen to be in the KU delegation, which also included students from chemistry, medicinal chemistry and pharmaceutical chemistry. 

Kara Hinshaw (graduate student, Chandler lab; pictured above) and Mahekta Gujar (graduate student, Lundquist lab) are the recipients of the Borgendale Award for their talks at the 2016 Graduate Student Symposium.  Kara’s research talk was entitled “Quorum sensing control of antibiotic resistance protects cooperating bacterial cells during interspecies competition.”  Mahekta presented her research with a talk entitled “UNC-33/CRMP inhibits growth cone protrusion in axon repulsion from UNC-6/netrin.”

Lauren Arney (left) and Jessica van Loben Sels (right; 2016 graduates) have been named 2016-2017 KU Women of Distinction.  While undergraduates at KU, both completed Biology honors theses.  Lauren completed her research in the Lamb laboratory, while Jessica was in the Davido lab.  Lauren is now in medical school at KUMC and Jessica is pursuing a doctorate at the University of Cambridge. 

 

August 2016 News

Scott Hefty (associate professor) is co-Investigator on an NIH Center for Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) project that was funded for $11 million.  The grant, entitled “Chemical Biology of Infectious Disease”, is to enable University of Kansas researchers on the Lawrence campus to better contribute to the fight against infectious disease by studying fundamental biology with the use of small molecule chemical probes. Dr. Hefty’s role in the project is to serve as co-investigator for the COBRE and to lead the establishment of an Infectious Disease Assay Development (IDAD) Core to provide expertise, facilities, services, and training in the area of HTS assay design, development, validation, small and large-scale screening for organism (cell) based or biochemical infectious disease targets. Thomas Prisinzano, professor and chair of the Department of Medicinal Chemistry is the Principal Investigator of the grant.

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) had an article from her laboratory entitled, “Human cancer xenografts in outbred nude mice can be confounded by polymorphisms in a modifier of tumorigenesis” recommended in F1000Prime as being of special significance in its field by F1000 Faculty Member Kent Hunter, Deputy Chief of the Laboratory of Cancer Biology and Genetics at the National Cancer Institute.

Audrey Lamb (professor) served as co-chair of the Enzymes, Coenzyme and Metabolic Pathways Gordon Research Conference in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire, July 24-29.

 

July 2016 News

Joanna Slusky (assistant professor) has been named a finalist for the Moore Inventor Fellowship, a competition to identify outstanding inventors who harness science and technology to enhance the conduct of scientific research, strengthen environmental conservation, or improve the experience and outcomes of patient care.

Scott Hefty (associate professor) has been awarded a National Institutes of Health Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant Award (R21) from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease for his project entitled “Transposon Mutagenesis in Chlamydia trachomatis.”  Chlamydia trachomatis is a medically important bacterium for which factors and basic mechanisms for causing disease are poorly understood. This proposal is designed to discover these factors important for disease and direct future efforts for prevention or treatment of these infections.

Jeff McFarlane (graduate student, Lamb lab) will be appointed to the National Institutes of Health funded Graduate Training Program in the Dynamic Aspects of Chemical Biology on July 1 for a term of two years.

Aidan Dmitriev (undergraduate, Hefty lab) has been named a Star Trainee from the Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence. This award provides a stipend, funds for research expenses, and travel to a scientific meeting.  Aidan will be addressing the challenge of the relatively large portion of functionally unknown proteins encoded by the clinically important bacteria, Chlamydia trachomatis, using structural proteomics approaches. These efforts will facilitate functional annotation to better understand the role of these currently uncharacterized proteins in the biology of Chlamydia.

Mackenzie Bloom (undergraduate, Neufeld lab) has been named a Star Trainee from the Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence. This award provides a stipend, funds for research expenses, and travel to a scientific meeting.  Mackenzie will be investigating the link between stem cell proliferation and intestinal tumorigenesis.

 

June 2016 News

Kathy Suprenant (professor) is retiring after 32 years of service to the University of Kansas.  Kathy earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the State University of New York at Albany in 1977 and a Ph. D. in Biology in 1982 at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville.  She completed post-doctoral training in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA, and at the University of Kansas Center for Biomedical Research.  In 1985, she joined the faculty of the department of Physiology and Cell Biology.  Kathy was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 1991 and to full professor in 1996.  After a series of mergers, the Physiology and Cell Biology department morphed into the current department of Molecular Biosciences, where Kathy served as chair from 2004-2008.  Kathy is also a member of the Genetics Program faculty, Computational Biology Program faculty, and the University of Kansas Cancer Center.  Over the years, she taught cell biology to over 4,000 KU students, and trained and provided research experiences to more than 120 undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students.  Her research and published works describe the function of the vault ribonucleoprotein particle and the EML-family of microtubule regulatory proteins during embryonic and postmitotic development.  The National Science Foundation funded this work continuously for 21 years, with additional funding from the National Institutes of Health and the American Cancer Society.  Further, Kathy received a CAREER Award and a Professional Opportunities for Women in Research and Engineering Award, also from the NSF.  From KU, Kathy received a Mortar Board Outstanding Educator Award, the JR and Inez Jay Research Award, and was inducted into the KU Women’s Hall of Fame in 2006.

John Karanicolas (associate professor) has been named the Edward and Thelma Wohlgemuth Faculty Scholar at the Lawrence campus.  Recipients of this award are chosen based on their accomplishments in their early years as faculty members, as well as their great potential for future research and future contributions to their profession.  The award is made possible by a gift from Dorothy Wohlgemuth Lynch in honor of her parents.  Dr. Karanicolas will receive a generous salary supplement for each of the next three years, with the potential for the Scholar appointment to be renewed.  Dr. Karanicolas’ research involves using computational and experimental design techniques to modulate protein function with small molecules.  Among his research interests is the development of novel inhibitors of proteins that have well-validated roles in cancer, toward the development of anti-cancer agents.  

David Davido (associate professor), Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) and Lynda Morrison (St. Louis University) are the recipients of a two-year National Institutes of Health Exploratory/ Developmental Research Grant (R21) entitled "Dissecting the Contribution of Viral Genetic Variation to HSV-1 Neuropathogenesis".  Herpes Simplex Virus type 1 (HSV-1) is a ubiquitous human pathogen that is the primary cause of cold sores. Additionally, in rare cases, HSV-1 can infect the nervous system leading to blindness and encephalitis. The goal of this grant is to identify those viral genes that contribute to neuropathogenesis.

Molecular Biosciences participated in the University of Kansas Doctoral Hooding Ceremony on May 14.  From left to right, Chris Gamblin, Kristi Neufeld, Smita Paranjape, Kawaljit Kaur, Andrew McShan, Chad Highfill, Amber Smith, Yoshi Azuma, Vinidhra Sridharan, Erik Lundquist, Roberto De Guzman, Matthew Josephson, Christian Ray.

Molecular Biosciences participated in the University of Kansas Masters Hooding Ceremony on May 14. From left to right, Mark Richter, KyeongMin Bae, Rob Ward, Haifa Alhadyian, Luke Wenger, Mizuki Azuma.

Haifa Alhadyian (graduate student, Ward Lab) was one of the writers of a new curriculum for Kansas DNA Day.  Dianarys Hernandez-Aquino (graduate student, Macdonald lab) served as an ambassador coordinator for the event.   Several members of our department served as ambassadors, spending a day at area schools helping high school students do experiments and learn about current biomedical research.  Read more in the KU Today article entitled, “DNA Day 2016 expands high school science classroom outreach in Kansas.”

Lauren Arney (undergraduate student, Lamb lab) is a recipient of the Agnes Wright Strickland Award.  Recipients are graduating seniors who are recognized for their academic records, demonstrated leadership in matters of university concern, respect among fellow students, and a dedication to service at the university.   Read more in KU Today article entitled “12 students honored with 2016 University Awards.”

Jessica van Loben Sels (undergraduate, Davido Lab) has been chosen for the National Institutes of Health Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program.  The scholarship pays for graduate work — including tuition, fees and a stipend — at Oxford University or Cambridge University in the United Kingdom and at the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland.  Read more in KU Today article entitled “NIH Oxford Cambridge Scholarship won.”

Maggie Hornick (undergraduate, Gamblin lab) was awarded the Lance S. Foster Outstanding Junior in Biology award given by the KU Undergraduate Biology Program to an outstanding KU junior majoring in Biology and planning on further study or work in area of biology. Maggie also was awarded and Undergraduate Biology Program Research award from the Del and Carl Shankel Biomedical Fund. This award is given to outstanding students majoring in microbiology or a related field and to students in the University Honors program pursuing a career in the biomedical sciences who are participating or planning to participate in research with a KU (Lawrence campus) faculty member.

 

May 2016 News

Eric Deeds has been promoted to associate professor with tenure. Dr.  Deeds earned his PhD at Harvard University, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School.  His lab is focused on understanding the self-assembly dynamics of macromolecular machines, as well as the flow of information in complex signaling networks.

Roberto De Guzman has been promoted to full professor.  Dr. De Guzman earned his Ph.D. at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), was a post-doctoral fellow at the Scripps Research Institute, and joined KU in 2005.  His research area is in NMR structural biology of bacterial virulence proteins with a goal of developing new antibiotics.

Kristi Neufeld has been promoted to full professor.  Dr. Neufeld was a research assistant professor in the Department of Oncological Sciences at the Huntsman Cancer Institute before she relocated to KU in 2003.  Prior to that, she completed a PhD and post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Utah.  Her laboratory is focused on understanding how the Adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) protein suppresses colon carcinogenesis.

Liang Xu has been promoted to full professor.  Dr. Xu earned his Ph.D. at Forth Military Medical University in China, and obtained postdoctoral training at Stanford University.  He started his lab on cancer biology at University of Michigan and relocated to KU in 2010.  His research is focused on cancer drug discovery targeting cancer stem cells and translational research on precision cancer medicine.

Christian Ray (assistant professor) is the recipient of a Pilot Project Grant from the Center for Molecular Analysis of Disease Pathways (CMADP) NIH Center for Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) for his proposal entitled “An integrative platform for cell-resolution analysis of the acute-to-chronic transition in bacterial pathogens.”  The goal of this work is to understand how changes in the rate of cellular growth affect the ability of bacteria to survive stressful situations, opening new avenues for treating infections that resist antibiotic treatment.

Kelly Harrison (graduate student, Hefty lab) is the recipient of the 2015-16 KU Graduate Research Competition Award, based on her poster presentation entitled “Discovery of Genetic Correlates Encoded by Chlamydia that are Important for Mammalian Infection” on March 27.  The award includes a cash prize to be awarded at the Graduate Student Awards Ceremony on April 27. 

Annie Lynn (undergraduate student, Tang lab) is the recipient of a Goldwater Scholarship.  The United States Congress established the program in 1986, and it focuses on ensuring a continuing source of scientists, mathematicians and engineers. The scholarship provides up to $7,500 annually to cover undergraduate tuition, fees, room and board, and books.  Read more in the KU Today article Two KU Juniors earn Goldwater Scholarships.

 

April 2016 News

Yoshi Azuma (associate professor) had his research featured in an article entitled “Pinpointing the chromosomal creation of cancer” in the latest issue of KUCC Cancer Communications.

Berl Oakley (Irving S. Johnson distinguished professor) is the recipient of funding from Pacific Northwest National Laboratories for his project entitled “Expression of Polyketide Synthases in Aspergillus nidulans.”  The overall project funding is from the Department of Energy.  The goal of this work is to discover new compounds that can be produced cheaply by the fungus Aspergillus nidulans as it grows on biological feedstocks, and that can be readily converted to biomedically-relevant chemical compounds.

Ilya Vakser (professor) is the recipient of funding from the Division of Biological Infrastructure of the National Science Foundation for his proposal entitled “Modeling protein interactions to interpret genetic variation.”  The project will result in an integrated approach for large-scale prediction of protein structures and their association. A database of predicted structures and complexes for model organisms will be established upon which genetic variants will be mapped and their phenotypic effects assessed. The grant is awarded under the US NSF/BIO - UK BBSRC joint program (UK collaborator - Professor Michael Sternberg, Imperial College London).

Christian Gomez (graduate student, Neufeld lab) received a Peer Reviewed Cancer Research Program Horizon Award from the Department of Defense office of the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs  to study “A Role for APC in Goblet Cell Function and the Unfolded Protein Response”. The Horizon Award allows junior investigators to “develop a research project investigating a problem or question in the field of cancer, conduct impactful research with the mentorship of an experienced cancer researcher and further their intellectual development as a cancer researcher of the future”. Gomez was one of 4 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in the colorectal cancer topic area chosen for this award, which will provide stipend, supply and travel funds for a year.

Kelly Harrison and Scott Labrie (graduate students, Hefty lab) were both recipients of Outstanding Graduate Student Poster Presentation Awards at the Missouri Valley Branch Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in Kansas City on March 4-5.  Kelly’s presentation was entitled “Discovery of Genetic Correlates Encoded by Chlamydia that are Important for Mammalian Infection,” and Scott’s presentation was “Phenotypic Analysis of Transposon Mutant Strains of Chlamydia trachomatis."

Kawaljit Kaur (graduate student, De Guzman lab) is the recipient of the 2016 Philip & Marjorie Newmark Award for excellence in biochemical research for her project and presentation entitled, "Azaphilones derived from a fungal natural product inhibit the HuR-mRNA interaction", a collaborative project with Liang Xu.  Chad Highfill(graduate student, Macdonald lab) was also a finalist for the award.   

Kathryn Brewer (undergraduate, Lamb lab) has been selected to be a Beckman Scholar, a 15 month program to conduct innovative mentored research here at KU.  Kathryn receives research and travel stipends and supply funds to conduct her research project.  Kathryn will be studying the enzymes of siderophore biosynthesis.  Read more in the KU Today article.

Mackenzie Bloom (undergraduate, Neufeld lab) was the winner of the “Research is a Process” category of the Image of Research competition sponsored by The University of Kansas Libraries.  She was also chosen to serve as Ambassador for program in the upcoming year.  The winning images, including the one on the right, and her descriptions are found here.

 

March 2016 News

Joanna Slusky (assistant professor) is the recipient of a Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) Development Research Project Grant for her project entitled “Targeting TolC oligomerization to potentiate antibiotics.”

Rita-Marie McFadden (postdoctoral fellow, Neufeld lab) is a recipient of a Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) Postdoctoral Award for her project entitled “Microbial Transplantation for Colorectal Cancer Prevention”.

Emily Binshtok (undergraduate student, Xu lab) is a recipient of a KU Undergraduate Research Award for Spring 2016.  Emily will be studying “Restoration of the Anti-Metastatic microRNA miR-29b to Breast Cancer Cells.”

 

February 2016 News

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) organized a conference for KU Cancer Center Cancer Biology, a research program which she co-leads.  The meeting, held on January 22 at Maceli’s Banquet Hall in Lawrence, included talks from Stowers Institute and KU Medical Center program members and a keynote lecture by Saraswati Sukumar, PhD, Professor of Human Genetics, Professor of Oncology and Pathology, The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Liang Xu (left, associate professor) and Kristi Neufeld (above, associate professor) had a recent research article entitled “Natural product (–)-gossypol inhibits colon cancer cell growth by targeting RNA-binding protein Musashi-1” highlighted in KU Today.

Bryce Blankenfeld (graduate student, Gamblin lab) has been selected to receive an Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation Young Investigator Scholarship which will be presented at the 10th Annual Drug Discovery for Neurodegeneration Conference: An Educational Course on Translating Research into Drugs on March 6-8, 2016 in Miami Beach, FL.

Nikola Kenjic (graduate student, Lamb lab) was the recipient of a KU Molecular Biosciences Travel Grant to attend the Eleventh KinTek New Enzymology Kinetics Workshop in Austin Texas, January 3-8.

Kyle Monize (undergraduate, Chandler lab) and Adam Reeves (undergraduate, Macdonald lab) were the recipients of poster awards at the 14th Annual K-INBRE Symposium in Overland Park, KS on January 16th.  Kyle’s poster was entitled “Ligand-binding requirements of an unusual LuxR homolog in the human pathogen Burkholderia pseudomallei."  Adam’s poster was entitled “Patterns of transposable element expression during Drosophila aging.”  Kyle (far left) and Adam (far right) are shown with the other poster prize winners.

 

January 2016 News

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) had a recent research article entitled “A Burkholderia thailandensisAcyl-Homoserine Lactone-Independent Orphan LuxR Homolog That Activates Production of the Cytotoxin Malleilactone” highlighted in the Atlas of Science.

Steve Benedict (professor) had his recent article entitled “Low density lipoprotein promotes human naïve T cell differentiation to Th1 cells” highlighted in the Cardiovascular Disease section of the World Biomedical Frontiers Summary Service.

Ellen (Brook) Nasseri (undergraduate student, Chandler lab) is a recipient of a KU Undergraduate Research Award for Spring 2016.  Brook will be studying the role of bacterial communication in antibiotic resistance and interspecies competition.

Margaret (Meggie) Brophy (undergraduate student, Neufeld lab) is a recipient of a KU Undergraduate Research Award for Spring 2016.  Meggie will determine how the mucosal layer of the colon is affected by altered subcellular localization of Apc tumor suppressor protein and how reduced mucin expression affects bacterial penetration of the mucosal layers.

 

December 2015 News

Erik Lundquist and Ilya Vakser (professors) have been elected as Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  According to AAAS, election as an AAAS Fellow is meant "to recognize members for their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications".  This prestigious recognition honors their contributions to “innovation, education and scientific leadership,” with only 347 Fellows elected in 2015.  In particular, Erik was recognized “for distinguished contributions to understanding molecular mechanisms of nervous system development, including axon guidance, using modern genetic and in vivo approaches.”  Ilya was honored “for distinguished contributions to the field of computational structural biology, particularly for theoretical studies of molecular recognition and methodology development for protein docking.”  You can read more in the KU Today article entitled "Professors named as AAAS Fellows."

Scott Hefty (associate professor) served as mentor and poster judge at the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students in Seattle, Washington, November 11-14.

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor and Director of Graduate Studies) wrote a proposal on behalf of the Molecular Biosciences Graduate Program that was selected to receive three 9-month University Graduate Fellowships for the 2016-2017 Academic Year from the University of Kansas Graduate Studies. Two of the fellowships will be used to recruit new graduate students to our programs, with one designated for a domestic, underrepresented minority student.  The third is a dissertation fellowship that will support a current student.

Jenn Klaus (graduate student, Chandler lab) won a Best Poster Award at the University of Kansas Chemical Biology Training Grant Annual Symposium poster session for her poster entitled, “Regulation of an antibiotic-induced virulence gene cluster in Burkholderia pseudomallei” on November 20.

Andrew McShan (graduate student, De Guzman lab) received a Best Poster Presentation Award at the 2015 Great Plains Regional Annual Symposium on Protein and Biomolecular NMR held at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas on Nov 13-14, 2015.  Andrew (left) received a certificate and a gift card from the sponsor of the award, Cambridge Isotope Laboratories, represented by Dr. Andrew Merithew (right).

 

November 2015 News

Erik Lundquist (professor) is the recipient of a Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) Bridging Grant for his project entitled “Identifying molecules that interact with the P2 domain of UNC-40/DCC.”  This project is aimed at identifying molecules that physically interact with the cytoplasmic domain of the Netrin receptor molecule UNC-40 and that participate with UNC-40 in axon guidance.

The Department of Molecular Biosciences is seeking outstanding applicants for our doctoral programs. MB is a center of life sciences research at KU, and can provide you with interdisciplinary training and education, high-quality mentoring, and a stimulating graduate experience that will help you achieve your career goals in the biomedical sciences.  Applications are due December 15th.  Informal inquiries can be directed to Dr. Stuart Macdonald, Director of Graduate Studies

 

October 2015 News

We are excited to announce that our campaign to raise funds for the purchase of a research grade laboratory glassware washer was successful, and a washer has been purchased.  This purchase will enable our student researchers to spend more of their time on research, and less time washing research glassware.  We’d like to express our sincerest thanks to the members of the Biological Sciences Advisory Board, Alumni, Friends of KU Biology, the Undergraduate Biology Program, and the Departments of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Molecular Biosciences whose contributions made this purchase possible.

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) was awarded a Research Project Grant from the National Institutes of Health for his project entitled "A resource for the genetic analysis of complex traits." This project is a continuing collaboration with Tony Long from the University of California at Irvine. The goal of this $2.7 million award is to genetically dissect the factors responsible for biomedically-relevant trait variation, and enhance a powerful set of enabling community resources for the Drosophila (fruit fly) genetics community.

 

September 2015 News

David Davido (associate professor) co-chaired the graduate student and post-doctoral trainee presentation session at the Colorado Alphaherpesvirus Latency Symposium in Vail, CO, May 14-16 and will continue to serve on the planning committee for the 2016 meeting.  David also served as a moderator for the Gene Expression/ Signaling Session at the 40th International Herpesvirus Workshop in Boise, ID, from July 25-29.

John Karanicolas (associate professor) is the recipient of a Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) Bridging Grant for his project entitled “Identifying stabilizers of p53 using pocket complementarity.”  This project is aimed identifying compounds that “re-activate” the tumor suppressor p53, and can thus serve as a starting point for developing new broad-spectrum cancer therapeutics.

Chris Gamblin (professor) was an Organizing Committee Member and Session Chair for the first annual International Conference on Brain Disorders and Therapeutics held August 24-26th in London, England. He also gave a plenary presentation entitled “Mining the A. nidulans Metabolome for Tau aggregation inhibitors.”

Angela Fowler (graduate student, Davido lab) participated in the Chemistry-Biology Interface Career Development Workshop at Vanderbilt University, August 10-12.  Angela was one of six graduate students chosen to be the KU delegation, which also included students from chemistry, medicinal chemistry and pharmaceutical chemistry.  Audrey Lamb (professor) and Tom Prisinzano (professor and chair, medicinal chemistry) served as mentors at the conference.

Christian Gomez (graduate student, Neufeld lab) was the recipient of a travel award from the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) to help defray expenses associated with attending the Gastrointestinal Tract XVI: GI Homeostasis, the Microbiome and the Barrier, Development and Disease FASEB Science Research Conference.  At the Conference, held August 2-7 in Steamboat Springs, CO, Gomez presented a poster entitled “A Role for Tumor Suppressor APC in Goblet Cells and Inflammation.”

Nikola Kenjic (graduate student, Lamb lab) is the recipient of a Graduate Scholarly Presentation Travel Fund Award to attend the Midwest Enzyme Chemistry Conference in Chicago, IL on September 12.  Nikola will present a poster entitled “PvdF as potential novel transformylase from Pseudomonas aeruginosa.”

Smita Paranjape (doctoral graduate, Gamblin lab) has accepted a postdoctoral research position in the laboratory of Dr. Mark Zylka in the department of Cell Biology and Physiology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine where she will be studying the underlying causes of Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Lauren Arney and Dharam Patel (undergraduates, Lamb lab) are recipients of KU Center for Undergraduate Research Travel Awards to attend the Midwest Enzyme Chemistry Conference in Chicago, IL on September 12.  Lauren will present a poster entitled “Allosteric regulation in pyruvate kinase” and Dharam will present a poster entitled “The production, purification and post-translational modification of PvdJ module 2 in Pseudomonas aeruginosa.”

Michael Cory (undergraduate, Karanicolas lab) and Aidan Dmitriev (undergraduate, Hefty lab) were named as the inaugural Beckman Scholars, a 15 month program to conduct innovative mentored research here at KU.  Michael and Aiden receive research and travel stipends and supply funds to conduct their research projects.  Michael is studying protein-based switches and sensors in the Karanicolas lab, whereas Aidan is working to understand the disease processes of Chlamydia.  Read the article from KU Today.

Jessica van Loben Sels (undergraduate, Davido Lab) was the recipient of a KU Center for Undergraduate Research Travel Awards and an American Society of Virology Travel Scholarship to attend the American Society of Virology Meeting  in London, Canada, on July 11 - 15, where she presented a poster entitled "The N-terminus of the HSV-1 E3 Ubiquitin Ligase ICP0 Stimulates Viral Replication and Gene Expression in Cells Exposed to Interferon-β".  Jessica has been awarded a K-INBRE Star Trainee Fellowship and is the recipient of a prestigious, national Astronaut Scholarship.

 

August 2015 News

Mizuki Azuma (associate professor) and Chad Slawson (KUMC) are the recipients of a pilot project grant from the Cancer Biology Program of the KU Cancer Center for their proposal entitled “Regulation of EWS-Aurora B pathway during mitosis and tumorigenesis.”  This project will elucidate the pathogenesis of a childhood bone cancer, Ewing sarcoma, by analyzing the EWS-Aurora B dependent regulation of mitosis.x

Matthew Buechner (associate professor) has accepted a temporary appointment as a visiting scientist and program officer in the Division of Organismal Systems (Developmental Biology) at the National Science Foundation starting July 13.  At the NSF, Dr. Buechner will help review and fund research grant applications. He will continue to maintain his research lab at KU and mentor graduate students.x

Liang Xu (associate professor), along with collaborator Jeffrey Aube (University of North Carolina Eshelman School of Pharmacy) is the recipient of a Research Project Grant from the National Cancer Institute for their project entitled “Molecular cancer therapy targeting HuR-ARE interaction.”  This award totals $2.16 million over the next five years and is aimed at finding more potent and specific HuR inhibitors which may serve as new therapies for cancer.  Dr. Xu also had his technology featured at the TechConnect World Conference and Expo in Washington, DC. June 14-17, 2015.  This invention finds new compounds that inhibit Musashi activity and specifically kill cancer cells or delay cancer growth, while not affecting normal cells.x

Audrey Lamb (professor) served as a co-vice chair of the Enzymes, Coenzymes and Metabolic Pathways Gordon Research Conference in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire, July 12-17.x

Angela Fowler (graduate student, Davido lab) is the recipient of the Cora M. Downs Award to attend the International Herpesvirus Workshop, July 25 - 29 in Boise, Idaho.  She presented a talk and a poster entitled, "Specific CDKs enhance HSV-1 viral replication and interact with the immediate-early phosphoprotein, ICP0.”x

 

July 2015 News

The National Institutes of Health Dynamic Aspects of Chemical Biology Training Grant has been renewed for five more years, years 22-26.  The renewal grant, worth more than $1.8 million, funds eight graduate student trainees per year from the departments of Molecular Biosciences, Chemistry, Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Chemistry.  This program served as the foundation for the new Certificate Program in Chemical Biology, and is directed by Tom Prisinzano (professor and chair, medicinal chemistry), Paul Hanson (professor, chemistry) and Audrey Lamb (professor).

Mark Richter (professor) is the leader of a team, including John Karanicolas (associate professor) and Eric Deeds (Assistant Professor), that is receiving a University of Kansas Level 1 Strategic Initiative Grant from the Research Investment Council.  The title of the project is “Smart bio-enabled molecular materials by design.”  The team also includes Candan Tamerler (Mechanical Engineering), Judy Wu (Physics and Astronomy) and Cindy Berrie (Chemistry).  The goal of this project is to use biological principles to develop and design intelligent self-assembling materials.  

Aaron Bart (graduate student, Scott lab, left) and Bryce Blankenfeld (graduate student, Gamblin lab, right) will be appointed to the National Institutes of Health funded Graduate Training Program in the Dynamic Aspects of Chemical Biology on July 1 for a term of two years.

Kayla Wilson (undergraduate, Ward lab) won a poster award for her poster entitled "Isolation, characterization and annotation of mycobacteriophages from soil samples around Lawrence, KS" at the 7th Annual Howard Hughes Medical Institute SEA-PHAGES Symposium held at the Janelia Research Campus in Ashburn, VA on June 12-14.

 

June 2015 News

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) is the recipient of the 2015 Grant K. Goodman Undergraduate Mentor Award, which recognizes faculty who are selfless with their time and experience and continue to have lasting mentoring relationships long after they leave the classroom.  Dr. Neufeld was also recognized as “Favorite Professor” by the Biology Class of 2015 at the University of Kansas Undergraduate Biology Recognition Ceremony on May 16.

The University of Kansas has announced a new Graduate Certificate in Chemical Biology.  Leading the cross-disciplinary program is Audrey Lamb (professor) and Tom Prisinzano (professor and chair of Medicinal Chemistry).  A KU Today article describes the program, set to begin in the Fall of 2015.

The National Institutes of Health recently awarded a grant for more than $1.7 million for the Post-Baccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP) to James Orr (professor) and Estela Gavosto (associate professor of mathematics). The PREP program provides mentored research experiences and training to assist recent baccalaureate students with the transition to graduate school in biomedical and behavioral sciences. ).  A KU Today article describes the program.

Three Molecular Biosciences graduate students were presented with Doctoral Hoods by their mentors at the ceremony on May 16.  From left to right: Lakshmi Sundararajanwith her mentor Erik Lundquist; Rob Ward, mentor of Sonia Hall; and Brian Ackley, mentor of Samantha Hartin.

Sonia Hall (graduate student, Ward Lab) and Lynn Villafuerte (Office for Diversity in Science Training) organized Kansas DNA Day, which sent 52 KU ambassadors to 14 Kansas high schools to conduct activities such as DNA isolation.  Read the KU Todayarticle that includes quotes from graduate students Luke Wenger (M. Azuma lab) and Haifa Alhadyian (Ward lab)Pictured are Lynn Villafuerte, Sonia Hall, Haifa Alhadyian, Aleah Henderson, Max Iverson, and Adam Miltner.

Dharam Patel (undergraduate, Lamb lab) is the recipient of a KU Undergraduate Research Award for the Summer 2015 semester.  Dharam will be studying a nonribosomal peptide synthetase involved in the production of the siderophore pyoverdin from Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

 

May 2015 News

Mizuki Azuma has been promoted to associate professor with tenure. Dr. Azuma earned her PhD at The Osaka University (Japan), was a postdoctoral fellow at the NICHD/NIH, and was a staff scientist at the NCI/NIH. Her laboratory aims to elucidate the molecular pathogenesis of a childhood bone cancer, Ewing sarcoma.

Chris Gamblin has been promoted to full professor. Dr. Gamblin has been at KU since 2003, after a post-doctoral position at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University and completion of a Ph.D. at Vanderbilt University. His laboratory is aimed at understanding the molecular mechanisms of the aggregation of the microtubule-associated protein tau into fibrils that cause neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease and related neurological disorders.

Wonpil Im has been promoted to full professor. Dr. Im earned his Ph.D. at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, was a post-doctoral fellow at the Scripps Research Institute, and joined KU in 2005. His research area is computational biology with particular focuses on structure, dynamics, and function of membrane proteins and glycoconjugates.

Audrey Lamb has been promoted to full professor.  Dr. Lamb earned her Ph.D. at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Northwestern University.  Her research is focused on understanding the structure-function relationships of enzymes involved in iron-scavenging by pathogenic bacteria.

Kristi Neufeld(associate professor) is the recipient of funding fromthe Division of Integrative Organismal Systems of the National Science Foundation for her proposal entitled “Collaborative Research: Beta-catenin Regulation during Asymmetric Stem Cell Divisions”. This research program will focus on stem cells which use asymmetric cell division (ACD) to generate a differentiated daughter and a new stem cell.  Regulation of ACD is critical for developmental cell fate specification and maintenance of tissue homeostasis. The overall goal of this 3-year project is to collaborate with Dr. Bryan Phillips from University of Iowa to elucidate the mechanisms of beta-catenin regulation during ACD by analyzing regulation of the C. elegans beta-catenin, SYS-1, and to test the resulting mechanisms in mammals.

Liang Xu (associate professor) had his research highlighted in a recent article entitled “Molecules that block previously ‘undruggable’ protein tied to cancer’s onset“ in KU Today.  In collaboration with Jeff Aube (Medicinal Chemistry) and Jon Tunge (Chemistry), the researchers have identified small molecule inhibitors of the HuR-RNA binding protein that is linked to breast, prostate, colon, brain, ovary, pancreas, and lung cancers.   The article describing the work was published in ACS Chemical Biology.  Watch Dr. Xu and his lab in a report on the research on 41 Action News.

Lan Lan (postdoc, Xu lab) presented a poster entitled “Small molecule inhibitors of Musashi family of RNA-binding proteins” at the 2015 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, April 18-22.  Lan received an Unclassified Senate Professional Development Award to participate in the meeting.

Sarah Xiaoqing Wu (postdoc, Xu lab) presented a poster entitled “Targeting an ‘undruggable’ RNA-binding protein: Discovery of small molecule inhibitors of HuR for novel breast cancer therapy” at the 2015 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, April 18-22.  Sarah received a Scholar-in-Training Award to participate in the meeting, recognizing “outstanding proffered papers by early-career scientists relating to colorectal cancer research.”  The award was sponsored by Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Company.

Sonia Hall (graduate student, Ward lab) was a member of a delegation for the Genetics Society of America to visit Capitol Hill to advocate for federal science funding and policies that promote scientific research and training.  She met with Senator Jerry Moran and Representatives Kevin Yoder and Lynn Jenkins, providing the perspective of early career scientists to our nation’s policymakers.    Sonia is pictured with Eduardo Rosa-Molinar (University of Puerto Rico-Rio Piedras), Lynn Jenkins, Adam Fagen (executive director, GSA), and Roy Jensen (KU Cancer Center).

Amber Smith (graduate student, Xu lab) is the recipient of the 2015 Newmark Awardfor excellence in biochemistry research for her project which she described in a presentation entitled, “Therapeutic strategies targeting the RNA binding protein Musashi-1 in colorectal cancer.”  Other finalists for the prize were Nabil Alhakamy (Berkland lab), Smita Paranjape (Gamblin lab), Vinidhra Sridharan (Y. Azuma lab).  Amber (right) is pictured receiving her prize from Professor Karen Allen of Boston University, who presented the Philip and MarjorieNewmark Lecture in Biochemistry.

Matthew Miller (undergraduate, Neufeld lab) received funds as a K-INBRE Star Trainee and a Travel Award from the Center for Undergraduate Research to attend and present a poster at the Experimental Biology meeting March 28- April 1 in Boston.  Matt’s poster was entitled, “A role for nuclear APC in intestinal cellular differentiation revealed by mouse model.”  Matt is pictured above with Andy Wolfe and Dr. Neufeld.

Jessica van Loben Sels (undergraduate, Davido lab) has been awarded a prestigious Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, the nation’s premier undergraduate award for academically gifted students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.  Jessica studies how cellular factors affect herpes simplex virus-1 (HSV-1) gene expression and plans to pursue a doctorate in microbiology, focusing on viruses and the diseases they cause.

The following students won poster prizes at the 18th Annual University of Kansas Undergraduate Research Symposium:

Lauren Arney - Discovering the structure of the allosteric sites in pyruvate kinase

Kayla Wilson - the role of fasciclin III (Fas3) in Drosophila melanogaster septate junction

Jake Rowe (undergraduate, Biostore) was named KU Student Employee of the Year.  The award includes a plaque and a big check for $500 presented by Big Jay.

 

April 2015 News

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) is the recipient of a Research Project Award from the Center for Molecular Analysis of Disease Pathways (CMADP) NIH Center for Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) for her proposal entitled “A non-canonical quorum sensing regulator of virulence in Burkholderia pseudomallei.”  The goal of this work is to understand the regulatory pathway that controls virulence factor expression in the human pathogen Burkholderia pseudomallei.

Wonpil Im (associate professor) is the recipient of a University Scholarly Achievement Award recognizing research impact of major significance in science, technology, and mathematics at the University of Kansas.

Kathy Meneely (research associate, Lamb lab) is the recipient of a travel award from the KU Postdoctoral Association to attend and present a poster at the 35th Midwest Enzyme Chemistry Conference on September 12 in Chicago.

Rana Aliani (undergraduate, Lundquist Lab) was selected as a K-INBRE Undergraduate Scholar for Spring and Summer of 2015.  Rana’s will study the role of the Neurofibromatosis type II protein NFM-1 in neuronal migration.

Kyle Monize (undergraduate, Chandler Lab) was selected as a K-INBRE Undergraduate Scholar for Spring and Summer of 2015.  Kyle's work will support efforts to understand how a virulence regulator becomes activated in the human pathogen Burkholderia pseudomallei.

Daniel Pham (undergraduate, Xu lab) is a recipient of a 2015 KU Cancer Center Summer Student Research Training Award for his proposal entitled “Molecular cancer therapy targeting RNA binding protein Musashi-1.”  Daniel will work and train in the lab of Liang Xu under the mentorship of postdoctoral fellow Lan Lan from June 1 - July 24.  He will also have the opportunity to present a poster on his project at the annual KUCC Research Symposium to be held November 13-14 at the KU Edwards campus.

Jessica van Loben Sels (undergraduate, Davido Lab) was selected as a K-INBRE Undergraduate Scholar for Spring and Summer of 2015.  Her award will support work to understand how the herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) protein ICP0 counteracts cellular defenses to stimulate viral replication.

 

March 2015 News

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) organized a conference for the KU Cancer Center Cancer Biology Program of which she serves as co-leader.  The meeting, held on February 13 at the Arterra Event gallery in Lawrence, included talks from Stowers Institute, KU Medical Center and KU-Lawrence program members, a keynote lecture by Surinder K. Batra, PhD, Chairman of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Nebraska College of Medicine, and PechaKucha-style talks by program members, including Molecular Biosciences faculty Mizuki Azuma and Yoshi Azuma.

Liang Xu (associate professor) is the recipient of a donation from the Kilonsky Foundation through KU Endowment to support research into cancer therapeutic development.

Susan Egan (professor and chair) and Dave Benson (chemistry) are the recipients of a three year Beckman Scholars Program Grant, which has the goal of stimulating, encouraging and supporting research activities by exceptionally talented, full-time undergraduate students pursuing research activities in chemistry, biochemistry, biology and the medical sciences.  The KU program has 15 mentors from Molecular Biosciences and Chemistry, and will support two undergrad students per year.  The students will receive a stipend totaling $22,000 to support their research (for two academic years and two summers), travel funds to present their research at a conference in their field, and the lab of their mentor will receive $5,000 for supplies to support their research.  Read the KU Today article entitled "Prestigious research scholarship available to undergraduates."

Jim Orr (professor) is the recipient of the Joan S. Hunt Distinguished Mentoring Award from the Kansas IDeA Network for Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE).  This award was established in 2012 to recognize upper-level faculty for their mentoring success.  The award was highlighted in a KU Today story entitled “Molecular Biosciences professor wins mentoring award.”

Kelly Harrison (graduate student, W. Picking lab) was one of eight graduate students from the University of Kansas to present at the 12th annual Capitol Research Summit in Topeka.  The Summit is an opportunity for selected graduate students to share their research with Kansas State senators, representatives, education officials, and the general public.  Kelly is pictured explaining her research to Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little.

Erin Suderman (graduate student, Ward lab), was one of 20 undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students honored with a cash prize for their scientific research presentations at the 2015 Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence Symposium on January 17-18 in Topeka.  Her poster presentation was entitled, “Genetic control of tissue specific growth in the larval trachea of drosophila”.

Dan Vu (undergraduate, Timmons Lab) received a KU Undergraduate Research Award for Spring 2015.  The award will be used in support of experiments designed to uncover functions and localization patterns of ABC transporters in Caenorhabditis elegans.

Preston Dennett (undergraduate, Timmons Lab) was selected as a K-INBRE Undergraduate Scholar for Spring and Summer of 2015.  His award will support the development of novel genetics tools that will be used to uncover the precise role of a non-coding RNA in meiotic chromosome disjunction in Caenorhabditis elegans.

Adam Reeves (undergraduate, Macdonald Lab) was selected as a K-INBRE Undergraduate Scholar for Spring and Summer of 2015.  His award will support work on the effects of transposable elements on aging-related neurodegeneration in Drosophila melanogaster.

 

February 2015 News

Yoshi Azuma (associate professor) is the recipient of a Research Project Grant (R01) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences for his proposal entitled “Regulation of kinetochore function by topoisomerase II.”   The aim of this four year grant is to determine the molecular mechanism of topoisomerase II, one of the major targets of cancer chemotherapeutics, on the checkpoint of the cell division cycle.

Scott Hefty (associate professor) was awarded a Provost's Strategic Initiative - Level II Research Investment Grant for Enabling Technology for Chlamydia pathogenesis.  The funds are primarily in support of personnel learning murine models of Chlamydia infection from colleagues at Harvard Medical School and the University of Arkansas Medical Center to establish proficiency of these models at the University of Kansas. 

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) and John Karanicolas (associate professor) are part of a team of scientists to receive a University of Kansas Level 1 Strategic Initiative Grant from the Research Investment Council. The project is titled “Validating bacterial iron metabolism as a target for antibiotic discovery.” The project leader is Mario Rivera (Chemistry) and other members of the team are Bill Picking (Pharmaceutical Chemistry), Lester Mitcher (Medicinal Chemistry) and Richard Bunce (Chemistry, OSU).  The award was highlighted in this month’s “KU Discovery and Innovation” bulletin.

Dr. Raymond Caylor (doctoral graduate, Ackley Lab) will be starting a research coordinator position at the Pediatric Genomic Medicine Center at Children’s Mercy Hospital on February 2.

Andrew McShan (graduate student, De Guzman lab) returned from a semester-long internship at Genentech in South San Francisco, CA. During this time he worked for Dr. John Wang in the Department of Late Stage Pharmaceutical Development where he evaluated the propensity of different surfactants to undergo enzymatic hydrolysis by carboxylester hydrolyases from a broad range of organisms. His work has direct implications for future development of protein drug formulations. The internship was in fulfillment of his NIH-supported Biotechnology Predoctoral Training Program.

Justin Massey (undergraduate, Hefty Lab) is a recipient of a Spring 2015 KU Undergraduate Research Award. This $1000 award will be used to support an independent research project on developing conditional gene repression mechanisms in Chlamydia trachomatis.

 

January 2015 News

Liang Xu (associate professor) is the recipient of a private donation through the University of Kansas Endowment from relatives of a patient recently diagnosed with late stage pancreatic cancer.  The goal of this project is to find new therapies for pancreatic cancer by targeting pancreatic cancer stem cells.

Lauren Arney (undergraduate, Lamb lab) is the recipient of a Spring 2015 KU Undergraduate Research Award. The $1000 stipend provide support to pursue an independent research project.  Lauren will study allosterism in liver pyruvate kinase using x-ray crystallography.

Emily Binshtok (undergraduate, Xu Lab) is the recipient of a Spring 2015 KU Undergraduate Research Award. The $1000 stipend provides support to pursue an independent research project.  The title of her project is “The Therapeutic Value of Anti-Metastatic MicroRNAs in Breast Cancer.”

Graham Wehmeyer (undergraduate, Egan Lab) is the recipient of a Del and Carol Shankel Biomedical Scholarship.

 

December 2014 News

Eric Deeds (assistant professor) has been named as an External Faculty Member at the Santa Fe Institute.

Chris Gamblin (associate professor) was honored as an Outstanding Educator by the Torch Chapter of the Mortar Board, a senior honor society, on November 14 at halftime of the KU-University of California Santa Barbara men’s basketball game.  The award recognizes dedication to KU and positive influence on students both academically and personally.

Sonia Hall (graduate student, Ward lab, right) served as a graduate student ambassador and Audrey Lamb (associate professor, left) served as mentor and poster judge at the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students in San Antonio, TX, November 12-15.

Seth Lewin (graduate student, M. Azuma lab) was the Second Place winner in 2014 KUCC Research Symposium and Multi-Disciplinary Oncology Conference poster competition on November 8.  His poster was entitled “Ewing sarcoma protein Ewsa-dependent regulation of Ctgf in zebrafish chondrocyte maturation.”  The prize comes with a $500 travel award.

Lauren Arney (undergraduate, Lamb lab) is the recipient of the Paul A. Kitos Award For Excellence in Undergraduate Biomedical Research and the Del and Carol Shankel Biomedical Scholarship.

 

November 2014 News

Yoshiaki Azuma (associate professor), together with Nancy Muma and Jeff Staudinger (Pharmacology and Toxicology), co-organized the Midwest Regional SUMO Symposium held on October 13 on the KU campus. The symposium was supported by the Level 1 Strategic Initiative Grant “Consortium Targeting Small Ubiquitin-related Modifier (SUMO) for the Treatment of Inflammatory-Related Diseases” and featured keynote speaker Michael Matunis, Ph.D., Professor, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Rebecca Marquez (postdoc, Xu lab) is the recipient of a Susan G. Komen Postdoctoral Fellowship Award.  This grant provides $180,000 over three years for breast cancer research.  Dr. Marquez’s research focuses on designing novel microRNA delivery systems to prevent and treat metastatic breast cancer.  Read the Susan G. Komen Foundation News Release.  Dr. Marquez is also the recipient of a Young Investigator Travel Fellowship to attend the Symposia on Cancer Research 2014: Illuminating Genomic Dark Matter “ncRNA in Disease and Cancer” at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, in October.  She presented a poster entitled “Epigenetic Silencing of Anti-metastamiR microRNA-196b in Breast Cancer“.

Kawaljit Kaur (graduate student, De Guzman Lab) received a Best Poster Presentation Award at the Seventh Great Plains Regional Annual Symposium on Protein and Biomolecular NMR (GRASP NMR) held in Lawrence, Kansas, Oct 17-18, 2014.

Smita Paranjape (graduate student, Gamblin Lab) is the recipient of a Ritter Travel Award to support her travel to the 2014 Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in Washington D.C. where she will make a presentation “Azaphilones are novel tau aggregation inhibitors” in the Brain Wellness: Metabolism and Energetic Nanosymposium, Monday November 17th.

 

October 2014 News

The Department of Molecular Biosciences at the University of Kansas invites applications for a faculty position at the tenure-track Assistant or Associate level in Genomics. We are seeking applications from outstanding scientists with experience in genome-level, quantitative approaches to understanding any area in modern experimental biology.  A complete announcement and application procedures can be found on the KU Employment Webpages.  Inquiries can be directed to Stuart Macdonald, chair of the search committee.

David Davido (associate professor) has agreed to serve a three year term on the editorial board for Journal of Virology starting 2015.

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) had his recent article entitled “Fine-mapping nicotine resistance loci in Drosophila using a multiparent advanced generation intercross population” highlighted by the journal Genetics.

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) had her research highlighted by KU News for her article entitled “Human Cancer Xenografts in Outbred Nude Mice Can Be Confounded by Polymorphisms in a Modifier of Tumorigenesis” which appears in the journal Genetics.  Read the KU Today article entitled “Genetic modifier affects colon tumor formation.”

Liang Xu and Kristi Neufeld (associate professors) along with Jeff Aube (professor in Medicinal Chemistry) were awarded a Research Project Grant (R01) from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health. The aim of this three year project entitled “Small molecules modulating RNA-binding protein Msi1” is to design and synthesize novel small molecule inhibitors targeting RNA-binding protein Musashi-1 (Msi1), as new chemical probes and eventually novel molecular cancer therapy that inhibit cancer with Msi1 overexpression.

Steve Benedict (professor) was named a Chancellor’s Club Teaching Professor, a prestigious recognition for a distinguished career in teaching, at the Annual Celebration of the Chancellors Club on Friday, September 26th and a reception at the Chancellors home on Saturday the 27th.  Read all about Dr. Benedict’s teaching accolades in the article entitled, “Prestigious Chancellors Club Teaching Professorships awarded to faculty.”

Patricia Martins da Silva (postdoc, Chandler lab) is the recipient of  a travel award from the American Society of Microbiology to present her poster entitled "Acyl-homoserine lactone-independent activation of an orphan LuxR in B. thailandensis and B. pseudomallei" at the 5th ASM Cell-Cell Communication in Bacteria meeting in San Antonio, TX, to be held October 18-21.

We welcome the following new graduate students to our program:Jennifer Klaus, Nan Bai, Haifa Alhadyian, Anupama Kante, Sikta Patnaik, Thelma Chiremba, Jin Niu, Robert Wilkerson, Bryce Blankenfeld, Kelly Harrison, Nootan Pandey, Nikola Kenjic, Aaron Bart, Sudeep Shakya, Olivia Arizmendi.

Rana Aliani (undergraduate, Lundquist lab) is the recipient of a KU Undergraduate Research Award for the 2014 fall semester to pursue her project “The Effects of nfm-1 on Migration of Q Neuroblasts in Caenorhabditis elegans.”

 

September 2014 News

We are saddened to learn of the passing of Irving S. Johnson July 10, 2014. Dr. Johnson received his Ph.D. in Zoology from KU and went on to a very successful career in biomedical research.  Among many achievements, Dr. Johnson's pioneering work in recombinant DNA technology at Eli Lily & Company led to the first commercial production of human insulin.  Dr. Johnson endowed the Irving S. Johnson Distinguished Professorship in Molecular Biology which is currently held by Dr. Berl Oakley.  Our deepest sympathies go out to Dr. Johnson's family and all those whose lives he touched.  He will always be remembered for his great contributions to science and his generosity for KU.

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) had her research highlighted by the KU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences for her article entitled “Nuclear Adenomatous polyposis coli suppresses colitis-associated tumorigenesis in mice ” which appears in the journal Carcinogenesis.  Read the KU Today article entitled “Research offers insight into cell biology of colorectal cancer.”

Liang Tang (associate professor) served as the convener for the Virus Structure and Assembly section of in the American Society for Virology 2014 annual meeting in Fort Collins, Colorado, June 21-25.

Erik Lundquist (professor) was appointed to the Neurodifferentiation, Plasticity, Regeneration, and Rhythmicity Study Section at the National Institutes of Health for a six year term ending in 2020.  Dr. Lundquist will review grant proposals for the NIH twice a year over this period.

Jim Orr (professor) will be honored on September 26 as one of two new Chancellors Club professors.  Professor Orr is recognized for his innovative teaching and service as the Director of the Office of Diversity in Science Training.  Read all about his accomplishments in the KU Today article entitled “Researchers named Chancellors Club professors.”

Josephine Chandler (assistant professor), Scott Hefty (associate professor), and Erik Lundquist (professor) arranged the purchase of a BioRad QX200 Digital Droplet PCR system.  Support from the Center for Molecular Analysis of Disease Pathways NIH COBRE project (Sue Lunte, P.I. (Professor, Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Chemistry)), the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the KU Center for Research, and the Higuchi Biosciences Center was central to obtaining this equipment.  The ddPCR system will be housed in 1030 Haworth, the Genome Sequencing Core Laboratory of the Center for Molecular Analysis of Disease Pathways, and is available for use by all researchers on campus.  This cutting-edge technology provides highly-sensitive and highly-reproducible quantitative analysis of nucleic acids.

Samantha Hartin (graduate student, Ackley lab) is the recipient of a 2014 Candlin Travel Award. She will attend the Axon Guidance, Synapse Formation and Regeneration Conference September 16th-20th, 2014, in Cold Spring Harbor, New York. She will present a poster entitled "C. elegans Wnt-dependent Anterior-Posterior axon growth of the D-type motor neurons is modulated by sdn-1."

Yamini Mutreja (graduate student, Gamblin lab) received a renewal of her Mabel A. Woodyard Fellowship in Neurodegenerative Disorders from the Institute of Neurological Discoveries of the University of Kansas Medical Center to study the role of tau mutations in Progressive Supranuclear Palsy.

Amy Newton (2014 doctoral graduate, Benedict lab) has begun a postdoctoral position at the Carter Immunology Center at the University of Virginia School of Medicine under the mentorship of Dr. Tom Braciale.

Amber Smith (graduate student, Xu lab) was the recipient of the Borgendale Award for her talk at the 2014 Graduate Student Symposium entitled "Tumor suppressor miR-137 negatively regulates Musashi-1 and colorectal cancer progression."

Vinidhra Sridharan (graduate student, Y. Azuma lab) was the recipient of a Hirata Travel Award to attend the 2014 Cold Spring harbor Meeting for Nuclear Organization and Function, August 19 - 23 in Cold Spring Harbor, New York.  Vinidhra presented a poster entitled "SUMOylation regulates Polo-like kinase 1-interacting checkpoint helicase  (PICH) during mitosis."

 

August 2014 News

Joanna Slusky (assistant professor) joins the Department of Molecular Biosciences faculty.  Dr. Slusky received her Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania in the lab of Bill DeGrado.  She completed two postdoctoral appointments with Gunnar von Heijne (Stockholm University) where she studied membrane protein topology determination, and with Roland Dunbrack (Fox Chase Cancer Center) where she began her studies of outer membrane proteins.   She will continue exploring outer membrane proteins here at KU.

Eric Deeds (assistant professor) is the recipient of an award from the Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences of the National Science Foundation for his proposal entitled “Studying proteasome assembly using a combination of modeling and experiment.”  This research program focus on developing a better understanding of how large macromolecular machines like the proteasome assemble both in vitro and in vivo.  The overall goal of this work is to elucidate general principles of efficient self-assembly, principles that could aid in the design of novel self-assembling nanomaterials.

David Davido (associate professor) received a pilot project grant from the National Institutes of Health Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) "Novel approaches for the control of microbial pathogens".   The title of his research project is "Viral and host factors regulate HSV-1 infection".   The goal of this project is to identify and determine how interactions between viral and cellular proteins control the herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) life cycle.

Scott Hefty (associate professor) served as chairperson for the National Institutes of Health Study Section “Microbiology and Infectious Disease” to review AREA (R15) grant proposals.

Wonpil Im (associate professor) is the recipient of National Science Foundation (NSF) Catalyzing New International Collaborations (CNIC) Funds for his proposal entitled "Lipopolysaccharide Structure and Dynamics".  This project will support travel to Stockholm University, Sweden, for collaboration with Dr. Göran Widmalm to study complex lipopolysaccharide structure and dynamics using molecular modeling/simulation as well as NMR experiments.

Audrey Lamb (associate professor) is the recipient of an award from the Chemistry of Life Processes Program in the Chemistry Division of the National Science Foundation for her proposal entitled “Enzymes of Ornithine Hydroxamate Siderophores.”  This research program will examine the enzymes that form amino acid derivatives that serve as the iron chelators in siderophores, low molecular weight molecules produced by bacteria, plants and fungi to scavenge iron from the environment.  The results of the proposed basic research will provide a basis for the future production of novel antimicrobial agents for deadly human pathogens.

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) is the recipient of continued funding via a renewed Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) grant. This multi-university bioscience program provides training and infrastructure support to many Kansas institutions. Dr. Macdonald's award provides support for the K-INBRE Bioinformatics Core at KU-Lawrence, a facility providing computational assistance for genomics research in the state of Kansas.

Rob Ward (associate professor) completed training at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute for the Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES) program, which will be the basis for research-based undergraduate courses he will be teaching in the coming academic year.  During the first semester, students isolate bacteriophages from local soil samples, purify and characterize their phages, and select at least one phage per class for DNA sequencing. In the second semester, the students annotate and analyze the genome. At the end of the academic year, faculty and selected students attend the annual SEA-PHAGES Symposium. Held in June, the Symposium is a scientific meeting at which student representatives from each of the Alliance schools present the results of their research.

Steve Benedict (professor) had his research highlighted in an article entitled “Save the good T cells!” in the INFOCUS newsletter (page 9) of the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association.

Brian Ackley, Erik Lundquist, Stuart Macdonald and Robert Ward were the recipients of a Level 1 Grant from the KU Research Investment Council entitled “Dissecting the Function of Pediatric Disease Genes in Model Systems.” The project is a collaboration between the Department of Molecular Biosciences at KU and the Center for Pediatric Genomic Medicine at Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics. The research will use model organisms, such as C. elegans and Drosophila to study the potential contribution of gene variants identified in patients at CMH to the biological disorders from which they suffer.

Nadeem Asad (graduate student, Timmons lab) was the recipient of a Candlin Summer Research Fellowship for 2014.

Vaishnavi Nagarajan (graduate student, Timmons lab) is the recipient of the Ritter Travel Award.  She gave a poster presentation entitled "Transcriptional Gene Silencing on an Endogenous Locus in wild-type Caenorhabditis elegans" at the 2014 Genetics Association of America Aging, Metabolism, Stress, Pathogenesis and Small RNAs Meeting in Madison, WI on July 12.

Ichie Osaka (2014 doctoral graduate, Hefty lab) has accepted a Field Application Scientist position for international distribution with LI-COR.  She will be a liaison with the distributors and customers overseas, performing instrument training and assisting with troubleshooting.  Her territory will be all the international distribution except for Europe and the Middle East.

Lakshmi Sundararajan (2014 doctoral graduate, Lundquist lab) has accepted a postdoctoral position at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in the laboratory of David Miller.  Lakshmi will be studying how neurons make the appropriate connections with one another during development.

Keasha Restivo (2014 masters graduate, Hefty lab) has accepted a position as a Technical Service Representative with Thermo Fisher Scientific.

 

July 2014 News

John Karanicolas (assistant professor) is the recipient of an award from the J.R. and Inez Jay Fund for his project entitled "Identifying stabilizers of p53 using pocket complimentarity." This award will allow his team to search for compounds that restore cellular activity to mutant forms of the p53 tumor suppressor: such compounds may serve as a starting point for development of new anti-cancer drugs. This is a collaborative project involving Mark Fisher (KUMC Biochemistry and Molecular Biology), Tomoo Iwakuma (KUMC Cancer Biology), Scott Lovell (KU Protein Structure Lab), and Steven Rogers (KU Med Chem Lab).

Dr. Wonpil Im (associate professor) has his research highlighted on the cover of Biophysical Journal, for his article entitled “E. coli outer membrane and interactions with OmpLA.”

Liang Xu (associate professor) is the recipient of a Pilot Project Award from the Center for Biomedical Research Excellence in Protein Structure and Function for his project entitled “Fragment based drug discovery for inhibitors of RNA-Binding HuhR.”  The major goal of this proposal is the find lead compounds that will be a starting point for breast cancer therapeutics.

Delbert Shankel (Professor Emeritus of Microbiology and former Chancellor of the University) has provided an invited perspective on the life of Professor Charlotte Auerbach for Mutation Research/ Reviews in Mutations Research.  Professor Auerbach is credited with the discovery that chemicals are mutagenic and with pioneering studies of mutations in animals; these were observations made during World War II and many were allowed to be published only after the war.  Dr. Shankel spent a sabbatical year in 1967 with Professor Auerbach, and the article is entitled "Memories of a Friend and Mentor – Charlotte Auerbach".

James Akagi (Retired Professor) visited KU in early June, traveling from his current home in the Seattle area.  He spent the day reminiscing about his days in the former Department of Microbiology, catching up with friends and colleagues, meeting new Molecular Biosciences Faculty Members and learning about current research and other developments in the department.  Jim is shown here (center) with faculty members Scott Hefty, Dean Stetler, Susan Egan and Steve Benedict outside the new Akagi Conference Room in the Molecular Biosciences office.  

Michael Barta (postdoctoral fellow, Hefty lab) won an iPad mini for his best poster entitled “Structural and Genetic Evidence Support that Chlamydia trachomatis CT398 (CdsZ) Interacts with σ54 (RpoN) and the Type III Secretion Export System” at the Second Annual Symposium on Structural Biology sponsored by the Oklahoma Center for Biomedical Research Excellence in Structural Biology at the University of Oklahoma on June 9.  Michael is pictured with Ann West, director of the COBRE and Joseph A. Brandt Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Kara Hinshaw (graduate student, Chandler lab) will be appointed to the National Institutes of Health funded Graduate Training Program in Dynamic Aspects of Chemical Biology Training Grant on July 1 for a term of two years.

 

June 2014 News

John Karanicolas has been promoted to associate professor with tenure. Dr. Karanicolas earned his PhD at The Scripps Research Institute, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington. His lab is focused on building novel chemical tools for modulating biological systems: “designing in” new ligand binding sites to selectively activate proteins, and identifying novel chemical inhibitors to disrupt protein activity.

Christian Ray (assistant professor) is the recipient of a Kansas IDeA Network of Biochemical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) Developmental Research Problem Grant titled "Cellular Pathologies Arising from Metabolic Trade-Offs."  The goal of this work is to use mathematical models and single-cell measurements of bacteria to understand why and how cellular physiology is affected by fluctuations in metabolic pathways.

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor; pictured with Dean Danny Anderson) is the recipient of the 2013-2014 Steeples Service to Kansans Award for her contributions toward the University of Kansas Cancer Center obtaining National Cancer Institute designation. The Steeples award recognizes University of Kansas faculty members who provide significant service to the people of Kansas as a purposeful extension to their teaching and research.  For the award presentation, Dean Anderson read comments about Dr. Neufeld's service, including from KU Cancer Center Director, Dr. Roy Jensen: "Dr. Neufeld has played and continues to play a vital role in the development of the University of Kansas Cancer Center. For the last eight years she has worked tirelessly to build the Cancer Biology program of the Cancer Center…” and “Without her steadfast efforts, the strength of our basic cancer biology research program would be considerably diminished and our efforts to build a comprehensive cancer center for the State of Kansas greatly jeopardized."  Read the KU Today article entitled "Three professors win award for service to Kansans."

Two faculty members are recipients of a Kansas IDeA Network of Biochemical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) bridging grants: Audrey Lamb (associate professor, left) for her proposal entitled "Salicylate production in siderophore biosynthesis" and Kristi Neufeld (associate professor, pictured above) for her proposal entitled “Activation of heat shock response to prevent inflammation-associate colon cancer.”

Wonpil Im (associate professor) is the recipient of National Institutes of Health Supplemental Funds for his proposal entitled "Investigation of Caveolin Structure, Topology, and Oligomerization." This project will support two graduate students in order to perform computational studies such as all-atom modeling and simulation of caveolin monomer and oligomers in membrane bilayers to better understand caveolin structure, topology, and oligomerization in combination of ongoing experimental efforts in the laboratory of Dr. Kerney Jebrell Glover at Lehigh University.

Steve Benedict (professor; surprised by Associate Dean Robert Goldstein of the prize patrol) is the recipient of several awards.  Dr. Benedict is the 2013-2014 recipient of the J. Michael Young Academic Advisor Award.  The Young Award is given annually by the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences to honor faculty members of the College who demonstrate exceptional effort, care, and guidance in the advisement of their students.  He is also the 2013-2014 Robert Weaver Graduate Mentor Award in the Biological Sciences, which is given in recognition of outstanding graduate student mentorship.  Dr. Benedict was recognized as “Favorite Professor” by the Biology Class of 2014 at the University of Kansas Undergraduate Biology Recognition Ceremony on May 17.

Six Molecular Biosciences graduate students were presented with Doctoral Hoods by their mentors at the ceremony on May 17. Heba Mostafa by her mentor David Davido; Kelly Grussendorf by her mentor Matthew Buechner; Susan Egan, mentor of Bria Kettle and Veerendra Koppolu; Amy Newton by her mentor Steve Benedict; Brian Ackley, mentor of Raymond Caylor. Keasha Restivo was presented with a Masters Hood by her mentor Scott Hefty.

Liang Xu (associate professor) and his lab were invited to participate in the 2014 Purple Stride fundraising event, which raises awareness and supports pancreatic cancer research, and is sponsored by the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network.  The invitation was extended to Xu after a recent news article highlighted Xu’s research on pancreatic cancer. The article entitled “Research at KU offers promising breakthrough for pancreatic cancer patients” summarizes Xu’s latest publication on antibody therapy targeting pancreatic cancer stem cells, published in Gastroenterology and highlighted in Nature Reviews.  At the event, graduate student Amber Smith (pictured right) represented the Xu lab on stage during the opening ceremony. Lab members participated in the 5K run and family walk held on May 3rd in Theis Park in Kansas City.

Matthew Miller (undergraduate student, Neufeld lab) was selected for the University of Kansas Cancer Center Summer Student Research Training Program for 2014 for his project entitled, “A nuclear role for tumor suppressor APC in intestinal differentiation and homeostasis”.

 

May 2014 News

Eric Deeds (assistant professor) had his research highlighted by the KU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences for his article entitled “Crosstalk and the evolution of specificity in two-component signaling” which appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  Read the KU Today article entitled “Research reveals evolution of cells’ signaling networks in diverse organisms.”

Rebecca Marquez (post doc, Xu lab) was the recipient of a 2014 American Association for Cancer Research Minority Scholar in Cancer Research Award to attend the annual meeting, April 5-9, 2014, in San Diego, California.   She presented a poster entitled “Epigenetic Dysregulation of miR-196b in Breast Cancer.”

Chad Highfill (graduate student, Macdonald lab) was the recipient of the Twomey Travel Award to attend the 55th Annual Drosophila Research Conference in San Diego, CA on March 28.  His abstract was selected for an invited platform talk entitled “Quantitative genetics of caffeine resistance in Drosophila melanogaster.

Amber Smith (graduate student, Xu lab) was the recipient of the Candlin Travel Award to attend the 2014 American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting, April 5-9, 2014, San Diego, California. She presented a poster entitled, “Tumor suppressor miR-137 inhibits colorectal cancer progression by negatively regulating cancer stem cell marker, Musashi-1.”

Denny Swartzlander (graduate student, Gleason lab) won second place for his poster entitled “mRNA expression of candidate genes for a pheromonal difference between Drosophila simulans and D. sechellia” at the 2014 Kansas Academy of Science meeting at Emporia State University on April 5.

Adam Miltner (undergraduate, Lundquist lab) won the “Outstanding Presentation Award” for the talk “How MAB-5/Hox drives posterior migration of the Q neuroblasts in the model organism Caenorhabditidis elegans” at the 2014 KU Undergraduate Research Symposium on April 26th.

 

April 2014 News

Susan Egan (full professor) will serve as the chair of the department of Molecular Biosciences starting July 1, 2014 for a term of five years.

John Karanicolas (assistant professor) is the recipient of a renewal award for their Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) computing allocation, supported by the National Science Foundation. Their project is entitled "Identifying direct and allosteric binding sites for small-molecule inhibitors of protein interactions", and this allocation will provide computer time to help identify compounds that modulate a wide assortment of signaling pathways important for human disease.  Dr. Karanicolas and his collaborator Mark Fisher at the medical school are also the recipients of a KU Proof of Concept Award for the proposal entitled, “Acceleration the Drug discovery Pipeline by combining Novel in silico Docking Approaches using Ray Casting (DARC) /Medicinal Chemistry design and HTS Chaperonin BLI Stability Screening.”  This project will allow them to build an integrated screening platform for identifying compounds that stabilize specific proteins that are susceptible to misfolding.  This may facilitate drug discovery in a number of human “misfolding” diseases, including type 2 diabetes, dialysis-related amyloidosis, and Alzheimer’s disease.  Read the KU Today article entitled “Four projects awarded through Proof of Concept Fund”.

Steve Benedict (professor) has his research highlighted in Global Medical Discovery for his article entitled “Elimination of T cell reactivity to pancreatic  β cells and partial preservation of β cell activity by peptide blockade of LFA-1:ICAM-1 interaction with the NOD mouse model” which appears in the journal Clinical Immunology.   Read the KU Today article entitled  "Research points the way to 'holy grail' therapy for autoimmune diseases."

Matt Josephson (graduate student, Lundquist lab) was awarded $2000 from the KU Doctoral Student Research Fund for his proposal entitled “Live Imaging to Examine Role of EGL-20/Wnt in Timing of Caenorhabditis elegans Q Neuroblast Migration” to spend 6 weeks in the lab of Dr. Guangshuo Ou at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.  This trip is also funded by the Carr Travel Award from KU Molecular Biosciences.  The goal of his work in China is to learn and apply the live imaging protocol pioneered by Dr. Ou to augment his dissertation research on Q neuroblast migration. 

Denny Swartzlander (graduate student, Gleason lab) was awarded $2000 from the KU Doctoral Student Research Fund for his proposal entitled “The Genetic Basis of Pheromone Production in Drosophila”. The goal of this project is to identify the regulatory regions of the D. sechelliadesatF and eloF genes by attempting to drive expression of a reporter gene. This work will support Denny’s dissertation research on the genetics of reproductive isolation in Drosophila.

 

March 2014 News

Roberto De Guzman (associate professor) – The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease of the National Institutes of Health has renewed Dr. De Guzman’s Research Project Grant (R01) entitled "NMR Studies of Bacterial Needle and Tip Proteins."   The aim of this five year project is the elucidation of how bacterial pathogens assemble a needle-like nanoinjector that is used to inject virulence proteins directly into human cells to cause infectious diseases.  Understanding in atomic detail how bacterial nanoinjectors are assembled is needed in developing novel anti-infectives targeted at disrupting the assembly of bacterial nanoinjectors.  Read the KU Today article entitled "Nasty nanoinjectors pose a new target for antibiotic research."

Liang Xu (associate professor) has a Research Highlight in Nature Reviews Gastroenterology and Hepatology.  The highlighted article is entitled “Antibody against CD44s inhibits pancreatic tumor initiation and postradiation recurrence in mice” and appears in the journal Gastroenterology.  Read the KU Today article entitled, "Research at KU offers promising breakthrough for pancreatic cancer patients."

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor), along with Drs. Belinda Sturm of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering, Sharon Billings and Ben Sikes of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and Jennifer Roberts of Geology, was awarded a Level I Strategic Initiative Grant entitled Creating a Center for Metagenomic Microbial Community Analysis.” This project applies existing next-generation DNA sequencing and computing infrastructure at KU to advance knowledge of microbial communities in diverse environments.

Chris Gamblin (associate professor) was a faculty representative for the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Winter Mini College February 1-2 in San Antonio, Texas.  As part of the weekend of events, he presented a lecture entitled “The Fight Against Rogue Proteins in Alzheimer’s Disease”.  

Berl Oakley (professor, left) and Chris Gamblin (associate professor, pictured above) had their research highlighted by the KU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences for their article entitled “Inhibition of Tau Aggregation by Three Aspergillus nidulans Secondary Metabolites: 2,ω-Dihydroxyemodin, Asperthecin and Asperbenzaldehyde” which appears in the journal Planta Medica.  Read the KU Today article entitled, "Natural fungal products could offer potential Alzheimer's therapy."

Erik Lundquist (professor), along with Drs. Marco Bortolato of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Merlin Butler of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences (KUMC) Paula Fite of Clinical Child Psychology and Ann Manzardo of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences (KUMC), was awarded a Level I Strategic Initiative Grant entitled Developing a Research Consortium on Aggression and Drug Abuse.” The consortium will be the first multidisciplinary network in the country for studying how and why pathological impulsive aggression and substance abuse and addition disorders exist concurrently but independently in a subject. Using a unique combination of clinical and preclinical studies, the goal is to develop effective preventive and therapeutic interventions.

On February 3, the Newmark Lecture in Biochemistry was presented by Professor Chaitin Khosla of Stanford University (left with Dr. Audrey Lamb).  Yan Xia (Karanicolas lab) was presented the Newmark Award for outstanding graduate work in biochemistry (right with Dr. Bill Dentler).

Jessica van Loben Sels (undergraduate, Davido lab) is the recipient of a Kansas IDeA Network for Biomedical Research Excellence Undergraduate Research Scholarship for her project entitled “Identifying Mechanisms of Action by Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 Infected Cell Protein 0 that Impair the Interferon β Response.”  The award provides research funding for the spring and summer of 2014.

 

February 2014 News

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) organized a conference for the KU Cancer Center Cancer Biology Program of which she serves as co-leader.  The retreat, held on January 9 at the James P. Davis Hall on Wyandotte County Lake, included short talks from Stowers Institute members, a keynote lecture by Jason Mills, MD, PhD of Washington University School of Medicine, and PechaKucha-style talks by program members, including Molecular Biosciences faculty Mizuki Azuma, Yoshi Azuma, David Davido, and Neufeld.

Connor Bowman (undergraduate, Xu lab) is the recipient of a Kansas IDeA Network for Biomedical Research Excellence Undergraduate Research Scholarship for his project entitled “Molecular cancer therapy modulating autophagy.”  The award provides research funding during the spring and summer of 2014.

 

January 2014 News

Department Chair Search The Department of Molecular Biosciences at the University of Kansas is soliciting applications for the position of Chairperson. To apply please visit the KU employment website. The deadline is January 17th, 2014.

Erik Lundquist (professor), along with Principal Investigator Dr. Jun “Luke” Huan from Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and co-Investigators Drs. Jeff Aube and Blake Peterson from Medicinal Chemistry and Dr. Susan Lunte from Chemistry, was awarded a Level I Strategic Initiative Grant entitled “Establishing a multidisciplinary data science research team at the University of Kansas.” The project will focus on new methods for storage and analysis of large datasets, including image analysis, cheminformatics, and genome sequence data. Dr. Lundquist’s role in the project will be to assist with the analysis of genome sequence data generated using the Genome Sequencing Core Laboratory of the Center for Molecular Analysis of Disease Pathways NIH COBRE project.

Adam Miltner (Lundquist lab), Betsy Ramirez (Lamb lab), Alexa Roy (Xu lab), Reann Whitney (Timmons lab) and Bailey Wilkerson (Xu lab) are the recipients of Spring 2014 KU Undergraduate Research Awards. The $1000 stipends provide support to pursue independent research projects.

 

December 2013 News

Mark Richter (professor), in collaboration with Pinnacle Technology, Inc. of Lawrence, is the recipient of a Small Business Technology Transfer Award from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for the proposal entitled: "Applications and Methods for Continuous Monitoring of Physiological Chemistry."  The goal of this project is to develop a platform methodology to screen, clone, evolve and stabilize oxidase enzymes for the measurement of metabolic biomarkers via biosensors.

Through the Provost's Strategic Initiative Grant Program at KU, a Level I proposal was funded to develop a multi-disciplinary Center for Anti-Infective Discovery and Development. The Center will be headed by a leadership team consisting of Susan Egan (Professor, Molecular Biosciences); Scott Hefty (Associate Professor, Molecular Biosciences); Jeff Aubé (University Distinguished Professor, Medicinal Chemistry); Berl Oakley (Irving S. Johnson Distinguished Professor of Molecular Biology, Molecular Biosciences); Mario Rivera (Professor; Chemistry) and Michael Parmely (Professor and Chair, KUMC, Microbiology, Molecular Genetics, and Immunology). Two major initiatives of this center are to fund six preliminary high throughput screens against infectious disease targets and to support monthly meetings to bring together individuals from across KU with interests in anti-infective discovery and development. The grant will also provide funds toward the outfitting of an ITV room in Haworth that will enable real-time video conferencing with remote sites.

Kristi Neufeld and Liang Xu (associate professors) received an award from the KU Cancer Center as participants in a Program Project Development Proposal entitled “RNA Binding Proteins in Colorectal Cancers”.  The research team, led by Shrikant Anant from the KU Medical Center, includes three investigators working directly on RNA binding proteins and colorectal cancer, two with expertise in developing compounds that target RNA-protein interactions, and one with extensive experience in drug discovery.

Eric Deeds (assistant professor) and Audrey Lamb (associate professor) served as mentors and poster judges at the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee, November 13-16.  Several MB undergrads were delegates at the conference and presented their research as posters:  Christopher Trezza (Buechner lab), Simon Kelow (Karanicolas lab), Serena Senegal (Xu lab), and Alexander Fondaw (Karanicolas lab).

Alexandria Roy (undergraduate, Xu lab) won a poster presentation award in the undergraduate molecular bioscience division at the annual meeting of the Society for the Advancement of Hispanics/Chicanos and Native Americans in Science in San Antonio, October 15-19.

Brad Hutchison (undergraduate, Lamb lab) is the recipient of the Paul A. Kitos Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Biochemical Research.

 

November 2013 News

Mark Richter (professor), in collaboration with Pinnacle Technology, Inc. of Lawrence, is the recipient of a Small Business Innovation Research Award from the National Institute of Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health for their proposal entitled “A nicotine biosensor for addiction studies.”  The goal of this project is to build a nicotine biosensor for pre-clinical in vivo use.

Two Molecular Biosciences faculty, Kristi Neufeld and Liang Xu, are the recipients of a Level 1 project funding from the Research Investment Council for their proposed project, “Chemical Biology Team Science Approach to Cancer Drug Discovery”.  With this funding from the Provost’s Strategic Initiative Grant Program, Neufeld and Xu will lead a team of basic cancer biologists to validate a novel therapeutic target they recently discovered, the protein Musashi.  With the inclusion of protein biochemists and medicinal chemists on their multidisciplinary team, the ultimate goal is to identify new small molecules and natural products that can be used to probe Musashi function in living systems and as Musashi inhibitors in a therapeutic setting.

Blake Balcomb (graduate student, Lamb lab) is the recipient of the Carr Travel award.  Blake will travel to Austin, TX in January of 2014 to participate in the Tenth New Enzymology Kinetics Workshop.

 

October 2013 News

Wonpil Im (associate professor) has been named a Docking Young Faculty Scholar.    These awards are to honor faculty who have distinguished themselves early in their career and are intended to allow KU to retain outstanding faculty.



Ilya Vakser (professor) is the recipient of two new grant awards.  The National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health has renewed Dr. Vakser’s Research Project Grant (R01) entitled "Integrated resource for protein recognition studies." The aim of this four-year project is to develop protein docking algorithms along with the supporting system of databases towards integrated protein docking environment.  Dr. Vakser is also the recipient of a National Science Foundation Advances in Bioinformatics Innovation award entitled “Target – template structural and functional relationships in modeling of protein – protein interactions.”  The goal of this research is to investigate and optimize the relationships between protein-protein targets and their structural templates based on a systematic analysis of a large set of structural and functional characteristics of protein-protein complexes.

Kathy Suprenant (professor) was invited by the Cell Press to submit her vault images to a curated Picture Show on Cell Curiosities. 



As part of the Provost’s Strategic Initiative Grant Program, the Research Investment Council has funded a Level 1 project to Dr. Berl Oakley (Molecular Biosciences), Dr. Paul Hanson (Chemistry), Dr. Lester Mitscher (Medicinal Chemistry) and Dr. Scott Hefty (Molecular Biosciences) to develop novel, safe and effective anti-fungal therapeutic agents.  Preliminary data have revealed that a naturally occurring non-toxic compound, kramerixin, demonstrates antifungal activity. The goal of this project is to synthesize analogs of kramerixin to identify compounds that have low toxicity to mammalian cells, are effective against a wide range of pathogenic fungi, can be administered by oral or topical routes, and can be produced economically.  The immediate goal is to identify attractive lead compounds that can be evaluated for their therapeutic potential in vivo in a subsequent grant period.

Ryan Xiao (undergraduate, Ackley lab) and Elizabeth Braden (undergraduate, Y. Azuma lab) are the recipients of KU Undergraduate Research Awards.  The $1000 stipend provides support for their respective projects entitled “How does FMI-1 affect the anterior-posterior specification of the VD neurons of C. elegans?” (Xiao) and “N-terminal localization of PIAS enzymes” (Braden).

 

September 2013 News

Christian Ray (assistant professor)  joins the Department of Molecular Biosciences this Fall.  Dr. Ray received his doctorate from The University of Michigan before proceeding to postdoctoral studies at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.   His research area involves using concepts from systems and synthetic biology, evolution, networks, and condensed/soft matter physics to explore the basic biological principles that underlie living matter.

Roberto De Guzman (associate professor) has one of the top ten “most read” articles published in Biochemistry between April and June, 2013.  The article is entitled “Structure and biophysics of Type III secretion in bacteria” and coauthored by MB graduate students Srirupa Chatterjee, Sukanya Chaudhury, Kawaljit Kaur and Andrew McShan.

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) has accepted a joint appointment to the faculty of the University of Kansas Medical Center (Kansas City, KS) in the Department of Cancer Biology.  She currently serves as a co-leader for the Cancer Biology Program at the KU Cancer Center.

Erik Lundquist (professor) has been named to the Fellowship Award Committee of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, based in New York City.  The Fellowship Award Committee reviews post-doctoral fellowship applications from scientists across the country and participates in mentoring of fellows.

 

August 2013 News

Audrey Lamb (associate professor) served as the discussion leader for the Flavoenzymes session at the Enzymes, Coenzymes, and Metabolic Pathways Gordon Research Conference, July 14-19, in Waterville Valley, NH.

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) has her research highlighted on the cover of the journal Biochimica et Biophysica Acta: Reviews on Cancer.

Steve Benedict (professor) has a Highlighted Article in Clinical Immunology.  The article, entitled “Elimination of T cell reactivity to pancreatic β cells and partial preservation of β cell activity by peptide blockade of LFA-1:ICAM-1 interaction in the NOD mouse model,” was chosen by the Editor-in-Chief to be made free access and the honor also includes a short biography on the journal website.

The following Molecular Biosciences faculty were elected to College of Liberal Arts and Sciences governance committees: Stuart Macdonald, committee on appointments, promotion and tenure, 3-year term. Fusao Takusagawa, committee on evaluation of chairs and directors, 2-year term. Brian Ackley, committee on graduate studies, 3 year term. Liang Tang, committee on sabbatical leaves, 3-year term. Peter Gegenheimer, committee on undergraduate studies and advising, 3 year term.

Angela Fowler (graduate student, Davido lab) received the Cassandra Ritter Travel award.  She presented a poster entitled “Identification of specific cellular kinases as potential regulators of HSV-1 ICP0 transactivation activity” at the 38th Annual International Herpesvirus Workshop in Grand Rapids, MI, on July 21.

Srirupa Chatterjee (De Guzman Lab) has accepted a postdoctoral position at the Washington University in Saint Louis School of Medicine in the lab of Dr. Gaya Amarsinghe.  Srirupa will be studying host immune evasion mechanisms of the human respiratory syncytial virus.

Sukanya Chaudhury (De Guzman lab) has accepted a postdoctoral position at Georgia State University at the Center for Inflammation, Immunity and Infection in the lab of Dr. Richard Plemper. Sukanya will be studying the interaction of the measles virus glycoproteins (H and F), which facilitates membrane merger leading to infection.

Heba Mostafa (graduate student, Davido lab) received the Cassandra Ritter Travel award.  She gave an oral presentation entitled “HSV-1 ICP22 but not its truncated form US1.5 is required for VICE domain formation and efficient acute replication and latent infection in mice” at the 38th Annual International Herpesvirus Workshop in Grand Rapids, MI, on July 21

Yamini Mutreja (graduate student, Gamblin lab) is the recipient of a Mabel A. Woodyard Fellowship in Neurodegenerative Disorders from the Institute of Neurological Discoveries of the University of Kansas Medical Center to study the role of tau mutations in Progressive Supranuclear Palsy.

We welcome the following new graduate students to our program: Anuja Bhatta, University of New Orleans. Dwight Deay, University of Kansas. Christian Gomez, Washburn University. Yuxiao Guo, Wuhan University, China. Kara Hinshaw, Stephens College. Lingfei Liang, Beijing Institute of Technology. Erin Suderman, Goshen College. Luke Wenger, Kansas State University. Sanjay Yadava, Newman University. Zhe Yang, China University of Mining and Technology.

Tim Turkalo (undergraduate, M. Azuma lab) was the recipient of a KU Honors Opportunity Award to travel to the 8thEuropean Zebrafish Meeting in Barcelona, Spain.  He presented a poster entitled “Ewing sarcoma Ewsa protein regulates skeletogenesis by modulating SOX9” on July 19-23.

 

July 2013 News

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) joins the Department of Molecular Biosciences faculty following a post-doctoral fellowship with E. Peter Greenburg (University of Washington). Dr. Chandler’s scientific interests are to elucidate the mechanisms and the role of social behavior in bacteria. Her research focus is quorum sensing regulation of cooperative behaviors such as biofilm formation and antibiotic production in Burkholderia.  This bacterial genus includes members that infect plants and animals as well as severe human pathogens.

Lynn Hancock (associate professor) joins the Department of Molecular Biosciences faculty from Kansas State University.  His primary scientific interests are on mechanisms of pathogenesis for the opportunistic bacterial pathogen, Enterococcus faecalis. His research focus is in determining the genetic pathways and molecular processes associated with specific virulence determinants such as capsule production and biofilm formation. In concert with these studies, and to address the extensive spread of antibiotic resistance associated with these infections, he is also focused on developing new anti-infectives against E. faecalis.

Vicki Corbin (associate professor) will begin a new position as the Director of Education Outreach and Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences in the College of Agriculture, Forestry, and Life Sciences at Clemson University in the fall.  We will miss Dr. Corbin here at the University of Kansas and wish her all the best in her new endeavors.

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) begins a four year term as Molecular Biosciences Director of Graduate Studies on July 1.

Steve Benedict (professor) and Marcia Chan (Immunology Research, Children’s Mercy Hospital) are the recipients of a Patton Trust Research Grant from the Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute entitled “Influence of a genetic variant on the adaptive immune response in childhood allergic asthma.”  The goal of this proposal is to examine the effects of a single gene polymorphism, known to be associated with allergic asthma, for its effects on the B cell (CMH) as well as T cell (KU) responses in the immune systems of children with asthma.  The polymorphism is associated with differential symptoms and different responses to therapy, and objectives of this work are to better understand the disease mechanism and to learn how to predict an optimal therapeutic approach for each individual patient.

Susan Egan (professor) is the recipient of a Pilot Project Award from the National Institutes of Health Center for Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) in Novel Approaches for the Control of Microbial Pathogens for her project entitled “Inhibitors of AraC family virulence activators in Enterotoxigenic E. coli and Shigella."  The project will involve initial steps in elucidation of the structure activity relationship and the binding site for a small-molecule inhibitor of AraC family activators.  The inhibitor blocks expression of key virulence genes in the important human pathogens Enterotoxigenic E. coli and Shigella, and thus has potential to be developed into a novel antimicrobial agent. 

Three Molecular Biosciences faculty taught courses in the fifth annual KU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Mini College June 3-6.  The event, open to all adults gave students the chance to “spend a week on campus reconnecting with KU through lectures, tours and special events with top faculty and university leaders.” Faculty members and their course titles are: Brian Ackley, The Brain: Function and Fiction. Stuart Macdonald, Using Flies to Help Explore and Treat Human Disease. Kristi Neufeld, One Renegade Cell: Understanding Cancer.

Ben Combs (Gamblin lab) has accepted a postdoctoral position at Michigan State College of Human Medicine in the lab of Dr. Nick Kanaan.  Ben will be studying the underlying mechanisms in neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease using in vitro and in vivo approaches.

Abby Dotson (Benedict lab) has accepted a postdoctoral position at the Oregon Health and Science University  in the laboratory of Dr. Halina Offner. Abby will be studying sex differences in brain inflammation during experimental stroke.

 

June 2013 News

Seven Molecular Biosciences graduate students were presented with Doctoral Hoods by their mentors at the ceremony on May 18: Dr. Scott Hefty (1), mentor of Kyle Kemege (2); Dr. Chris Gamblin (3), mentor of Ben Combs (4); Dr. Brian Ackley (5), mentor of Elvis Huarcaya Najarro (6); Dr. Steve Benedict (7), mentor of Kelli Williams (8); Dr. Yoshi Azuma (9), mentor of Raghavi Sudharsan (10); Dr. Dave Benson (11), mentor of Sudharsan Parthasarathy (12); and Dr. Roberto De Guzman (13), mentor of Sukanya Chaudhury (14).

Three Molecular Biosciences graduate students were presented with Masters Hoods by their mentors at the ceremony on May 18. Namita Balwalli by her mentor Dr. Scott Hefty, Katelyn Deckert (mentor: Karanicolas), and Dr. Mizuki Azuma, mentor of Chris Merkes.

Audrey Lamb (associate professor) is the recipient of a KU Cancer Center Pilot Project Award for her proposal entitled “Structure determination of Musashi-1, a drug target for brain tumors and breast and colon cancer."  Dr. Lamb will be collaborating with Drs. Neufeld and Xu to provide x-ray crystallographic structures of the Musashi-1 protein in combination with lead compounds for new cancer therapeutics.

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) was honored on May 7th at the 16th Annual Celebration of Teaching Reception hosted by the KU Center for Teaching Excellence. This year the focus was on graduate education, and nineteen faculty were nominated by graduate students from their respective departments. Molecular Biosciences Graduate Students Lakshmi Sundararajan (Lundquist lab) and Sonia Hall (Ward lab) spoke at the ceremony about Dr. Macdonald’s contributions to graduate education.

Bob Cohen (professor) has been recruited by Clemson University to serve as chair of the Department of Biological Sciences in the College of Agriculture, Forestry, and Life Sciences.   Biological Sciences is a diverse department of sixty faculty and has one of the largest undergraduate and graduate enrollments of any program at Clemson University.  Although Dr. Cohen will be missed at the University of Kansas, this new position to begin July 1 represents new and exciting opportunities for both Dr. Cohen and Clemson University.

Jim Orr (professor) was recognized as “Favorite Professor” by the Biology Class of 2013 at the University of Kansas Undergraduate Biology Recognition Ceremony on May 18.

Xiaoqing Wu (postdoctoral fellow, Xu lab) is the recipient of a Kansas – IdeA Network for Biomedical Research Excellence postdoctoral fellowship for her project entitled “Molecular cancer therapy targeting RNA binding protein HuR.”

Joseph Campbell (undergraduate, Timmons lab) was selected to participate in the University of Kansas Cancer Center Summer Student Research Training Program.  Joe is investigating novel roles for ABC transporters in cellular mechanisms that maintain genome integrity.

Matt Miller (undergraduate, Neufeld lab) is the recipient of the 2013 Lance. S. Foster Outstanding Junior in Biology Award.

Betsy Ramirez (undergraduate, Lamb lab) is the recipient of a KU Undergraduate Research Award.  The $1000 stipend provides summer support for Betsy to pursue her project entitled “Isolation and Crystallization of a Non-Ribosomal Peptide Synthetase Domain.”

 

May 2013 News

Vicki Corbin (associate professor) is the recipient of the Michael J. Young Academic Advisor Award for 2012-2013 in the Natural Sciences and Math Division. This annual award is given by the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences to honor faculty members of the College who demonstrate exceptional effort, care, and guidance in the advisement of their students.

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) and members of her lab, including Matthew Miller (undergraduate), and Maged Zeineldin (postdoc) joined thousands of other members of the medical research community along with patients, politicians, and advocates representing over 200 organizations at the Rally for Medical Research on April 8 in Washington DC.  Congressional reporter and journalist Cokie Roberts moderated the event which was billed as an effort "to make funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) a national priority."

Amber Smith (graduate student, Xu lab) is the recipient of the Ida H. Hyde Scholarship to support studies in the laboratory of Dr. Xiao-Feng Sun at Linkoping University in Sweden this summer.  Amber was also recognized with a Graduate Research Competition Award at the annual Graduate Student Awards Ceremony on April 23.

 

April 2013 News

Brian Ackley has been promoted to associate professor with tenure.  Dr. Ackley earned his Ph.D. at the Northwestern University Institute for Neuroscience and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California Santa Cruz and at the University of Illinois at Chicago.  His research interests are in molecular mechanisms of neural development and using chemical biology to understand physiology.

Eric Deeds (assistant professor) had his research highlighted in the “Best of 2012” issue of Biophysical Journal.  The article entitled “Crosstalk and Competition in Signaling Networks” was one of the eight research articles published in the special issue. Papers are selected based on the number of times they are accessed and downloaded online. 

On February 28, the University of Kansas Provost's Office and Office of Research and Graduate Studies presented Leading Light Awards, recognizing principle investigators who received external awards of $1 million or more and active during FY2012. Three faculty members in Molecular Biosciences were among the awardees: Brian Ackley, Mizuki Azuma, and John Karanicolas.

Michael Barta (postdoctoral researcher, Hefty lab) was awarded the prestigious San-pin Wang Award for most-outstanding postdoctoral fellow presentation for his lecture entitled “Structural and functional studies for the C. trachomatis proteome lacking functional annotation” at the Chlamydia Basic Research Society meeting in San Antonio, TX, March 19-22.  The award was presented by Professor Lee Ann Campbell of the University of Washington.

Sonia Hall (graduate student, Ward lab) has been appointed as the graduate student representative to the Genetics Society of America Education Committee. The committee is charged with providing guidance on the Society's activities related to education, career development and public outreach.

Kyle Kemege (graduate student, Hefty lab) has accepted a Lecturer position at the Louisiana Tech University in Ruston. He begins his appointment in the fall of 2013.

Disha Dasgupta (Olathe high school student, Ackley lab) won first prize at the 62nd Greater Kansas City Science and Engineering Fair held March 13th-16th for her research project entitled “Finding the Role of Aggregation, Hyperphosphorylation, and Mutation of Tau Protein in causing Alzheimer’s disease using C. elegans worms.”  She will next compete at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Phoenix, Arizona in May.

 

February 2013 News

Scott Hefty (associate professor) is the recipient of an Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant Award (R21) from the National Institutes of Health.  Dr. Hefty’s proposal is entitled “Development of Conditional Gene Expression Systems in Chlamydia”.  The goal of this proposal is to develop genetic and molecular tools for precise control of gene expression in Chlamydia. These tools will enable widespread functional and biological studies to be performed in Chlamydia and allow for a better understanding for how Chlamydia cause disease.

Berl Oakley (Irving S. Johnson Distinguished Professor) is a part of a consortium with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory that was recently awarded a Department of Energy Grant to develop new technologies to convert biomass into advanced biofuels.  The goal of Dr. Oakley’s portion of the project is to alter genes to increase the production of fuel molecules in fungi growing on lignocellulosic hydrolysate and to identify new genes that produce compounds with characteristics desirable for biofuels.

David Davido (associate professor) received a pilot project grant from the National Institutes of Health Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) "Novel approaches for the control of microbial pathogens".   The title of his research project is "HSV-1-mediated proteolysis of cellular targets".   The goal of his project is to identify and understand how cellular proteins targeted for degradation by herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) E3 ubiquitin ligase ICP0 affect viral replication.

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) has been named the director of the K-INBRE Bioinformatics Satellite Core at KU.

Liang Xu (associate professor) has been named a 2013 Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) Faculty Scholar in recognition of excellence in research, science and technology.  Dr. Xu is pictured receiving his award from K-INBRE Principal Investigator, Dr. Doug Wright, at the 11th Annual K-INBRE Symposium, Manhattan, KS on January 19-20.

Sunhwan Jo (graduate student, Im lab) is the recipient of the Twomey Travel Award to present his research project “N-Glycan Structure Modeling and In Silico Glycosylation: Template-Based Structure Prediction of Carbohydrate Structures of Glycoconjugates” at the 57th Biophysical Society meeting in Philadelphia, February 2-6.

Nadeem Asad (graduate student, Timmons lab) is the recipient of the Candlin Travel Award to present his research project “Cytoplasmic versus nuclear RNAi mechanisms in transgene-induced gene silencing in Caenorhabditis elegans” at the 19th International C elegans meeting in Los Angeles, June 26-30.

Zach Roberts (undergraduate, Lundquist lab) won the best poster award for his presentation entitled “Netrin signaling limits filipodial protrusion in growth cones during repulsive axon guidance”.  Roberts is pictured receiving his award from K-INBRE Associate Director and Principal Investigator, Drs. Dianne Durham and Doug Wright, at the 11th Annual K-INBRE Symposium, Manhattan, KS on January 19-20.

Elizabeth Braden (Y. Azuma lab), Samuel Long (Ward lab) and Hailey Baker (Cohen lab) were awarded Undergraduate Research Awards from the Center for Undergraduate Research at KU.

 

January 2013 News

Peter Gegenheimer (associate professor) delivered one of two inaugural Sidney Altman Endowment Lectures at the 24th International tRNA Conference, held from December 2 to 6 outside of Santiago, Chile.  The Altman Endowment was established to honor and recognize Prof. Sidney Altman’s contributions as an exemplary scientist and mentor, and the lectureship is designed to honor investigators who have made significant contributions to tRNA biology. Gegenheimer was cited for his two decades of research demonstrating that tRNA 5’ end maturation in plant chloroplasts is accomplished by a protein, rather than by a catalytic RNA as in almost all other organisms and domains of life. The citation reads, “Your pioneering work to establish the protein-based variants of RNase P exemplifies the type of research that the Sidney Altman Endowment Lectureship was meant to honor.”  Ironically, it was Dr. Altman who received the 1989 Nobel Prize for demonstrating that this tRNA processing reaction in bacteria was performed by a catalytic RNA. Gegenheimer shared the Altman award with Dr. Walter Rossmanith (Medical University of Vienna) who, following Gegenheimer’s work in chloroplasts, demonstrated that human mitochondrial RNase P was also a protein, and that its catalytic subunit was a homolog of the chloroplast enzyme. 

Kyle Kemege (graduate student, Hefty lab) is the recipient of an American Society for Microbiology and Burroughs Wellcome Fund Teaching Fellowship.  The program aims to prepare doctoral-trained students for science teaching positions at a variety of non-doctoral institutions.  Fellows in the program take part in a 10-month training experience that combines in-depth webinars, pre- and post-webinar assignments, structured mentoring, and a community of practice.

Tyler Darland and Sebastian Schoneich (Lundquist lab), and Shelby Webb (Neufeld lab) were awarded Undergraduate Research Awards from the Center for Undergraduate Research at KU.

Kansas IDeA Network for Biomedical Research Excellence will fund seven Undergraduate Research Scholarships for undergraduate students who are working in faculty research laboratories during the spring and summer of 2013. The five trainees with Molecular Biosciences mentors and project descriptions are as follows: Elizabeth Braden (Dr. Yoshi Azuma) “Mechanism of Localization of SUMO E3 Ligases”, Ashley Ellis (Dr. Audrey Lamb) “EasA Protein Structure”; Nathan Kern (Dr. Wompil Im) “Simulation of Lipid-Linked Oligosaccharides in Membrane Bilayers”; Raeann Whitney (Dr. Lisa Timmons) “Analysis of a gene involved in RNAi in C. elegans”; and Ryan Xiao (DrBrian Ackley) “Role of the Flamingo Protein in Axon Outgrowth”.

 

December 2012 News

Vicki Corbin (associate professor) was honored as an Outstanding Educator by the Torch Chapter of the Mortar Board, a senior honor society, on November 9 at halftime of the KU-Southeast Missouri State men’s basketball game.  The award recognizes dedication to KU and positive influence on students both academically and personally.

Erik Lundquist (professor) served as chair of the National Institutes of Health Study Section “Neuronal Plasticity and Regeneration” to review grant proposals in the field of developmental neurobiology.  November 28th-29th.

Jamie Alan (postdoctoral researcher, Lundquist lab) has accepted a position as assistant professor of pharmacology at Central Michigan University College of Medicine (CMED), starting in the spring of 2013.

Srirupa Chatterjee (graduate student, De Guzman lab) won the Best Poster Presentation award at the Great Plains Regional Annual Symposium on Protein and Biomolecular NMR (GRASP-NMR) held at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas on November 2-3, 2012

 

November 2012 News

Audrey Lamb (associate professor) has been chosen to be the program chair of the 2013 Midwest Enzyme Chemistry Conference scheduled for October 12 at Loyola University, Chicago, IL.

Jim Orr (professor) presented the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) 2012 Distinguished Tribal College Mentor Award to Sharon Condon (Haskell), a Co-PI on the NIH-funded Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement (RISE) Program, in a ceremony at the SACNAS National Meeting on October 11.

Liang Tang (associate professor) had his research highlighted on the cover of the Journal of Molecular Biology.

 

October 2012 News

Chris Gamblin (associate professor) and Dr. Mel Feany in the Department of Pathology, Brigham and Women's Hospital at Harvard Medical School have been awarded a multiple-PI R01 grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke of the National Institutes of Health to study the research project entitled "Biochemical and in vivo determinants of tau neurotoxicity". This project will combine in vitro biochemistry and model organisms to determine the mechanisms of toxicity of different variants of the tau protein. This work has important implications for Alzheimer's disease and other related neurodegenerative tauopathies.

Liang Xu (associate professor) has been selected as a first round recipient of a Laboratory for Early Stage Translational Research (LESTR) project for his proposal entitled "Molecular cancer therapy targeting RNA binding protein HuR." This drug discovery project will support assay development and high-throughput screening to identify small molecule inhibitors targeting the tumor-associated RNA-binding protein Hu antigen R (HuR).

Amber Smith (graduate student, Xu lab) won the poster award at the 18th Annual Symposium of the NIH funded Dynamic Aspects of Chemical Biology Training Grant on September 6 held at University of Kansas School of Pharmacy.

 

September 2012 News

Liang Xu (associate professor) is the recipient of an Outstanding Scientist Award for International Collaboration by the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC).  This award will fund a collaborative project with Xian Jiaotong University (one of the top Universities in China) to develop novel nanotechnology for targeting cancer and cancer stem cells.

Kyle Kemege (graduate student, Hefty lab) is this year's winner of the Borgendale Award. This award is given in recognition of the best graduate student seminar at the Department of Molecular Biosciences Fall Symposium. 

Chris Merkes (graduate student, M. Azuma lab) won the symposium poster prize and Kathy Meneely (postdoc, Lamb lab) was the image contest winner.

 

August 2012 News

The University of Kansas Cancer Center (KUCC) was officially awarded National Cancer Institute (NCI) designation on July 12, 2012. This designation places KU in an elite group of cancer research centers whose mission is the “development and translation of scientific knowledge from promising laboratory discoveries into new treatments for cancer patients.”  NCI designation will expand resources for cancer research and will also benefit the region by increased access to the latest cancer fighting efforts.  Molecular Biosciences faculty members are active in two of the four research programs of the KUCC.  Dr. Kristi Neufeld serves as co-leader of the Cancer Biology (CB) program, which uses model systems to identify targets for drug development and analyze potential chemotherapeutic agents. Many of the chemical compounds evaluated by the CB group are generated by members of the Drug Discovery, Delivery and Experimental Therapeutics (D3ET) program.  KUCC Members include: Yoshiaki Azuma, David Davido, Erik Lundquist, Berl Oakley, Lisa Timmons, and Liang Xu; Associate members include:  Brian Ackley, Mizuki Azuma, John Karanicolas, Audrey Lamb, Mark Richter, Kathy Suprenant, Fusao Takusagawa, and Liang Tang.

Wonpil Im (associate professor) is the recipient of a research grant from the Advances in Biological Informatics Program from the National Science Foundation entitled “Development and application of graphical user interfaces for system building and analysis of membrane simulations.”  The division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences of the National Science Foundation has renewed Dr. Im’s research grant entitled “Computational studies of membrane proteins based on NMR observables.”  Dr. Im is also the recipient of a subaward from the National Institutes of Health supported Membrane Protein Structure Dynamics Consortium, a multi-collaborator Glue Grant.

Erik Lundquist (Professor) is a co-Investigator on an NIH Center for Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) project that was funded for $11 million.  The grant, entitled “Center for the Molecular Analysis of Disease Pathways”, is to provide enabling technologies on campus to analyze human disease pathways using model organisms (flies, worms, zebrafish, and rodents).  Dr. Lundquist’s role in the project is to establish a genome sequencing core facility utilizing “next generation” high throughput sequencing technology.  Sue Lunte (Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Chemistry) is the Principal Investigator and Blake Peterson (Medicinal Chemistry) is a co-Investigator.

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) had his research highlighted on the cover of the journal Genetics.

Denny Swartzlander (graduate student, Gleason lab) is the recipient of a 2012 Kansas Academy of Science Student Research Grant for his project entitled “The genetic basis for differential pheromone production between two Drosophilasibling species.”  Denny was also the recipient of a scholarship to attend the 17th Summer Institute for Statistical Genetics at the University of Washington in Seattle, July 9 - 18.

Amy Sinclair (undergraduate, Suprenant lab) was one of seven students selected to participate in a five-week, advanced biotechnology lecture and laboratory course at Moscow State University. The “Russian Language and Biotechnology” program is collaboration between the Faculty of Biology at Moscow State University and the Russian Language Centre of Moscow. 

We welcome the following new graduate students to our program:

  • Aisha Al Naamani, University of Wales Institute, Cardiff
  • KyeongMin Bae, Kosin University, Busan, Korea
  • Amanda Dunbar, University of Minnesota, Morris, Minnesota
  • Chad Highfill, Missouri State University, Springfield, Missouri
  • Vaishnavi Nagarajan, Vellore Institute of Technology, India
  • Vitoria Paolillo, Northwest Missouri State University, Maryville, Missouri
  • Keasha Restivo, Drury University, Springfield, Missouri

 

July 2012 News

Vicki Corbin and Rob Ward (associate professors) attended the National Academies Northstar Summer Institute on Undergraduate Science Education in Minneapolis, June 11-16.  The program emphasized the latest research on how students learn and recommended methods to help students learn biology.  They earned certificates as "National Academies Education Fellows in the Life Sciences.”

Nadeem Asad (graduate student, Timmons lab) received the Sally K. Frost Mason and Kenneth A. Mason Award for Excellence in Teaching Undergraduate Biology in 2012.

Ted Christesen (undergraduate, Tang lab) is the recipient of a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship.  This scholarship provides up to $7,500 for educational expenses and are considered the premier undergraduate recognition to honor academically gifted students. 

Kathryn Songer (undergraduate student, Timmons lab) was selected to participate in the University of Kansas Cancer Center Summer Student Research Training Program.  Kat is investigating novel roles for the cyclic nucleotide signaling pathway in abiotic stress responses and longevity.

Jordan Martinez and Haley Luna (Lawrence High School students, Timmons lab) are the recipients of a Research Assistantship for Minority High School Students (RAHSS) from the National Science Foundation.  This research experience program is intended to encourage talented high school students to participate in NSF-supported research projects.   Haley and Jordan are using RNAi technology to investigate chromosome non-disjunction, a phenomenon associated with Down, Turner, Klinefelter, Edwards, Patau and other syndromes in humans.

 

June 2012 News

Scott Hefty has been promoted to associate professor with tenure. Dr. Hefty earned his Ph.D. at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California-Berkeley. His research interests are in molecular mechanisms of pathogenesis and gene regulation in Chlamydia.

Stuart Macdonald has been promoted to associate professor with tenure. Dr. Macdonald earned his D.Phil at the University of Oxford, and was a postdoctoral fellow in both University College London and the University of California at Irvine. The Macdonald lab is interested in the genetics of complex traits, and is currently funded to investigate the genetic basis of variation in stress- and drug-resistance, and male sexual trait morphology in Drosophila.

Liang Tang has been promoted to associate professor with tenure.  Dr. Tang earned his Ph.D. at the Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences and was a postdoctoral fellow and senior research associate at the Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla. His laboratory has a broad interest in understanding the life cycles of a variety of viruses and bacteria using structural approaches.

Steve Benedict (professor) is the recipient of two new grants. The first from the Patricia Watkins Emphysema Research Fund is for his proposal entitled “Treatment of autoimmune components of emphysema in a mouse model of the disease.” The second from the American Quarter Horse Foundation is for his proposal entitled “Adapting a human/mouse therapy for autoimmune disease to treat equine recurrent uveitis.”

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) has been awarded a National Institutes of Health Center of Biomedical Research Excellence Pilot Project Grant from the Center for Cancer Experimental Therapeutics.  Dr. Neufeld’s proposal is entitled “Novel molecular cancer therapy targeting Musashi.” The objective of this proposal is to identify a new class of molecular cancer therapeutics that inhibits specific protein/RNA interactions required for cancer cell survival.

Liang Xu (associate professor) is the recipient of a University of Kansas Cancer Center Pilot Project Award entitled “Drug the undruggable: inhibitors of RNA binding protein Msi1”. The aim of the project is to generate proof-of-concept to discover novel small molecule inhibitors that disrupt Msi1-mRNA binding, and thus block Msi1 function, leading to translation of target genes that are critical for inhibiting cancer cell growth and progression.Our ultimate goal is to obtain a few drug candidates for further development as a whole new class of molecular cancer therapeutics that specifically inhibit cancer cells with Msi1 over-expression.

Erik Lundquist (professor) is the recipient of a 2012 Robert Weaver Graduate Mentor Award in the Biological Sciences in recognition of outstanding graduate student mentorship at the University of Kansas.

Vicki Corbin (associate professor) was recognized as “Favorite Professor” by the Biology Class of 2012 at the University of Kansas Undergraduate Biology Recognition Ceremony on May 12.

Jamie Alan and Dyan Morgan (post docs, Lundquist lab) started the KU Post-Doctoral Association and serve as Co-Presidents.  Lundquist (professor) was named faculty advisor of the group.  Find out more at their website: 

Four Molecular Biosciences graduate students were presented with Doctoral Hoods at the ceremony on May 12.  Pictured from left to right, Erick Spears with his mentor Kristi Neufeld, also the mentor of Maged Zeineldin, Jose Olucha with his mentor Audrey Lamb, and Abby Dotson with her mentor Steve Benedict.

Two Molecular Biosciences graduate students were presented with Masters Hoods at the ceremony on May 13.  Pictured from left to right, Andrew Ouellette with his mentor Audrey Lamb, and Courtney Gdowskiwith her mentor Steve Benedict.

Sonia Hall (graduate student, Ward lab)presenteda poster entitled “Macroglobulin complement related is a secreted core septate junction protein whose localization is mediated through the transmembrane protein Neuroglian” at the 2012 K-INBRE Award winners reception on May 9 at the BEST Building on the KU Edwards Campus.

Derek Jensen (undergraduate, Neufeld lab) was chosen to participate in the University of Kansas Cancer Center Summer Student Research Training Program for 2012.  The title of his research project is, "Characterization of a genetic polymorphism that affects polyposis in ApcMin mice".

Joel Tamayo (PREP student, Lundquist lab) won 2nd place in the Sigma Xi KU early graduate student research competition, on March 7.

Nichole Miller (summer undergraduate, Timmons lab) from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota was awarded an REU fellowship from the National Science Foundation.  Nichole will be determining the subcellular localization of ABC transporter proteins in order to better understand their roles in RNAi and related gene silencing pathways.

Guy Williams (summer undergraduate, Timmons lab) from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia was admitted into the Morehouse College Minority Biomedical Research Support-Research Initiative for Science Enhancement (MBRS-RISE) Program funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.  The program is designed to enhance research education in the biomedical sciences and provides support for summer research.

At the University of Kansas Undergraduate Biology Graduate Recognition Ceremony, Molecular Biosciences students won the following awards:

Paige Monnet (Orr lab) – The Undergraduate Biology Program Outstanding Senior Award

Ted Christensen (Tang lab), Sven Miller (Karanicolas lab), Matthew Miller and Vinit Nanavaty (Neufeld lab) — The Del and Carol Shankel Biomedical Scholarship

Sven Miller (Karanicolas lab) — The Paul A. Kitos Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Biochemical research

 

May 2012 News

Chris Gamblin (associate professor) is the recipient of a K-INBRE bridge grant entitled "Biochemical and in vivo determinants of tau toxicity." The goal of this project is to take advantage of the mechanistic strengths of biochemical studies to pinpoint the form of tau that causes neurons to stop functioning normally and eventually die. The outcomes of this study will be combined with the use of fruit flies as a fast, cheap model system in future studies. These studies will help us design better therapies for Alzheimer's disease and related neurodegenerative disorders.

Liang Xu (associate professor) is the recipient of a K-INBRE bridge grant entitled "Nanovectors targeting pancreatic cancer stem cells." The goal of this project is to develop novel nanoparticle delivery systems for targeting cancer stem cells.

On April 17, the University of Kansas Provost's Office and Office of Research and Graduate Studies awarded Leading Light Awards recognizing principle investigators who received external awards of $1 million or more and active during FY2011. Fourteen faculty members in Molecular Biosciences were among the awardees: Yoshiaki Azuma, David Davido, Roberto De Guzman, Scott Hefty, Wompil Im, Audrey Lamb, Erik Lundquist, Stuart Macdonald, Kristi Neufeld, Berl Oakley, Jim Orr, Liang Tang, Robert Ward, and Ilya Vasker.

Rebecca Marquez (postdoctoral fellow, Xu lab) is the recipient of a K-INBRE postdoctoral fellowship entitled "microRNA Scaffolds for increased miRNA processing efficiency in cancer cells." The goal of this project is to investigate the miRNA structure and function in cancer and provide insights in developing miRNA-based molecular cancer therapy.

Maged Zeineldin (postdoctoral fellow, Neufeld lab) is the recipient of a K-INBRE postdoctoral fellowship entitled "Chemoprevention of inflammation-mediated colon cancer with novel activator of heat shock response." The goal of this project is to test the hypothesis that a novel compound developed by collaborator Dr. Brian Blagg (Department of Medicinal Chemistry) reduces tumor burden in a mouse model of chronic colitis by inhibiting inflammation.

Sonia Hall (graduate student, Ward lab) was awarded an NSF GK-12 Fellowship through the KU Center for Science Education for 2012-2013 academic year. Sonia will work with middle school science teachers in the Kansas City or Topeka area to develop science curricula and research experiences.

Jose Olucha (graduate student, Lamb lab) is the 2012 recipient of the Philip and Marjorie Newmark Award for biochemistry research for his project and presentation entitled "Structure of ornithine hydroxylase from Pseudomonas aeruginosa."

Pierce O'Neil (undergraduate, Davido lab) has been awarded a 2012 American Society for Microbiology (ASM) Undergraduate Research Fellowship. His summer research project supported by ASM is entitled "Effects of Interferon Beta on the Transactivation Activity of Wild-Type and N-Terminal Truncation Mutant Forms of Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 Infected Cell Protein 0". This award also includes an ASM membership and travel funds for Pierce to present his results at the 2013 ASM Conference.

 

April 2012 News

John Karanicolas (assistant professor) has been awarded a Research Project Grant (R01) from the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Karanicolas proposal is entitled "Identifying inhibitors of protein interactions using pocket optimization". The goal of this project is to employ insights from computational methodology we have recently developed to address the distinct challenges associated with finding inhibitors of different classes of protein surface. Our central hypothesis is that exploring protein fluctuations leading to formation of surface pockets is critical for understanding the regions of chemical space in which suitable inhibitory compounds may be found.

Sarina Farb, a high school student in the Neufeld lab won the Grand Award at the Greater Kansas City Science and Engineering Fair for her project, "A Comparison of the Endocrine Disrupting Potential Exhibited by Environmentally Relevant Doses of Bisphenol A and Bisphenol S In Vitro in T-47D Breast Cancer Cells." Earlier this year, Farb also took first place at the regional Junior Science Humanities Symposium (JSHS). In May, Farb will advance to compete in the 2012 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Pittsburgh, PA) and the National JSHS (Bethesda, MD).

 

March 2012 News

Several faculty in Molecular Biosciences participated in the inaugural meeting of the Program in Microbiology held at the Commons on February 11th. This program includes laboratories from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Pharmacy School and School of Engineering in Lawrence, and the Medical School in Kansas City, and hopes to foster collaboration and future proposal development.

 

February 2012 News

Recent Molecular Biosciences doctoral graduate Natasha DeVore (Spring, 2011) had a portion of her dissertation research published as an article in the journal Nature. Natasha did her dissertation work with Molecular Biosciences affiliate faculty member Dr. Emily Scott (associate professor, Medicinal Chemistry).

 

January 2012 News

Bob Cohen (professor) and Vicki Corbin (associate professor) are recipients of a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) grant from the National Science Foundation that will support the summer research projects "From Molecules, To Cells, To Organisms" of 10 students, for each of the next three summers (2012-2014). The program is especially interested in recruiting and training students who do not have the opportunity to conduct summer research at their home institutions and/or are from underrepresented and minority groups.

 

December 2011 News

Sukanya Chaudhury (graduate student, De Guzman Lab) was selected as an Honorable Mention in the Best Poster Presentation,  at the Fifth Great Plains Regional Annual Symposium on Protein and Biomolecular NMR (GRASP NMR) held on October 28-29, 2011 in Lawrence, KS. Her poster was entitled "Structural studies of the Yersinia pestis LcrG-LcrV complex".

 

November 2011 News

Molecular Biosciences mourns the passing of our friend and colleague Professor Emeritus Laurence Draper.

 

October 2011 News

Matthew Josephson (first year graduate student) is the recipient of KU's prestigious Madison and Lila Self Graduate Fellowship. "Self Graduate Fellowships are four-year awards to new or first-year Ph.D. students who demonstrate leadership, initiation, and a passion for achievement. The fellowship covers full tuition and fees, provides a $29,000 annual payment, and includes a unique development program."

Akosua Kernizan (undergraduate, Gamblin lab) won an award for her poster presentation entitled "Pseudohyperphosphorylation has Significant Effects on the Polymerization of Tau Isoforms" at the 2011 SACNAS National Conference October 27th – October 30th in San Jose, California.

Kelly Grussendorf (graduate student, Buechner lab) is the recipient of the Cora Downs travel award to attend the American Society for Cell Biology meeting in Denver, CO, December, 2011.

Raghavi Sudharsan (graduate student, Y Azuma lab) is the recipient of a Candlin travel award to attend the American Society for Cell Biology meeting in Denver, CO, December, 2011.

Maged Zeineldin (graduate student, Neufeld lab) is the recipient of a Candlin travel award to attend the American Association for Cancer Research Meeting in Chicago, IL, March 31- April 4, 2012.

 

September 2011 News

Mizuki Azuma (assistant professor) was recently awarded a K-INBRE Major Starter Grant of $175,000 for her research project entitled "Functional analysis of Ewing sarcoma proteins EWS/FLI1 and EWS." The goal of this project is to use zebrafish models to study the cellular consequences of the EWS/FLI1 translocation, commonly found associated with childhood bone cancers.

John Karanicolas (assistant professor) is the recipient of a COBRE-Center of Biomedical Research Excellence in Protein Structure and Function Investigator award of $230,000 for his research project entitled "Structure-based chemical rescue of enzyme activity". The goal of this project is to provide insight into the utility of a novel approach for designing pharmacological control into enzymes. Such an approach will be useful for identifying in vivo substrates of enzymes involved in post-translational modification pathways.

 

August 2011 News

Rob Ward (associate professor) is a 2011-2012 recipient of a W.T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence.  This $7,500 fellowship recognizes “outstanding teachers and advisers at KU as determined by a seven-member selection committee”.  See more here

Natasha DeVore (graduate student, Scott lab) is the recipient of the FEBS J. Klaus Ruckpaul Best Poster Award at the 17th International Conference on Cytochrome P450 held in Manchester, UK, June 26-30.   Natasha received her award from Tsuneo Omura. Omura and Sato first characterized cytochrome P450 enzymes as cytochromes in 1964.

Mirna Perusina Lanfranca (graduate student, Davido lab) is this year's winner of the Borgendale Award. This award is given in recognition of the best graduate student seminar at the Department of Molecular Biosciences Fall Symposium.

John Karanicolas (assistant professor) participated in a team that is the recipient of a 2011 Human Frontier Science Program Award for their proposal entitled "Photo-controlled transcription factors for probing how mice form memories." This award will support research to design light-switchable variants of CREB, a protein critical for memory formation. These designed proteins will then be expressed in freely moving mice with optical stimulation delivered directly to the mouse’s brain to allow the processes of memory formation to be probed on time scales of seconds to minutes.

Chris Gamblin (associate professor) received a research grant from CurePSP, a foundation for progressive supranuclear palsy, corticobasal degeneration and related brain diseases .  The grant, entitled “Models to Determine the Toxicity of Tau Aggregates”, will support our efforts to generate new models to assess the toxicity of different aggregated forms of tau.  This is a collaborative research project aimed at generating tau aggregation models in A. nidulans with the Oakley lab and aggregation models in C. elegans with the Ackley lab.

Wonpil Im (associate professor) participated in a team that is the recipient of a 2011 Human Frontier Science Program Award for their proposal entitled “Substrate recognition by MARCH ubiquitin ligases: a paradigm of membrane-associated immunoregulation.”  This award will support research to characterize a family of ubiquitin ligases called MARCHs that play major immunoregulatory roles and are anchored to membranes using immunology, cell biology, proteomics, solution NMR and computation biophysics.

Casey McNeil (graduate student, Macdonald lab) is the recipient of the 2011 Richard H. Himes Graduate Teaching Assistant Award.

We welcome the following new graduate students to our program:

  • Blake Balcomb, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
  • Namita Balwalli, University of Pune, India
  • Tania Bonny, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh
  • Mahekta Gujar, University of Pune, India
  • Sonia Hall, University of Kansas
  • Matthew Josephson, South Dakota State University
  • Jittasak Khowsathit, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand
  • Andy Wolfe, Emporia State University
  • Fnu Yamini, Virginia Commonwealth University

 

July 2011 News

A website created by Jack Brown (professor emeritus) was featured in a technology article in the June issue of The Atlantic. Senior Editor Alexis Madrigal wrote that, as a 6th grader, he found Dr. Brown's website "Bugs in the News" and emailed Brown his question. The response led to an email correspondence that lasted for years and Madrigal's first Internet Friend. "There were no "social networks" as we think of them now, but the power to connect to people -- anyone! including Kansas biology professors! -- was like a neon arrow pointing from my dark bedroom at the end of a gravel road in a tiny town to the future, when we'd all sort of be everywhere in the world at once."

Scott Hefty (assistant professor) is a recipient of a 2011 Robert Weaver Graduate Mentor Award in the Biological Sciences. This new award is presented in recognition of outstanding graduate student mentorship in the biological sciences at the University of Kansas.

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) received a 2011 J.R. and Inez Jay Award for her proposal entitled "Capitalizing on the APC / Musashi interaction to design novel colon cancer therapeutics". This award will support research to test whether the double negative feedback loop between tumor suppressor APC and translation inhibitor Musashi is relevant to intestinal tumorigenesis.

 

June 2011 News

Rob Weaver (professor and associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences) is retiring after 40 years of service to the University of Kansas. Rob earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Chemistry in 1964 from the College of Wooster and a doctorate in Biochemistry from Duke University in 1969. After post-doctoral training at the University of California, San Francisco, he joined the faculty at the University of Kansas in 1971. Rob was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 1976 and full professor in 1981. He served as chair of the Department of Biochemistry (one of the precursors of the Department of Molecular Biosciences) from 1984 to 1995. He joined the Dean's Office in 1995. As a professor in our department, Rob is well-known as the instructor of the course Gene Expression, for which he wrote the textbook entitled Molecular Biology. Rob is a very successful research scientist, training 27 PhD and Masters students and publishing over 50 research articles in such journals as the Journal of Virology and the Journal of Biological Chemistry and one research letter in Nature.  Rob is also the recipient of several awards, including two American Cancer Society fellowships in Zurich, Switzerland, and Oxford, England.

Erik Lundquist has been promoted to full professor. Dr. Lundquist has been at KU since 2000, after a post-doctoral position at UCSF and completion of a Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota. His laboratory is aimed at understanding the genetic and molecular factors controlling the development of the nervous system.

Yoshiaki Azuma has been promoted to associate professor with tenure. Dr. Azuma earned a Ph.D. from Kyushu University and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Institutes of Health. His lab studies the molecular mechanism of chromosome segregation in vertebrate mitosis.

Roberto De Guzman has been promoted to associate professor with tenure. Dr. De Guzman earned his Ph.D. at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) and was a post-doctoral fellow at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. His research focuses on understanding protein structures that are important in bacterial and viral pathogenesis.

David Davido has been promoted to associate professor with tenure. Dr. Davido obtained his Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard Medical School. His lab studies the interactions between viral and cellular factors that regulate the herpes simplex virus (HSV) life cycle.

Wonpil Im has been promoted to associate professor with tenure. Dr. Im earned his Ph.D. at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and was a post-doctoral fellow at the Scripps Research Institute. His research area is computational biology with particular focuses on membrane protein structure, dynamics, and function. Dr. Im is also the recipient of the J. Michael Young Academic Advisor Award for 2010-2011 in the Natural Sciences and Math Division. This annual award is given by the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences to honor faculty members of the College who demonstrate exceptional effort, care, and guidance in the advisement of their students.

Liang Xu (associate professor) is the recipient of a COBRE Center for Cancer Experimental Therapeutics Pilot Project grant entitled "Novel Beclin-mimetics modulating autophagy." The aim of this project is to discover novel cancer drugs inducing autophagy.

Paul Kelly (full professor) was recognized as a "Favorite Professor" by the Biology Class of 2011 at the University of Kansas Undergraduate Biology Graduate Recognition Ceremony on May 21.

Graduate students receiving annual departmental awards are:

  • Kelly Grussendorf (Buechner lab) — Cora Downs Award for excellence in microbiology research
  • Heba Mostafa (Davido lab) — Paretsky Award for excellence in microbial pathogenesis research
  • Miles Smith (Davido lab) — Paretsky Award for excellence in microbial pathogenesis research
  • Erick Spears (Neufeld lab) — Candlin Award for excellence in physiology or cell biology research
  • Lakshmi Sundararajan (Lundquist lab) — Twomey Award for excellence in physiology and cell biology research
  • Arthur Ankeney and Kathryn Songer (undergraduates, Timmons lab) are recipients of KU Undergraduate Research Awards for Fall 2011 to study the role of cyclic nucleotides in cells undergoing environmental stress. Kathryn Songerhas also been selected for the KU Cancer Center Summer Student Research Training Program. The program provides a stipend to support her research project entitled "The druggable cyclic nucleotide pathway: new roles in cancer related pathways."
  • Wen Yih Aw (undergraduate, Timmons lab) has been selected into the Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement (RISE) program  and will perform research at the Medical School of Hannover, in Hannover, Germany this summer.

May 2011 News

Liang Xu (associate professor) is the recipient of a sub-award from the University of Michigan for a Susan G. Komen for the Cure Breast Cancer Foundation grant.  The project is entitled "A novel strategy to target breast cancer stem cells utilizing microRNA-100."  The aim of this project is to examine the role of microRNA-100 in breast cancer stem cells and explore microRNA-100 as novel therapeutic for breast cancer stem cells.

Scott Hefty (assistant professor) chaired the Type III Secretion session at the Fifth Biennial Meeting of the Chlamydia Basic Research Society at Redondo Beach, California on March 18.

John Karanicolas (assistant professor) chaired a session of the Drug Discovery Chemistry: Protein-Protein Interactions as Drug Targets Conference in San Diego on April 14.

Ichie Osaka (graduate student, Hefty lab) won second place for her poster at the Fifth Biennial Meeting of the Chlamydia Basic Research Society in Redondo Beach, California, March 18 – 21. Her poster was entitled "Inhibitory screen and mechanisms of cellulose based excipient compounds and LPS sequestrant polyamines."

Dan Simon (undergraduate, Hefty lab) is the recipient of an American Society for Microbiology Undergraduate Fellowship. The award provides a stipend to support his summer research project entitled, "Inhibitory Mechanisms of Polymyxin B Chemical Analog Polyamines on Chlamydia trachomatis Infection Processes." In addition, the award provides a two-year society membership and travel funds to present the project findings at the ASM General Meeting in San Francisco in the spring of 2012.

Sonia Hall (undergraduate, Ward lab) won second place for her poster at the 52nd Annual Drosophila Research Conference in San Diego, California, March 30 – April 3. Her poster was entitled "Macroglobulin complement related (Mcr) is an extracellular component of epithelial septate junctions."

Megan Razak (undergraduate, Lundquist lab) won second place in the Sigma Chi competition of the KU Undergraduate Research Symposium for her oral presentation entitled "Mutant screen to identify novel genes regulating neuronal migration in Caenorhabditis elegans."

 

April 2011 News

Liang Xu (associate professor) is a co-inventor on a newly issued patent, USA Patent # 7,910,621: “Small Molecule Antagonists of XIAP Family Proteins”

Heather Edgerton-Morgan (graduate student, Oakley lab) won the GSA (Genetics Society of America) student poster award at the 26th Fungal Genetics Conference held at Asilomar, CA Mar. 15-20, 2011 for her poster entitled “Spatial regulation of the spindle assembly checkpoint in Aspergillus nidulans”

John Hickey (graduate student, Hefty lab) was awarded the 2011 Newmark Award for Biochemistry research for his project and presentation entitled “Structure and Functional Analysis of ChxR: An Atypical OmpR Response Regulator”

Several MB students received KU Undergraduate Research Awards for Spring 2011:

  • Jason Thomas Stevens (undergraduate, Karanicolas lab) for:
  • "Switchable Genetic Regulators Using Indole Complementation," a project with implications for synthetic biology that investigates developing a new pharmacological means of controlling regulators that alter the genetic circuitry which underlies cellular behavior.
  • Jennifer Marilyn Logue (undergraduate, Lundquist lab) for:
  • "A genetic analysis of neural development in Caenorhabditis elegans," an investigation of neural development using nematode worms in a study that could be useful in the understanding of human neurological disorders.
  • Marc T. Roth (undergraduate, Neufeld lab) for: "Characterization of Interactions between Topoisomerase IIα and Nuclear Adenomatous Polyposis Coli," a study of a tumor suppressor found mutated in 80 percent of colon cancers.
  • Danielle Dee Stuhlsatz (undergraduate, Im lab) for: "Properties of Lipid A Bilayers Analyzed by Molecular Dynamics Stimulations," a study of how the molecule Lipid A works, which could have applications in protein-membrane interaction studies and in the development of drugs for bacterial diseases.

 

March 2011 News

David Davido (assistant professor) has been awarded a Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) pilot grant entitled "Identifying Targets of HSV-1 ICP0-Directed Degradation."

Wonpil Im (assistant professor) was the "Biophysicist in Profile" in the Biophysical Society January Newsletter.

Liang Tang (assistant professor) had his research highlighted on the cover of the journal Virology.

Audrey Lamb (associate professor) has been awarded an Independent Scientist Award (K02) from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institute of Health. The title of the proposal is "Structure-function analyses of siderophore biosynthetic enzymes.

Jim Orr (professor) has been awarded a "Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence Undergraduate Campus Faculty Scholar Award."

Jim Orr (professor and Director of the Office for Diversity in Science Training) has been awarded a $1.5 million training grant from the National Institutes of Health for the Post-baccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP) to support students from groups that are currently underrepresented in the sciences and plan to pursue careers in biomedical science. The renewed PREP project has been expanded to support eight post-baccalaureate fellows per year with financial support, a mentored research experience in the lab of a KU faculty member, coursework, and additional pre-professional training. 

Courtney Wilson (graduate student, Benedict lab) has been awarded a Doctoral Student Research Fund Award from the Office of Graduate Studies.

 

February 2011 News

Audrey Lamb (associate professor) has been awarded a Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) pilot grant entitled “Transient Kinetics of Siderophore Biosynthetic Enzymes.

Erik Lundquist (associate professor) has been awarded a Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) pilot grant entitled "Analysis of receptor interactions in neuronal migration".

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) has been awarded a Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) pilot grant entitled "Nuclear APC as a suppresser of inflammation-mediated colorectal cancer".

Berl Oakley (professor) Chris Gamblin (associate professor) and Clay Wang (Pharmaceutical Sciences and Chemistry, University of Southern California)were awarded a research fellowship from the H.L. Snyder Medical Foundation for $30,000 per year for three years. This project proposes to isolate and purify natural products from the fungus Aspergillus nidulans and test them for their ability to inhibit the polymerization of the microtubule-associated protein tau into filaments similar to those that accumulate in neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) in Alzheimer’s disease. By testing these compounds individually and possibly modifying them to make them safer or nontoxic for humans, they hope to find a compound that will safely dissolve the NFTs. In the future, these compounds might be used to avert or reverse the process of dementia.

Audrey Lamb (associate professor) chaired the RNA & Founders Award Lecture session at the 22nd Enzyme Mechanisms Conference on January 4th in St. Pete Beach, Florida.

 

December 2010 / January 2011 News

Mizuki Azuma (assistant professor) has been awarded a two year research grant from the Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (K-INBRE). The title of Dr. Azuma's proposal is "Functional analysis of Ewing sarcoma EWS/FLI1 protein." The aim of this project is to understand the process of Ewing sarcoma formation by analyzing the function of EWS/FLI1 protein during mitosis.

Erik Lundquist (associate professor) and Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) were inducted as Honorary Members of the Golden Key International Honor Society Nov. 15. They were each nominated for Honorary Membership by a Golden Key member and selected based on their commitment to helping students succeed.

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) was awarded a Pilot Project Award from the University of Kansas Cancer Center. The title of Dr. Neufeld's proposal is: "APC & Musashi: Regulators of Colon Stem Cell Homeostasis". The objective of this proposal is to define the function of tumor suppressor protein APC in stem cell self renewal.

Jim Orr (professor) received three awards this past year to enhance undergraduate education. A one year supplement from the NIH/National Institute of General Medical Sciences was awarded to provide additional funding for the KU / Haskell 500 Nations Bridge project that seeks to enhance the success of American Indian students from Haskell who plan to transfer to a four year institution. The goal of the supplemental project is to develop better methods to track students who transfer from Haskell to four year institutions.

An ARRA Summer Scholar award from K-INBRE will fund four undergraduate students at KU who are working in faculty research laboratories during the summer of 2011. The four trainees are Erin Diel (mentored by Dr. Brian Ackley), Peter Ebeling (mentored by Dr. John Kelly), Phillip Morris (mentored by Dr. Wonpil Im), and Vinit Nanavaty(mentored by Dr. Kristi Neufeld). The STAR Trainee program with the K-INBRE project funds undergraduate seniors at KU who plan to attend graduate school. The award provides both stipend and funding for research supplies for two KU seniors, Chantz Thomas (mentored by Dr. Steve Benedict) and Kayla Nelson (mentored by Dr. Mizuki Azuma).

 

November 2010 News

John Karanicolas (assistant professor) has been awarded a National Institutes of Health Center of Biomedical Research Excellence Pilot Project Grant from the Center for Cancer Experimental Therapeutics.  Dr. Karanicolas’ proposal is entitled “Identifying Mcl-1 inhibitors using pocket shape optimization.”  The objective of this proposal is to identify novel classes of inhibitors of the anti-apoptotic protein Mcl-1. Since most cancer cells have high levels of Mcl-1, they can be intrinsically resistant to compounds that specifically target other related anti-apoptotic proteins.

Erik Lundquist (associate professor) has been selected as a faculty member inductee of The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi and will be recognized at the initiation ceremony on November 30th.

Maged Zeineldin (graduate student, Neufeld lab) was one of sixteen PhD and MD students, post doctoral fellows, and junior faculty selected to participate in the 2010 Workshop on Techniques in Modeling Human Colon Cancer in Rodents. The goal of the hands-on workshop, held at The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine on October 12-16 was to “teach state-of-the-art methods used in the design and characterization of murine models for colon cancer research.” Maged was awarded the Carr Travel Award from Molecular Biosciences Department to attend this workshop.

 

October 2010 News

Liang Tang (assistant professor) has been awarded a National Institutes of Health Research Project Grant (R01) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. Dr. Tang's proposal is entitled "Genome packaging in DNA viruses". The objective of this proposal is to understand the molecular mechanisms of genome packaging in DNA viruses such as DNA bacteriophage and herpesvirus, focusing on high resolution structural studies of DNA-packaging proteins and nucleoprotein complexes using X-ray crystallography and electron cryo-microscopy as primary techniques.

Vicki Corbin (associate professor) was selected to serve as an Honors Faculty Fellow with the Kansas University Honors Program. Some of her duties will include serving as a specialized advisor for honors pre-med and biology students, facilitating independent research projects and National Scholarships applications, and teaching an Honors tutorial.

 

September 2010 News

Eric Deeds (assistant professor) joins the Molecular Biosciences faculty having recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School. His lab is focused on using computational and mathematical methods to study the assembly of macromolecular complexes, such as the proteasome and the ribosome. The Deeds lab is also interested in exploring models of intracellular signaling networks and the allometric scaling of metabolic rate with body mass in mammals. Dr. Deeds has a joint appointment in the Center for Bioinformatics. Read more about his research program here.

Roberto De Guzman (assistant professor) received the 2010 Faculty Scholar Award for excellence in research, teaching and service to the university from the Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence.  The award is designated for outstanding junior faculty and came with a plaque and $10,000 for research.

Adam Norris (graduate student, Lundquist lab) is this year's winner of the Borgendale Award. This award is given in recognition of the best graduate student seminar at the Department of Molecular Biosciences Fall Symposium.

Ulrike Voigt (graduate student, Timmons lab) has received a scholarship from the German-American Fulbright Program to study and perform research in the Timmons lab.  Ulrike is a graduate student in the Pharmacology Department at the Medical School of Hannover.  Ulrike will be using model organisms to expand upon her studies of genes and proteins that are involved in heart failure.

 

August 2010 News

Liang Xu (associate professor) joins the Molecular Biosciences faculty from the University of Michigan Medical School. Funded by three grants from the National Cancer Institute/National Institutes of Health and one from the Department of Defense, his lab is working on molecularly targeted cancer therapy and chemo/radiosensitization by modulating cell death signaling pathways. In addition, they are using novel nanotechnology to develop nanovectors targeting cancer cells for siRNA/microRNA-based novel cancer therapeutics. They are also developing nanovectors targeting cancer stem cells and exploring novel molecular therapy for cancer stem cells. Read about his research program here.

Brian Ackley (assistant professor) served as a co-organizer of Neuronal Development, Synaptic Function & Behavior C. elegans Topic Meeting that occurred June 27–30 at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Erik Lundquist (associate professor) and Stuart Macdonald (assistant professor) have been awarded a National Institutes of Health Research Exploratory/Developmental Grant (R21) from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, for $397,277 for two years. The proposal is entitled “Using RNA-seq to Identify Hox Transcriptional Targets in Neuronal Migration”. Dr. Lundquist and Dr. Macdonald will use cutting edge next generation sequencing to determine the transcriptomes of wild-type and mutants to identify genes regulated by a Hox transcription factor in neuronal migration. These studies will have implications for human nervous system (brain) development and disease.

Katelyn Deckert (graduate student, Karanicolas lab) was appointed to the National Institutes of Health funded Graduate Training Program in Dynamic Aspects of Chemical Biology Training Grant on July 1 for a term of three years. Read more about the program here.

We welcome the following new graduate students to our program:

  • Hikmat Al-hashimi, Northumbria University
  • Anindita Basu, Heritage Institute of Technology
  • Mauricio Galdos, Truman State University
  • Paulo Leal, Texas A&M
  • Andrew McShan, University of Kansas
  • Chris Merkes, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
  • Smita Paranjape, University of Pune
  • Amber Smith, Baker University
  • Denny Swartzlander, University of Missouri-Kansas City
  • Makoto Yoshida, University of Colorado at Boulder

 

July 2010 News

Mark Richter (full professor) will serve as the chair of the department of Molecular Biosciences starting July 1, 2010 for a term of three years.

Chris Gamblin (associate professor) received a 2010 J.R. and Inez Jay Award in the amount of $25,000 for his proposal entitled “Models of Tau Neurodegeneration”. This award will support research aimed at generating new and valuable animal and cellular models for studying tau neurodegeneration.

Stuart Macdonald (assistant professor) has been awarded a National Institutes of Health Research Project Grant (R01) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences.  Dr. Macdonald's proposal is entitled “A Genomic Analysis of Sexual Trait Variation Within and Between Species.” The main goal is to dissect sexual variation in a genetically-tractable model system, specifically male genital morphology in Drosophila. The Macdonald lab will identify the genes and polymorphisms that contribute to trait variation, and in so doing gain insight into the processes that maintain genetic variation in populations.

Robert Ward (associate professor) was awarded the J. Michael Young Academic Advisor Award for 2009-2010 in the Natural Sciences and Math Division. This annual award is given by the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences to honor faculty members of the College who demonstrate exceptional effort, care, and guidance in the advisement of their students.

 

June 2010 News

Three Molecular Biosciences graduate students were presented with Doctoral Hoods at a Hooding Ceremony on May 15. Pictured from left to right, Robert Ward mentor of Ph.D. recipient Xiaochen Wang (second from left), Erik Lundquist mentor of Ph.D. recipient Jamie Dyer (fourth from left), Srividya Suryanarayana (fifth from left) Ph.D. recipient and her mentor Mark Richter.

Audrey Lamb has been promoted to associate professor with tenure. Dr. Lamb earned her Ph.D. at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Northwestern University. Her area of specialization is structural biology and enzymology of iron-uptake by bacterial pathogens.

Kristi Neufeld has been promoted to associate professor with tenure. Dr. Neufeld earned a Ph.D. from the University of Utah where she subsequently served as a Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Assistant Professor. Her laboratory studies the tumor suppressor protein adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) to understand how loss of this particular protein leads to colon carcinogenesis.

Robert Ward has been promoted to associate professor with tenure. Dr. Ward earned a Ph.D. from Duke University and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Utah. His lab is interested in understanding the mechanisms that control how individual cells and whole tissues change shape and rearrange during development.

Scott Hefty (assistant professor) was awarded the J. Michael Young Academic Advisor Award for 2009-2010 in the Natural Sciences and Math Division. This annual award is given by the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences to honor faculty members of the College who demonstrate exceptional effort, care, and guidance in the advisement of their students.

Matthew Buechner (associate professor) was recognized as a “Favorite Professor” by the Biology Class of 2010 at the University of Kansas Undergraduate Biology Graduate Recognition Ceremony on May 15.

Graduate students receiving annual departmental awards include:

  • Rafael Demarco (Lundquist lab) — Twomey Award for Excellence in Physiology and Cell Biology
  • Natasha DeVore (Scott lab) — Carr Research Award for Excellence in Biochemistry
  • Adam Norris (Lundquist lab) — Newmark Award for Excellence in Biochemistry Research
  • John Hickey (Hefty lab) — Arnold Award for Excellence in Microbiology
  • Adam Norris (Lundquist lab) — Twomey Award for Excellence in Physiology and Cell Biology
  • Sudharsan Parthasarathy (Kuczera lab) — Candlin Award for the Best Senior Graduate Student
  • Hyunju Ryu (Y. Azuma lab) — Candlin Award for the Best Senior Graduate Student
  • Erick Spears (Neufeld lab) — Sally K. Frost Mason and Kenneth A. Mason outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award

At the University of Kansas Undergraduate Biology Graduate Recognition Ceremony, Molecular Biosciences students won the following awards:

  • Kalin Holthaus (Benedict lab) — The Del and Carol Sankel Biomedical Scholarship
  • Surya Lakhanpal (Lamb lab) — Sally K. Frost Mason and Kenneth A. Mason Outstanding Senior Award
  • Kayla Nelson (M. Azuma lab) — J.O. & V.H. Edson Scholarship
  • Chantz Thomas (Benedict lab) — The Lance S. Foster Outstanding Junior in Biology Award and The Del and Carol Sankel Biomedical Scholarship
  • Marc Roth (Neufeld lab) — The Paul A. Kitos Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Biochemical research

Molecular Biosciences undergraduates were winners of University Honors Program awards to support original, independent research:

  • Megan Leigh Razak (Lundquist lab) — Identification of New Genes Affecting Neuronal Migration.
  • Patrick D. McGurk (Lundquist lab) — Investigation of Crosstalk Between Rac GTPase and PKC Signaling via RACK-1 in C.elegans Axon Pathfinding.
  • Kayla Marie Nelson (M. Azuma lab) — The Function of Ewing Sarcoma EWS/FLI1 Protein During Mitosis.

Jason Stevens (Timmons lab), a mathematics major performing research on RNA interference, was accepted into the Amgen Scholars program  Jason will be performing research this summer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in a synthetic biology lab and will be working with team members in the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition (iGEM) competition. Check it out here.

 

May 2010 News

Mizuki Azuma (assistant professor) has been awarded a one year research grant from the Sarcoma Foundation of America. Grants are for research involving the development of novel agents against sarcoma or research that could potentially lead to the development of novel agents against sarcoma, and are from the areas of etiology, molecular biology, pathogenesis, diagnosis, and treatment of human sarcomas. The title of Dr. Azumas's proposal is "Identification of causative mutations for Ewing sarcoma."

Scott Hefty (assistant professor) has been awarded a National Institutes of Health Research Project Grant (R01) from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Dr. Hefty's proposal is entitled "Regulation of Virulence Gene Expression in Chlamydia." This grant will facilitate further elucidation of the role and mechanisms of an atypical OmpR response regulator that appears to play a key role in forming the infectious form of Chlamydia.

Wonpil Im (assistant professor) has been awarded a National Institutes of Health Research Project Grant (R01) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. Dr. Im's proposal is entitled "Mechanisms and energetics of transmembrane-induced signaling of cytokine receptors." The objectives of this proposal are to determine the interfacial residues of hGHR and hPRLR TM dimers and to elucidate the conformational and energetic changes during the activation process by multidisciplinary combination of versatile computational and experimental approaches.

Erik Lundquist (associate professor) — The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke of the National Institutes of Health has renewed Dr. Lundquist's Research Project Grant (R01) entitled "Cytoskeletal Signaling and Axon Guidance." The aim of this four-year project is to understand the molecular genetic mechanisms of axon guidance using the model organism nematode worm C. elegans. These studies will have implications for human nervous system (brain) development and disease.

Erik Lundquist (associate professor) has been appointed to the editorial board of the journal Small GTPases.

Lisa Timmons (associate professor) has been awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation. Dr. Timmons proposal is entitled "ABC Transporters and RNAi in Caenorhabditis elegans." The Timmons lab is studying cellular RNAi mechanisms that are triggered in response to dsRNA. This grant will be used to understand the role of ABC transporters in this gene silencing process.

Bob Sanders (emeritus professor) signed copies of his new book Contributions of African American Scientists to the Fields of Science, Medicine, and Inventions at a reception at Oread Books in the Kansas Union on April 16th.

Check out his book here.

Del Shankel (emeritus professor) - On April 15th, the KU Structural Biology Center was officially renamed the Shankel Structural Biology Center, honoring Dr. Shankel's outstanding service to the University for 50-plus years. Among his many leadership roles, Dr. Shankel served as Chancellor, Acting Chancellor, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Chair of the Microbiology Department.

Read the Oread article.

Erick Spears (graduate student, Neufeld lab) was one of 9 students from KU awarded a 2010 NSF GK-12 Fellowship.

 

March / April 2010 News

Susan Egan (full professor) has been named to the Molecular Microbiology editorial board.

John Karanicolas (assistant professor) has been selected as an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow. The award provides $50,000 in research support for two years for young faculty members performing promising research in physics, chemistry, computational and evolutionary molecular biology, computer science, economics, mathematics and neuroscience. Read Oread article.

Kristi Neufeld (assistant professor) has been awarded a proof-of-concept grant, one of 11 awarded to KU faculty. These grants are sponsored by KU's Institute for Advancing Medical Innovation (IAMI), a program funded by the Kauffman Foundation and KU Endowment. The goal of the program is to generate new and innovative drugs, medical devices, and drug- device combinations. The title of Dr. Neufeld's proposal is "Prevention of APC-Dependent Intestinal Neoplasia by Novel Activators of Heat Shock Response." Read Oread article.

Kristi Neufeld (assistant professor) has been awarded a Kansas IDeA Network of Biochemical Research Excellence (K-INBRE) bridging grant entitled "Musashi: A novel Wnt target controlled by tumor suppressor APC."

Surya Lakhanpal (undergraduate student, Lamb lab) was awarded a J. Michael Young Opportunity Award which she used to travel to the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource to collect protein x-ray diffraction data.