PAST RESEARCH PRESENTATIONS ARCHIVE


2022 Presentations 

 

Wen-Juan Ma (postdoc, Unckless lab) gave a virtual talk at PopGroup 2022 entitled “The evolution and genetic mechanism of sex-ratio meiotic drive in Drosophila affinis”.

 

November 2021 Presentations

Josie Chandler (associate professor) gave an invited talk "Quorum sensing and the evolution of antibiotic resistance* for the Brazilian Society for Microbiology Workshop on Pathogenesis. November 2021. (virtual)

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled "The Impact of ADP-ribosylation on Coronavirus Infection and Innate Immunity" at Pittsburg State University, Pittsburg, KS. (Invited)*. November 12, 2021.

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled "PARP12 and coronavirus infection in vitro and in vivo" for the Federation of European Biochemical Society (FEBS) Advanced Course on “Cellular stress and ADP-ribosylation”. Castellammare di Stabia, Italy (International, Invited)**. November 11, 2021.

October 2021 Presentations

Josie Chandler (associate professor) gave an invited talk "Adaptive mutations alter tobramycin susceptibility of Pseudomonas aeruginosa LasR mutants" for the  Conference on Environmental Microbial Signal Communication. Hangzhou, China. September 2021. (virtual at in-person meeting)

Dan Dixon (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Control of extracellular vesicle secretion in colon cancer” for the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular BiologyUniversity of Maryland School of Medicine, October 24, 2021 (Virtual)

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled "The Impact of ADP-ribosylation on Coronavirus Infection and Innate Immunity" at the University of Nebraska, Nebraska Center for Virology Symposium. (Invited)**. October 15, 2021.

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled “The impact of ADP-ribosylation on Coronavirus Infection and Immunity” to the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at KU, Sept. 28, 2021

Catherine Kerr (graduate student, Fehr lab) gave a virtual talk at the Midwest Women In STEM Conference (September 18-19) hosted by the University of Chicago entitled “PARP12 is required for the attenuation of ADP-ribosylhydrolase deficient mouse hepatitis virus in primary macrophages”.  

Spring 2021 Presentations

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled “On the Battlefront: Host PARPs vs the Coronavirus Macrodomain” to the Biology Department at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Virtual. January 21, 2021, and the same seminar to the Department of Biology at Kansas State University. Virtual. February 1, 2021.

Josephine R. Chandler (associate professor) November 18, 2020. Brazilian Society for Microbiology Workshop on Pathogenesis (virtual meeting). Invited oral presentation. “Bacterial social behavior: communication, cooperation and conflict among microbes"

Dan Dixon (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Control of exosome secretion by the RNA-binding protein HuR“ for the Kansas City VA Life Science Seminar Series, Kansas City, MO, January 21, 2021 (Virtual)

November 2020 Presentations

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled "Accelerated Molecular Simulations and Computer-Aided Drug Design" to the Chemistry Colloquium, Illinois Institute of Technology, Virtual, October 13, 2020.Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled "Accelerated Molecular Simulations and Computer-Aided Drug Design" to the Chemistry Colloquium, Illinois Institute of Technology, Virtual, October 13, 2020.

October 2020 Presentations

Liang Xu (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Precision Cancer Medicine Targeting RNA-binding Proteins” at the departmental seminar of Department of Medicinal Chemistry, KU School of Pharmacy, September 10, 2020.

Joanna Slusky (associate professor) gave a webinar talk for the Protein Engineering Design & Selection (PEDS) journal on September 24, 2020.

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled "Accelerated Molecular Simulations and Computer-Aided Drug Design" to the Chemistry Colloquium, Illinois Institute of Technology, Virtual, October 13, 2020.

September 2020 Presentations

Yousef Alhammad (postdoc, Fehr lab) gave an invited talk at the Cold Spring Harbor COVID-19 Rapid Research Reports Virtual Conference:  The SARS-CoV-2 macrodomain is a mono-ADP-ribosylhydrolase. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories COVID19/SARS-CoV-2 Rapid Research Reports #3. 08-25-2020.

August 2020 Presentations

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) gave an invited talk at the Cold Spring Harbor COVID-19 Rapid Research Reports Virtual Conference  “The Unique Activities of the Coronavirus Macrodomain”. (2020) Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories COVID19/SARS-CoV-2 Rapid Research Reports. 07-21-2020. Virtual.

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) gave an invited seminar for the University of New Mexico Autophagy Inflammation and Metabolism Center  “On the Battlefront: Host PARP enzymes vs the Coronavirus Macrodomain”. (2020) University of New Mexico – AIM Center. 06-30-2020. Virtual.

July 2020 Presentations

Aaron Rudeen (PhD candidate, Neufeld lab) gave an oral presentation entitled “Region of APC retained by colon tumors is intrinsically disordered and maintains conformational flexibility upon binding β-catenin” at the University of Kansas Cancer Center’s 7th Annual Cancer Biology Research Program Meeting, on May 28.

Yoshi Azuma (professor) also gave an oral presentation entitled “Regulation of chromosomal SUMOylated proteins by PICH: Can PICH be a therapeutic target for TNBC?”

Eighty-three faculty, staff, postdocs and graduate students attended, and learned from presenters representing KU Cancer Center, The University of Kansas in Lawrence, Children's Mercy, and Stowers Institute for Medical Research. Along with the featured presenters, attendees also were able to participate in seven different breakout rooms for more intimate collaborations based on their field of study. Kristi Neufeld (professor), co-leader of the Cancer Biology Research Program, was a meeting organizer.

March 2020 Presentations

Dan Dixon presented a talk entitled “Reaching Outside the Tumor Cell: Control of Exosome Secretion by HuR” at the Stephenson Cancer Center, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, OK, February 28.

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Two vignettes: Opine metallophore and riboflavin biosynthesis by bacterial pathogens” at the University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, February 13.

Berl Oakley (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “How McrA regulates secondary metabolism” at the European Congress on Fungal Genetics 15, Rome, Italy, February 19.

Berl Oakley (professor) presented a poster “How McrA regulates secondary metabolism” at the 17th International Aspergillus Conference, Rome, Italy, February 16.

February 2020 Presentations

Tom Hill (postdoc, Unckless lab) presented a talk entitled “Recurrent evolution in viral types in an arms race between a DNA virus and a Drosophila species” at the 2020 Great Plains Genetic Conflict meeting in Lawrence, KS, January 25, 2020.

Mariaelen Nabors (undergraduate, Unckless lab) presented a poster entitled “The genetic basis of divergence in immune defense between Drosophila species” at the K-INBRE 2020 Symposium in Wichita, KS, January 17-19, 2020.

January 2020 Presentations

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Two vignettes: Opine metallophore and riboflavin biosynthesis by bacterial pathogens” at Michigan State University on December 2.

Liang Xu (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Drug the undruggable: molecular therapy targeting RNA-binding proteins” at the Department of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Therapeutics, University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC), Kansas City, KS, on November 19.

Sanjana Sundararajan (graduate student, Y Azuma lab) presented a poster entitled “Binding of methylated H3 by TopoisomeraseIIalfa is required for resolving tangled genomic DNA during mitosis for faithful sister chromatid disjunction” at the ASCB/EMBO meeting in Washington DC on December 9.

December 2019 Presentations

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave an invited research talk at the College of Wooster entitled “The far out chemistry of riboflavin biosynthesis” on October 31.

 

November 2019 Presentations

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled “The genetic basis of evolutionary divergence in immune defense in Drosophila” at the 2019 UNVEIL Symposium in Lincoln, Nebraska on October 11-13, 2019.

 

October 2019 Presentations

Mizuki Azuma (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled “The Chromosomal Instability in Ewing Sarcoma” at the International Symposium for Rare Diseases 2019, Ritsumeikan University in Japan on August 30, 2019.

 

September 2019 Presentations

Erik Holmstrom (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Disordered RNA chaperones enhance nucleic acid folding via local charge screening” at the 2nd Conference on Biomotors, Virus Assembly, and Nanobiotechnology Applications, Columbus OH, July 29-31,  2019.

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) gave an invited keynote talk entitled Interactions with G-Protein-Coupled Receptors at the 5th Biennial Symposium – Optical Micro-spectroscopy & Molecular Imaging (Organizer: Valerica Raicu), University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI. August 19-20, 2019. 

Jo Chapman (postdoc, Unckless lab) gave a talk entitled “Machine learning AMPs up: Discovery and validation of new antimicrobial peptides in Drosophila melanogaster” at the Midwest Population Genetics Conference 2019 in Chicago, IL, August 16-17, 2019.

 

August 2019 Presentations

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Microbial Twitter: communication, cooperation and competition in bacteria” and session co-chair at the Society of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology conference in Washington DC on July, 24 2019.

Anthony Fehr (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled “The coronavirus macrodomain is required to prevent PARP-mediated inhibition of virus replication and enhancement of IFN expression” at the 38th annual American Society for Virology Meeting, July 20-24, Minneapolis Minnesota.

David Davido (professor) gave a talk entitled "A high-throughput assay to examine HSV-1 ICP0 transactivation function during acute infection and reactivation" at the Colorado Alphaherpesvirus Latency Symposium in Vail, CO, May 8-10. He also served on its planning committee. 

Stuart Macdonald (professor) gave a talk entitled "Genomewide expression analysis of the adult female gut in the Drosophila Synthetic Population Resource" at the Evolution Conference 2019, Providence, RI, June 21-25.

Elizabeth Everman (postdoc, Macdonald lab) gave a talk entitled "The genetic basis of copper resistance in Drosophila melanogaster" at the Evolution Conference 2019, Providence, RI, June 21-15.

Dianarys Hernandez-Aquino (graduate student, Macdonald lab) gave a talk entitled "Using CRISPR-Cas9 to directly test the role of Cyp12d1 in caffeine resistance in Drosophila melanogaster" at the Evolution Conference 2019, Providence, RI, June 21-15.

 

July 2019 Presentations

Stuart Macdonald (professor) gave an invited talk entitled "Genomewide expression analysis of the adult female gut in the Drosophila Synthetic Population Resource" at the Complex Traits Consortium / Rat Genomics 17th Annual Meeting, San Diego CA, June 8-11.

Dan Dixon (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled "Reaching outside the tumor cell: Control of exosome secretion by HuR" at the 8th mRNA Stability Conference: Mechanisms, Regulation and their Implication in Infectious and Age Related Diseases, June 25-28, Montreal, Canada.

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Gaussian Accelerated Molecular Dynamics: Free Energy Calculations of Biomolecular Interactions.” Santa Fe Workshop “Free energy calculations: Entering the fourth decade of adventure in chemistry and biophysics (2019)” Santa Fe, NM. June 16 – 21, 2019.

 

June 2019 Presentations

Dan Dixon (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Understanding the Role of mRNA Decay in Cancer” at the Baker University Department of Biology on April 24, 2019.

Anuja Bhatta (graduate student, Benedict lab) presented her work entitled, Engagement of CD45 alters early signaling events in human T cells costimulated through TCR + CD28 at the American Association for Immunology meeting in San Diego, CA on May 12.

 

May 2019 Presentations

Erik Lundquist (professor) presented the University of Nebraska-Lincoln School of Biological Sciences Alumni Lecture entitled “Axon Guidance in neural Circuit Formation” on April 11, 2019.

Christian Ray (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Identifying determinants of cell cycle variability during a stress response” at the Kansas State University Department of Anatomy and Physiology on April 2, 2019.

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) gave three invited talks at the 2019 Spring American Chemical Society Meeting in Orlando, Florida: (1) "Activation dependent G-protein-coupled receptor-membrane interactions", (2) "Enhanced molecular dynamics simulations of G-protein-coupled receptor-G protein interactions", and (3) "Gaussian accelerated molecular dynamics (GaMD): Enhanced sampling of ligand binding and protein-protein interactions".

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled "Accelerated Simulations and Drug Design of G-Protein-Coupled Receptors" at the Kansas State University Department of Anatomy & Physiology on April 9, 2019.

Elizabeth Everman (postdoc, Macdonald lab) gave a talk entitled "Dissecting the genetic architecture of copper resistance" at the 55th Annual Meeting of the Missouri Academy of Science at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri on April 13, 2019.

David Ingham (graduate student, Gamblin lab) and Nikola Kenjic (graduate student, Lamb lab) gave invited talks about their dissertation research at the 2019 Biomedical Sciences Symposium on April 19.  They were part of a full day program that included a poster competition and keynote talks from Adam Cohen (Harvard) and David Keire (FDA).  The one day symposium is organized by the Chemical Biology and Biotechnology Graduate Training Programs here at KU.

 

April 2019 Presentations

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) gave an invited seminar at the University of Indiana, Biology Department entitled, “Making friends to make war: quorum sensing, cooperation and interbacterial competition” on March 26, 2019.

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) gave an invited seminar at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) for the School of Biological Sciences entitled “New Insights into Mechanisms of Coronavirus Innate Immune Evasion” on March 5, 2019.

Christian Ray (assistant professor) gave an invited seminar at Oklahoma State University Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics entitled “Identifying determinants of cell cycle variability during a stress response” on March 11, 2019.

Liang Xu (professor) gave an invited talk at The School of Pharmacy, Division of Pharmacology & Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) entitled “Drug the undruggable: molecular therapy targeting RNA-binding proteins” on March 7, 2019.

Tom Hill (postdoc, Unckless lab) presented a platform session talk entitled: “Alternative modes of evolution in immune pathways in Drosophila” at the Drosophila Research Conference in  Dallas, TX on March 30, 2019.

Jenn Klaus (graduate student, Chandler lab) gave an invited seminar entitled, “Understanding the regulation and function of a virulence factor in the bacterial pathogen Burkholderia pseudomallei” to the Biology Department at Baker University on March 20, 2019.

Andrea Darby (PREP scholar, Unckless lab) presented a platform session talk entitled: “Tradeoffs between immune defense and resistance to environmental stress at a single amino acid polymorphism” and a workshop talk entitled: “Ecology, Evolution, and Drosophila Microbiota” at the Drosophila Research Conference in Dallas, TX March 28, 2019.

Mariaelena Nabors (undergraduate, Unckless lab) received an undergraduate travel award to attend the 2019 Drosophila Research Conference in Dallas, TX on March 28, 2019.

 

March 2019 Presentations

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) gave an invited seminar at the University of Toronto Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology entitled "The causes of balancing selection on immune genes: from populations to molecular interactions” on January 18th. 

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) gave an invited talk at the CECAM workshop entitled “Enhanced sampling of G-protein-coupled receptor-G protein interactions” & “Multiscale Modeling from Macromolecules to Cell: Opportunities and Challenges of Biomolecular Simulations” in Lausanne, Switzerland in February 2019.

 

February 2019 Presentations

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) gave a seminar at KUMCtitled “New insights into mechanisms of coronavirus innate immune evasion” on January 17.

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) gave an invited seminar at the University of Toronto Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology entitled "The causes of balancing selection on immune genes: from populations to molecular interactions” on January 18th. 

David Davido (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Virus-host interactions regulate the switch between HSV-1 lytic and latent infections” in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at LSUHSC-Shreveport on January 9. 

 

January 2019 Presentations

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave a seminar entitled “From opine to evidence: staphylopine, pseudopaline and yersinopine biosynthesis” for the Biomolecular Sciences Graduate Programs at Boise State University on November 14.

Erik Lundquist (professor) gave a presentation “A New Model of Directed Growth Cone Migration in Axon Guidance” for Department of Molecular & Integrative Physiology at the KU Medical Center on October 15.

December 2018 Presentations

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave a seminar entitled “From opine to evidence: staphylopine, pseudopaline and yersinopine biosynthesis” for the Biomolecular Sciences Graduate Programs at Boise State University on November 14.

Erik Lundquist (professor) gave a presentation “A New Model of Directed Growth Cone Migration in Axon Guidance” for Department of Molecular & Integrative Physiology at the KU Medical Center on October 15.

 

November 2018 Presentations

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) gave an invited talk at Oklahoma State University entitled “New Insights into Mechanisms of Coronavirus Innate Immune Evasion” for the Oklahoma Center for Respiratory and Infectious Diseases, October 17.

Dan Dixon (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled "Regulation of exosome secretion in colorectal cancer" at the II Workshop on Inflammation 2018 held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, October 22-23.

Chris Gamblin (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “In vitro inhibition of Alzheimer’s pathology with fungal natural products” in the Department of Molecular & Integrative Physiology at the KU Medical Center, October 29.

 

October 2018 Presentations

Joanna Slusky (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled “The structural evolution of outer membrane proteins” at the Membrane Protein Expression Purification and Crystallization EMBO workshop in Hamburg, Germany on September 14.

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) gave a seminar entitled “The causes of balancing selection on immunity genes: from populations to molecular interactions” at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska - Lincoln on September 20. 

David Davido (associate professor) gave seminars entitled: "Virus-host Interactions Regulate The Switch Between HSV-1 Lytic and Latent Infections" in the Department of Molecular Biosciences at KU on September 10,  "Regulation of Lytic and Latent Infections: What We Have Learned from Herpes Simplex Virus-Host Interactions" for the University Kansas Cancer Center  on September 11, and “To Be Lytic or Not to Be Lytic: A Question of HSV-1-Host Interactions” for the Virginia Tech Life Sciences Seminars  on September 28.

Dan Dixon (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled "HuR Regulation of Exosome Secretion in Colorectal Cancer" at the ELAVENICE-2018 Conference held in Venice, Italy, September 13-15.

Kristi Neufeld (professor) gave a talk entitled “Structure function study of colon tumor suppressor APC” at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Kansas Medical Center on September 28.

 

September 2018 Presentations

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) (2018) gave several talks: (1) “Binding Modes and Effects of Allosteric Drug Leads in the Adenosine A1 Receptor”; (2) “Ligand Binding Pathways and Conformational Transitions of the HIV Protease”; (3) “Mechanism of the G-Protein Mimetic Nanobody Binding to a Muscarinic G-Protein-Coupled Receptor”; and (4) “Acceleration of Biomolecular Kinetics in Gaussian Accelerated Molecular Dynamics” at the 2018 American Chemical Society National Meeting in Boston, MA from Aug 19-23. 

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled “Mechanistic convergence in genetic conflict across species” at the Midwest Population Genetics Meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota on August 24th.

Roberto De Guzman (professor) gave a talk entitled "NMR of translocon of bacterial nanoinjectors" at the 28th International Conference on Magnetic Resonance in Biological Systems held at the University College Dublin, Ireland on Aug. 19-24, 2018.

Liang Xu (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “CRISPR Technology in Precision Cancer Medicine” at the 2018 One Health Research Symposium in Kansas City on August 19.

 

August 2018 Presentations

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) was a plenary speaker at the 2018 Workshop on Resistance to Gene Drive in Arolla, Switzerland on June 18th. He gave a talk entitled “The Landscape of Resistance to Natural and Synthetic Gene Drives”. 

Cara Davis (undergraduate, Lamb lab) gave a selected talk entitled “Biosynthesis of Yersinopine: an opine metallophore from Yersinia pestis” at the 7th Biennial National IDeA Symposium of Biomedical Research Excellence (NISBRE) in Washington DC on June 26.  Cara also gave her talk at KU Mini College, explaining her research project to alumni on June 5.

 

July 2018 Presentations

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) was a plenary speaker at the 2018 Workshop on Resistance to Gene Drive in Arolla, Switzerland on June 18th. He gave a talk entitled “The Landscape of Resistance to Natural and Synthetic Gene Drives”. 

Cara Davis (undergraduate, Lamb lab) gave a selected talk entitled “Biosynthesis of Yersinopine: an opine metallophore from Yersinia pestis” at the 7th Biennial National IDeA Symposium of Biomedical Research Excellence (NISBRE) in Washington DC on June 26.  Cara also gave her talk at KU Mini College, explaining her research project to alumni on June 5.

 

June 2018 Presentations

Christian Ray (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled, “Quantifying Cellular Individuality” at the Allen Institute for Cell Science in Seattle, WA on May 14.

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled “Genomic consequences of genetic conflict in Drosophila” at the Stowers Institute on May 22nd.

Dan Dixon (associate professor) gave a talk entitled “The RNA binding protein HuR regulates exosome secretion in colorectal cancer” at the 4th Annual Midwest Tumor Microenvironment Meeting in Iowa City, IA on May 22.

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave an invited seminar in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at Texas A&M University on May 17. Her talk was entitled, “From Opine to Evidence: Staphylopine, pseudopaline, yersinopine biosynthesis.”

Tom Hill (postdoc Unckless lab) gave a talk entitled “Antiviral genes are not fast evolving in D. innubila” at the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution Satellite Meeting: Molecular Evolution and the Cell in Deer Valley, Utah on May 11th.

Vikalp Vishwakarma (postdoc, Dixon lab) gave a talk entitled “The RNA-binding protein Tristetraprolin controls intestinal cell differentiation and bacterial symbiosis through the Notch signaling pathway” at the Digestive Disease Week (DDW) 2018 American Gastroenterological Association Annual Meetingin Washington, DC on June 5.

 

May 2018 Presentations

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled “Bacterial genetics 101” at the 2018 FASEB workshop on Rigor and Reproducibility: Promoting Credible Science and Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina on April 26.

Joanna Slusky (assistant professor) gave a student-invited Sigma Xi research talk entitled "The complex evolution of outer membrane proteins" at Kansas State on April 25.

Lynn Hancock (associate professor) was chosen to be a member of the organizing committee for the 5thInternational Conference on Enterococci and convened a session on Biofilms and Post-Exponential Behavior in Chamonix, France on April 15-19. He gave a talk entitled, “Carbon catabolism shapes biofilm development in Enterococcus faecalis”.

Steve Benedict (professor) gave a talk entitled "Immune cells and Functions: Relationships to immunotherapy and the tumor microenvironment” to the Clinical Trials Management Staff of the University of Kansas Cancer Center on April 18.

Kristi Neufeld (professor) was one of four KU scientists to present at the Chancellor’s Inaugural Research Symposium in Overland Park on April 19.  Neufeld gave a TED- talk style presentation entitled “Go with your gut: the study of proteins to fight colon cancer”.

Trey Ronnebaum (graduate student, Lamb lab) presented a seminar entitled “Investigating ‘Stuffed’ Domains of NRPS Assembly Lines: PchF and PchE of Pyochelin Biosynthesis” at the University of Pennsylvania on April 26.  He gave a similar presentation at the Biomedical Sciences Symposium on April 12 here at KU.

Kathryn Brewer (undergraduate, Lamb lab) successfully defended her undergraduate honors thesis in Chemistry on April 26.  Her thesis was entitled “The Purification, Crystallization and Structural Determination of Human Aldolase A and Rheostat Variants.”

 

April 2018 Presentations

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled, “Making friends to make war: quorum sensing, cooperation and interspecies competition” at Fio Cruz University March 21 and at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro on March 22, both in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled, "Computer-Aided Drug Discovery Targeting G-Protein-Coupled Receptors" and a hands-on tutorial entitled "Gaussian Accelerated Molecular Dynamics" at the Frontiers in Computational Drug Discovery (FCDD) Symposium, in Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan on March 16-20.  Yinglong also gave a talk entitled, “Accelerated Computer Simulations and Drug Discovery of G-Protein-Coupled Receptors” at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas on March 7.

Mizuki Azuma (associate professor) gave a talk entitled, “Role of Ewing sarcoma proteins in Tumorigenesis” in Bethesda, MD at the Japanese Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS)-National Institute of Health (NIH) Forum on March 9.

David Davido (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled “To be lytic or not to be lytic: a question of HSV-1-host interactions” in the Division of Biology at Kansas State University on March 16. 

 

March 2018 Presentations

Eric Deeds (associate professor) was selected to give a “New and Notable Symposium” talk entitled “Fundamental Trade-offs Between Information Flow in Single Cells and Cellular Populations”, at the Biophysical Society National Meeting in San Francisco, CA on February 21st.

 

February 2018 Presentations

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled “Making friends to make war: bacterial quorum sensing, cooperation and competition” at the University of Missouri, Division of Biological Sciences on December 5, 2017.

Tom Hill (post doc, Unckless lab) gave a talk entitled “The constancy of transposable element dynamics across Drosophila species” at the Population Genetics group at the University of Bristol, UK on January 4, 2018. 

 

January 2018 Presentations

Yamini Mutreja (Gamblin lab) successfully defended her PhD dissertation “Modeling the in vitro aggregation of 4R tau isoforms for a comparative study of FTDP-17 mutants” on December 14, 2017.

December 2017 Presentations

Brian Ackley (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled, “Keep CALM and mind the gap: calcium-dependent mechanisms regulate synapse development” for the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Missouri-Kansas City on November 16.

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave an invited seminar entitled, “Biosynthesis of Opine Metallophores from Bacterial Pathogens” for the Foster Colloquium Series at the University of Buffalo Department of Chemistry on November 17.

Liang Xu (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Drug the undruggable: from nature to precision cancer medicine” at the Department of Chemistry, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, Missouri on October 16.

 

November 2017 Presentations

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Interspecies competition and the evolution of quorum sensing.” at the 6th Annual American Society for Microbiology Cell-Cell Communication in Bacteria Meeting in in Athens, GA on October 17.

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Unraveling the MSTery” at the American Chemical Society Midwest Regional Meeting here at KU on October 20. She also served as the discussion leader for the “Chemical Biology of Microbial Processes” morning session at the conference.

Jeff McFarlane (graduate student, Lamb lab) gave an invited talk entitled “The biosynthesis of opine metallophores by bacterial pathogens” at the Midwest Enzyme Chemistry Conference at Loyola University Chicago on October 14. He gave a poster on the same topic a week later at the American Chemical Society Midwest Regional Meeting here at KU.

 

October 2017 Presentations

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Accelerated Computer Simulations and Drug Discovery of G-Protein-Coupled Receptors” at the 4th Biennial Symposium – Optical Micro-spectroscopy & Molecular Imaging held at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Aug 31 -  Sept 1.

David Davido (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled “To be lytic or not to be lytic: a question of HSV-1-host interactions” at the Department of Diagnostic Medicine and Pathobiology at Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine on September 7. 

 

September 2017 Presentations

Joanne Chapman (postdoc, Unckless lab) presented her research at two international conferences this month. First, she presented a poster at the 2017 International Meeting on Antimicrobial Peptides in Copenhagen, Denmark (Aug 25-27).  Second, she gave a talk entitled “Balancing selection is pervasive in Drosophila antimicrobial peptides” at the Ecological Immunology Workshop in Blossin, Germany on August 29th.

Thelma Chiremba (graduate student, Neufeld lab) gave a Borgendale talk at the annual graduate student symposium on August 18 entitled “Investigating a role for Musashi-1 in intestinal development and organ size regulation.”

Jennifer Klaus (graduate student, Chandler lab) gave a Borgendale talk at the annual graduate student symposium on August 18 entitled “Regulation and virulence effects of malleilactone, a small-molecule cytotoxin in Burkholderia pseudomallei.

 

August 2017 Presentations

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Dissecting Trait Variation using Multiparental Mapping Populations in Drosophila” at the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology special symposium Evolution and Core Processes in Gene Expression held at the Stowers Institute July 13-17.

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Unraveling the MSTery” in the Enzymes Structure, Discovery and Mechanism session of the Enzymes, Coenzymes and Metabolic Pathways Gordon Research Conference in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire, July 16-21.

Tom Hill (postdoc, Unckless lab) gave a talk entitled “Adaptation of Baculoviruses and Nudiviruses in Drosophila and other arthropods” at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution 2017 in Austin, Texas, July 5. 

 

July 2017 Presentations

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Adaptation of Nucleopolyhedroviruses in Drosophilaand other arthropods” at the Entomological Society of America’s North Central Branch Meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana on June 5.

 

June 2017 Presentations

Yoshi Azuma (professor) gave a seminar entitled “SUMO wrestles at the mitotic centromere to protect the integrity of genome” at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Bethesda, Maryland on May 3.

Vi Leitenberger (Ackley lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “C. elegans LIN-12/Notch functions in parallel to Wnt signaling and FMI-1/Flamingo in anteroposterior axon guidance” on May 3.

Bryce Blankenfeld (Gamblin lab) successfully defended his masters thesis entitled “Characterization of a Novel Tau Aggregation Inhibitor Isolated from Fungal Secondary Metabolites” on May 8.

 

May 2017 Presentations

Saida Benomar (postdoc, Chandler lab) gave an invited talk to the Division of Biology at Kansas State University entitled, "Microbial communities: friendship or war in an artificial bacterial consortium” on April 20.

 

April 2017 Presentations

Kristi Neufeld (professor) was hosted by the KUMC Vice Chancellor of Research for her TED-like talk entitled “Go with Your Gut: The Study of a Protein that Fights Colon Cancer” presented at the Research and Discovery Grand Rounds on March 30.

Nikola Kenjic and Jeff McFarlane (graduate students, Lamb lab) gave talks at the 22nd Annual Symposium of the graduate training program in Dynamic Aspects of Chemical Biology.  Nikola’s talk was entitled PvdF as potential novel transformylase from Pseudomonas aeruginosa,” whereas Jeff spoke about the “Characterization of a novel metallophore biosynthetic pathway found in Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus.

 

March 2017 Presentations

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) gave an invited lecture entitled “Leveraging a multiparental population to dissect the genetic basis of variation in Drosophila” in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh on February 20.

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave an invited lecture entitled “Iron In: Unusual regulation of siderophore biosynthesis” in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department of Penn State on January 31.

 

February 2017 Presentations

Mizuki Azuma (associate professor) gave three invited lectures recently, each entitled “Function of Ewing sarcoma EWS protein in skeletogenesis and tumorigenesis”. On December 19, she spoke in the Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology and on January 26, in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, both at KU Medical Center.  On January 13, she presented at the Retirement Symposium for Dr. Igor Dawid at the NIH National Institute of Child Health and Human Development - Division of Developmental Biology, Bethesda Maryland.

Yoshi Azuma (associate professor) gave a seminar entitled ” SUMO Wrestles at the Mitotic Centromere to Protect the Integrity of Genome” at the Department of Microbiology, Molecular Genetics & Immunology, KUMC on January 19.

 

January 2017 Presentations

Denny Swartzlander (Gleason lab) successful defended his doctoral dissertation entitled “Gene Expression and Introgression of Two Genes Implicated in Behavioral Reproductive Isolation between Drosophila simulans and D. sechellia” on December 9.Denny Swartzlander (Gleason lab) successful defended his doctoral dissertation entitled “Gene Expression and Introgression of Two Genes Implicated in Behavioral Reproductive Isolation between Drosophila simulans and D. sechellia” on December 9.

November 2021 Presentations

Josie Chandler (associate professor) gave an invited talk "Quorum sensing and the evolution of antibiotic resistance* for the Brazilian Society for Microbiology Workshop on Pathogenesis. November 2021. (virtual)

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled "The Impact of ADP-ribosylation on Coronavirus Infection and Innate Immunity" at Pittsburg State University, Pittsburg, KS. (Invited)*. November 12, 2021.

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled "PARP12 and coronavirus infection in vitro and in vivo" for the Federation of European Biochemical Society (FEBS) Advanced Course on “Cellular stress and ADP-ribosylation”. Castellammare di Stabia, Italy (International, Invited)**. November 11, 2021.

October 2021 Presentations

Josie Chandler (associate professor) gave an invited talk "Adaptive mutations alter tobramycin susceptibility of Pseudomonas aeruginosa LasR mutants" for the  Conference on Environmental Microbial Signal Communication. Hangzhou, China. September 2021. (virtual at in-person meeting)

Dan Dixon (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Control of extracellular vesicle secretion in colon cancer” for the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular BiologyUniversity of Maryland School of Medicine, October 24, 2021 (Virtual)

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled "The Impact of ADP-ribosylation on Coronavirus Infection and Innate Immunity" at the University of Nebraska, Nebraska Center for Virology Symposium. (Invited)**. October 15, 2021.

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled “The impact of ADP-ribosylation on Coronavirus Infection and Immunity” to the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at KU, Sept. 28, 2021

Catherine Kerr (graduate student, Fehr lab) gave a virtual talk at the Midwest Women In STEM Conference (September 18-19) hosted by the University of Chicago entitled “PARP12 is required for the attenuation of ADP-ribosylhydrolase deficient mouse hepatitis virus in primary macrophages”.  

Spring 2021 Presentations

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled “On the Battlefront: Host PARPs vs the Coronavirus Macrodomain” to the Biology Department at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Virtual. January 21, 2021, and the same seminar to the Department of Biology at Kansas State University. Virtual. February 1, 2021.

Josephine R. Chandler (associate professor) November 18, 2020. Brazilian Society for Microbiology Workshop on Pathogenesis (virtual meeting). Invited oral presentation. “Bacterial social behavior: communication, cooperation and conflict among microbes"

Dan Dixon (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Control of exosome secretion by the RNA-binding protein HuR“ for the Kansas City VA Life Science Seminar Series, Kansas City, MO, January 21, 2021 (Virtual)

November 2020 Presentations

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled "Accelerated Molecular Simulations and Computer-Aided Drug Design" to the Chemistry Colloquium, Illinois Institute of Technology, Virtual, October 13, 2020.Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled "Accelerated Molecular Simulations and Computer-Aided Drug Design" to the Chemistry Colloquium, Illinois Institute of Technology, Virtual, October 13, 2020.

October 2020 Presentations

Liang Xu (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Precision Cancer Medicine Targeting RNA-binding Proteins” at the departmental seminar of Department of Medicinal Chemistry, KU School of Pharmacy, September 10, 2020.

Joanna Slusky (associate professor) gave a webinar talk for the Protein Engineering Design & Selection (PEDS) journal on September 24, 2020.

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled "Accelerated Molecular Simulations and Computer-Aided Drug Design" to the Chemistry Colloquium, Illinois Institute of Technology, Virtual, October 13, 2020.

September 2020 Presentations

Yousef Alhammad (postdoc, Fehr lab) gave an invited talk at the Cold Spring Harbor COVID-19 Rapid Research Reports Virtual Conference:  The SARS-CoV-2 macrodomain is a mono-ADP-ribosylhydrolase. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories COVID19/SARS-CoV-2 Rapid Research Reports #3. 08-25-2020.

August 2020 Presentations

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) gave an invited talk at the Cold Spring Harbor COVID-19 Rapid Research Reports Virtual Conference  “The Unique Activities of the Coronavirus Macrodomain”. (2020) Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories COVID19/SARS-CoV-2 Rapid Research Reports. 07-21-2020. Virtual.

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) gave an invited seminar for the University of New Mexico Autophagy Inflammation and Metabolism Center  “On the Battlefront: Host PARP enzymes vs the Coronavirus Macrodomain”. (2020) University of New Mexico – AIM Center. 06-30-2020. Virtual.

July 2020 Presentations

Aaron Rudeen (PhD candidate, Neufeld lab) gave an oral presentation entitled “Region of APC retained by colon tumors is intrinsically disordered and maintains conformational flexibility upon binding β-catenin” at the University of Kansas Cancer Center’s 7th Annual Cancer Biology Research Program Meeting, on May 28.

Yoshi Azuma (professor) also gave an oral presentation entitled “Regulation of chromosomal SUMOylated proteins by PICH: Can PICH be a therapeutic target for TNBC?”

Eighty-three faculty, staff, postdocs and graduate students attended, and learned from presenters representing KU Cancer Center, The University of Kansas in Lawrence, Children's Mercy, and Stowers Institute for Medical Research. Along with the featured presenters, attendees also were able to participate in seven different breakout rooms for more intimate collaborations based on their field of study. Kristi Neufeld (professor), co-leader of the Cancer Biology Research Program, was a meeting organizer.

March 2020 Presentations

Dan Dixon presented a talk entitled “Reaching Outside the Tumor Cell: Control of Exosome Secretion by HuR” at the Stephenson Cancer Center, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, OK, February 28.

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Two vignettes: Opine metallophore and riboflavin biosynthesis by bacterial pathogens” at the University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, February 13.

Berl Oakley (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “How McrA regulates secondary metabolism” at the European Congress on Fungal Genetics 15, Rome, Italy, February 19.

Berl Oakley (professor) presented a poster “How McrA regulates secondary metabolism” at the 17th International Aspergillus Conference, Rome, Italy, February 16.

February 2020 Presentations

Tom Hill (postdoc, Unckless lab) presented a talk entitled “Recurrent evolution in viral types in an arms race between a DNA virus and a Drosophila species” at the 2020 Great Plains Genetic Conflict meeting in Lawrence, KS, January 25, 2020.

Mariaelen Nabors (undergraduate, Unckless lab) presented a poster entitled “The genetic basis of divergence in immune defense between Drosophila species” at the K-INBRE 2020 Symposium in Wichita, KS, January 17-19, 2020.

January 2020 Presentations

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Two vignettes: Opine metallophore and riboflavin biosynthesis by bacterial pathogens” at Michigan State University on December 2.

Liang Xu (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Drug the undruggable: molecular therapy targeting RNA-binding proteins” at the Department of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Therapeutics, University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC), Kansas City, KS, on November 19.

Sanjana Sundararajan (graduate student, Y Azuma lab) presented a poster entitled “Binding of methylated H3 by TopoisomeraseIIalfa is required for resolving tangled genomic DNA during mitosis for faithful sister chromatid disjunction” at the ASCB/EMBO meeting in Washington DC on December 9.

December 2019 Presentations

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave an invited research talk at the College of Wooster entitled “The far out chemistry of riboflavin biosynthesis” on October 31.

 

November 2019 Presentations

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled “The genetic basis of evolutionary divergence in immune defense in Drosophila” at the 2019 UNVEIL Symposium in Lincoln, Nebraska on October 11-13, 2019.

 

October 2019 Presentations

Mizuki Azuma (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled “The Chromosomal Instability in Ewing Sarcoma” at the International Symposium for Rare Diseases 2019, Ritsumeikan University in Japan on August 30, 2019.

 

September 2019 Presentations

Erik Holmstrom (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Disordered RNA chaperones enhance nucleic acid folding via local charge screening” at the 2nd Conference on Biomotors, Virus Assembly, and Nanobiotechnology Applications, Columbus OH, July 29-31,  2019.

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) gave an invited keynote talk entitled Interactions with G-Protein-Coupled Receptors at the 5th Biennial Symposium – Optical Micro-spectroscopy & Molecular Imaging (Organizer: Valerica Raicu), University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI. August 19-20, 2019. 

Jo Chapman (postdoc, Unckless lab) gave a talk entitled “Machine learning AMPs up: Discovery and validation of new antimicrobial peptides in Drosophila melanogaster” at the Midwest Population Genetics Conference 2019 in Chicago, IL, August 16-17, 2019.

 

August 2019 Presentations

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Microbial Twitter: communication, cooperation and competition in bacteria” and session co-chair at the Society of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology conference in Washington DC on July, 24 2019.

Anthony Fehr (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled “The coronavirus macrodomain is required to prevent PARP-mediated inhibition of virus replication and enhancement of IFN expression” at the 38th annual American Society for Virology Meeting, July 20-24, Minneapolis Minnesota.

David Davido (professor) gave a talk entitled "A high-throughput assay to examine HSV-1 ICP0 transactivation function during acute infection and reactivation" at the Colorado Alphaherpesvirus Latency Symposium in Vail, CO, May 8-10. He also served on its planning committee. 

Stuart Macdonald (professor) gave a talk entitled "Genomewide expression analysis of the adult female gut in the Drosophila Synthetic Population Resource" at the Evolution Conference 2019, Providence, RI, June 21-25.

Elizabeth Everman (postdoc, Macdonald lab) gave a talk entitled "The genetic basis of copper resistance in Drosophila melanogaster" at the Evolution Conference 2019, Providence, RI, June 21-15.

Dianarys Hernandez-Aquino (graduate student, Macdonald lab) gave a talk entitled "Using CRISPR-Cas9 to directly test the role of Cyp12d1 in caffeine resistance in Drosophila melanogaster" at the Evolution Conference 2019, Providence, RI, June 21-15.

 

July 2019 Presentations

Stuart Macdonald (professor) gave an invited talk entitled "Genomewide expression analysis of the adult female gut in the Drosophila Synthetic Population Resource" at the Complex Traits Consortium / Rat Genomics 17th Annual Meeting, San Diego CA, June 8-11.

Dan Dixon (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled "Reaching outside the tumor cell: Control of exosome secretion by HuR" at the 8th mRNA Stability Conference: Mechanisms, Regulation and their Implication in Infectious and Age Related Diseases, June 25-28, Montreal, Canada.

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Gaussian Accelerated Molecular Dynamics: Free Energy Calculations of Biomolecular Interactions.” Santa Fe Workshop “Free energy calculations: Entering the fourth decade of adventure in chemistry and biophysics (2019)” Santa Fe, NM. June 16 – 21, 2019.

 

June 2019 Presentations

Dan Dixon (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Understanding the Role of mRNA Decay in Cancer” at the Baker University Department of Biology on April 24, 2019.

Anuja Bhatta (graduate student, Benedict lab) presented her work entitled, Engagement of CD45 alters early signaling events in human T cells costimulated through TCR + CD28 at the American Association for Immunology meeting in San Diego, CA on May 12.

 

May 2019 Presentations

Erik Lundquist (professor) presented the University of Nebraska-Lincoln School of Biological Sciences Alumni Lecture entitled “Axon Guidance in neural Circuit Formation” on April 11, 2019.

Christian Ray (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Identifying determinants of cell cycle variability during a stress response” at the Kansas State University Department of Anatomy and Physiology on April 2, 2019.

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) gave three invited talks at the 2019 Spring American Chemical Society Meeting in Orlando, Florida: (1) "Activation dependent G-protein-coupled receptor-membrane interactions", (2) "Enhanced molecular dynamics simulations of G-protein-coupled receptor-G protein interactions", and (3) "Gaussian accelerated molecular dynamics (GaMD): Enhanced sampling of ligand binding and protein-protein interactions".

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled "Accelerated Simulations and Drug Design of G-Protein-Coupled Receptors" at the Kansas State University Department of Anatomy & Physiology on April 9, 2019.

Elizabeth Everman (postdoc, Macdonald lab) gave a talk entitled "Dissecting the genetic architecture of copper resistance" at the 55th Annual Meeting of the Missouri Academy of Science at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri on April 13, 2019.

David Ingham (graduate student, Gamblin lab) and Nikola Kenjic (graduate student, Lamb lab) gave invited talks about their dissertation research at the 2019 Biomedical Sciences Symposium on April 19.  They were part of a full day program that included a poster competition and keynote talks from Adam Cohen (Harvard) and David Keire (FDA).  The one day symposium is organized by the Chemical Biology and Biotechnology Graduate Training Programs here at KU.

 

April 2019 Presentations

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) gave an invited seminar at the University of Indiana, Biology Department entitled, “Making friends to make war: quorum sensing, cooperation and interbacterial competition” on March 26, 2019.

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) gave an invited seminar at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) for the School of Biological Sciences entitled “New Insights into Mechanisms of Coronavirus Innate Immune Evasion” on March 5, 2019.

Christian Ray (assistant professor) gave an invited seminar at Oklahoma State University Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics entitled “Identifying determinants of cell cycle variability during a stress response” on March 11, 2019.

Liang Xu (professor) gave an invited talk at The School of Pharmacy, Division of Pharmacology & Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) entitled “Drug the undruggable: molecular therapy targeting RNA-binding proteins” on March 7, 2019.

Tom Hill (postdoc, Unckless lab) presented a platform session talk entitled: “Alternative modes of evolution in immune pathways in Drosophila” at the Drosophila Research Conference in  Dallas, TX on March 30, 2019.

Jenn Klaus (graduate student, Chandler lab) gave an invited seminar entitled, “Understanding the regulation and function of a virulence factor in the bacterial pathogen Burkholderia pseudomallei” to the Biology Department at Baker University on March 20, 2019.

Andrea Darby (PREP scholar, Unckless lab) presented a platform session talk entitled: “Tradeoffs between immune defense and resistance to environmental stress at a single amino acid polymorphism” and a workshop talk entitled: “Ecology, Evolution, and Drosophila Microbiota” at the Drosophila Research Conference in Dallas, TX March 28, 2019.

Mariaelena Nabors (undergraduate, Unckless lab) received an undergraduate travel award to attend the 2019 Drosophila Research Conference in Dallas, TX on March 28, 2019.

 

March 2019 Presentations

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) gave an invited seminar at the University of Toronto Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology entitled "The causes of balancing selection on immune genes: from populations to molecular interactions” on January 18th. 

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) gave an invited talk at the CECAM workshop entitled “Enhanced sampling of G-protein-coupled receptor-G protein interactions” & “Multiscale Modeling from Macromolecules to Cell: Opportunities and Challenges of Biomolecular Simulations” in Lausanne, Switzerland in February 2019.

 

February 2019 Presentations

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) gave a seminar at KUMCtitled “New insights into mechanisms of coronavirus innate immune evasion” on January 17.

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) gave an invited seminar at the University of Toronto Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology entitled "The causes of balancing selection on immune genes: from populations to molecular interactions” on January 18th. 

David Davido (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Virus-host interactions regulate the switch between HSV-1 lytic and latent infections” in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at LSUHSC-Shreveport on January 9. 

 

January 2019 Presentations

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave a seminar entitled “From opine to evidence: staphylopine, pseudopaline and yersinopine biosynthesis” for the Biomolecular Sciences Graduate Programs at Boise State University on November 14.

Erik Lundquist (professor) gave a presentation “A New Model of Directed Growth Cone Migration in Axon Guidance” for Department of Molecular & Integrative Physiology at the KU Medical Center on October 15.

December 2018 Presentations

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave a seminar entitled “From opine to evidence: staphylopine, pseudopaline and yersinopine biosynthesis” for the Biomolecular Sciences Graduate Programs at Boise State University on November 14.

Erik Lundquist (professor) gave a presentation “A New Model of Directed Growth Cone Migration in Axon Guidance” for Department of Molecular & Integrative Physiology at the KU Medical Center on October 15.

 

November 2018 Presentations

Tony Fehr (assistant professor) gave an invited talk at Oklahoma State University entitled “New Insights into Mechanisms of Coronavirus Innate Immune Evasion” for the Oklahoma Center for Respiratory and Infectious Diseases, October 17.

Dan Dixon (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled "Regulation of exosome secretion in colorectal cancer" at the II Workshop on Inflammation 2018 held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, October 22-23.

Chris Gamblin (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “In vitro inhibition of Alzheimer’s pathology with fungal natural products” in the Department of Molecular & Integrative Physiology at the KU Medical Center, October 29.

 

October 2018 Presentations

Joanna Slusky (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled “The structural evolution of outer membrane proteins” at the Membrane Protein Expression Purification and Crystallization EMBO workshop in Hamburg, Germany on September 14.

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) gave a seminar entitled “The causes of balancing selection on immunity genes: from populations to molecular interactions” at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska - Lincoln on September 20. 

David Davido (associate professor) gave seminars entitled: "Virus-host Interactions Regulate The Switch Between HSV-1 Lytic and Latent Infections" in the Department of Molecular Biosciences at KU on September 10,  "Regulation of Lytic and Latent Infections: What We Have Learned from Herpes Simplex Virus-Host Interactions" for the University Kansas Cancer Center  on September 11, and “To Be Lytic or Not to Be Lytic: A Question of HSV-1-Host Interactions” for the Virginia Tech Life Sciences Seminars  on September 28.

Dan Dixon (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled "HuR Regulation of Exosome Secretion in Colorectal Cancer" at the ELAVENICE-2018 Conference held in Venice, Italy, September 13-15.

Kristi Neufeld (professor) gave a talk entitled “Structure function study of colon tumor suppressor APC” at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Kansas Medical Center on September 28.

 

September 2018 Presentations

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) (2018) gave several talks: (1) “Binding Modes and Effects of Allosteric Drug Leads in the Adenosine A1 Receptor”; (2) “Ligand Binding Pathways and Conformational Transitions of the HIV Protease”; (3) “Mechanism of the G-Protein Mimetic Nanobody Binding to a Muscarinic G-Protein-Coupled Receptor”; and (4) “Acceleration of Biomolecular Kinetics in Gaussian Accelerated Molecular Dynamics” at the 2018 American Chemical Society National Meeting in Boston, MA from Aug 19-23. 

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled “Mechanistic convergence in genetic conflict across species” at the Midwest Population Genetics Meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota on August 24th.

Roberto De Guzman (professor) gave a talk entitled "NMR of translocon of bacterial nanoinjectors" at the 28th International Conference on Magnetic Resonance in Biological Systems held at the University College Dublin, Ireland on Aug. 19-24, 2018.

Liang Xu (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “CRISPR Technology in Precision Cancer Medicine” at the 2018 One Health Research Symposium in Kansas City on August 19.

 

August 2018 Presentations

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) was a plenary speaker at the 2018 Workshop on Resistance to Gene Drive in Arolla, Switzerland on June 18th. He gave a talk entitled “The Landscape of Resistance to Natural and Synthetic Gene Drives”. 

Cara Davis (undergraduate, Lamb lab) gave a selected talk entitled “Biosynthesis of Yersinopine: an opine metallophore from Yersinia pestis” at the 7th Biennial National IDeA Symposium of Biomedical Research Excellence (NISBRE) in Washington DC on June 26.  Cara also gave her talk at KU Mini College, explaining her research project to alumni on June 5.

 

July 2018 Presentations

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) was a plenary speaker at the 2018 Workshop on Resistance to Gene Drive in Arolla, Switzerland on June 18th. He gave a talk entitled “The Landscape of Resistance to Natural and Synthetic Gene Drives”. 

Cara Davis (undergraduate, Lamb lab) gave a selected talk entitled “Biosynthesis of Yersinopine: an opine metallophore from Yersinia pestis” at the 7th Biennial National IDeA Symposium of Biomedical Research Excellence (NISBRE) in Washington DC on June 26.  Cara also gave her talk at KU Mini College, explaining her research project to alumni on June 5.

 

June 2018 Presentations

Christian Ray (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled, “Quantifying Cellular Individuality” at the Allen Institute for Cell Science in Seattle, WA on May 14.

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled “Genomic consequences of genetic conflict in Drosophila” at the Stowers Institute on May 22nd.

Dan Dixon (associate professor) gave a talk entitled “The RNA binding protein HuR regulates exosome secretion in colorectal cancer” at the 4th Annual Midwest Tumor Microenvironment Meeting in Iowa City, IA on May 22.

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave an invited seminar in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at Texas A&M University on May 17. Her talk was entitled, “From Opine to Evidence: Staphylopine, pseudopaline, yersinopine biosynthesis.”

Tom Hill (postdoc Unckless lab) gave a talk entitled “Antiviral genes are not fast evolving in D. innubila” at the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution Satellite Meeting: Molecular Evolution and the Cell in Deer Valley, Utah on May 11th.

Vikalp Vishwakarma (postdoc, Dixon lab) gave a talk entitled “The RNA-binding protein Tristetraprolin controls intestinal cell differentiation and bacterial symbiosis through the Notch signaling pathway” at the Digestive Disease Week (DDW) 2018 American Gastroenterological Association Annual Meetingin Washington, DC on June 5.

 

May 2018 Presentations

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled “Bacterial genetics 101” at the 2018 FASEB workshop on Rigor and Reproducibility: Promoting Credible Science and Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina on April 26.

Joanna Slusky (assistant professor) gave a student-invited Sigma Xi research talk entitled "The complex evolution of outer membrane proteins" at Kansas State on April 25.

Lynn Hancock (associate professor) was chosen to be a member of the organizing committee for the 5thInternational Conference on Enterococci and convened a session on Biofilms and Post-Exponential Behavior in Chamonix, France on April 15-19. He gave a talk entitled, “Carbon catabolism shapes biofilm development in Enterococcus faecalis”.

Steve Benedict (professor) gave a talk entitled "Immune cells and Functions: Relationships to immunotherapy and the tumor microenvironment” to the Clinical Trials Management Staff of the University of Kansas Cancer Center on April 18.

Kristi Neufeld (professor) was one of four KU scientists to present at the Chancellor’s Inaugural Research Symposium in Overland Park on April 19.  Neufeld gave a TED- talk style presentation entitled “Go with your gut: the study of proteins to fight colon cancer”.

Trey Ronnebaum (graduate student, Lamb lab) presented a seminar entitled “Investigating ‘Stuffed’ Domains of NRPS Assembly Lines: PchF and PchE of Pyochelin Biosynthesis” at the University of Pennsylvania on April 26.  He gave a similar presentation at the Biomedical Sciences Symposium on April 12 here at KU.

Kathryn Brewer (undergraduate, Lamb lab) successfully defended her undergraduate honors thesis in Chemistry on April 26.  Her thesis was entitled “The Purification, Crystallization and Structural Determination of Human Aldolase A and Rheostat Variants.”

 

April 2018 Presentations

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled, “Making friends to make war: quorum sensing, cooperation and interspecies competition” at Fio Cruz University March 21 and at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro on March 22, both in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled, "Computer-Aided Drug Discovery Targeting G-Protein-Coupled Receptors" and a hands-on tutorial entitled "Gaussian Accelerated Molecular Dynamics" at the Frontiers in Computational Drug Discovery (FCDD) Symposium, in Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan on March 16-20.  Yinglong also gave a talk entitled, “Accelerated Computer Simulations and Drug Discovery of G-Protein-Coupled Receptors” at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas on March 7.

Mizuki Azuma (associate professor) gave a talk entitled, “Role of Ewing sarcoma proteins in Tumorigenesis” in Bethesda, MD at the Japanese Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS)-National Institute of Health (NIH) Forum on March 9.

David Davido (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled “To be lytic or not to be lytic: a question of HSV-1-host interactions” in the Division of Biology at Kansas State University on March 16. 

 

March 2018 Presentations

Eric Deeds (associate professor) was selected to give a “New and Notable Symposium” talk entitled “Fundamental Trade-offs Between Information Flow in Single Cells and Cellular Populations”, at the Biophysical Society National Meeting in San Francisco, CA on February 21st.

 

February 2018 Presentations

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled “Making friends to make war: bacterial quorum sensing, cooperation and competition” at the University of Missouri, Division of Biological Sciences on December 5, 2017.

Tom Hill (post doc, Unckless lab) gave a talk entitled “The constancy of transposable element dynamics across Drosophila species” at the Population Genetics group at the University of Bristol, UK on January 4, 2018. 

 

January 2018 Presentations

Yamini Mutreja (Gamblin lab) successfully defended her PhD dissertation “Modeling the in vitro aggregation of 4R tau isoforms for a comparative study of FTDP-17 mutants” on December 14, 2017.

December 2017 Presentations

Brian Ackley (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled, “Keep CALM and mind the gap: calcium-dependent mechanisms regulate synapse development” for the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Missouri-Kansas City on November 16.

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave an invited seminar entitled, “Biosynthesis of Opine Metallophores from Bacterial Pathogens” for the Foster Colloquium Series at the University of Buffalo Department of Chemistry on November 17.

Liang Xu (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Drug the undruggable: from nature to precision cancer medicine” at the Department of Chemistry, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, Missouri on October 16.

 

November 2017 Presentations

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Interspecies competition and the evolution of quorum sensing.” at the 6th Annual American Society for Microbiology Cell-Cell Communication in Bacteria Meeting in in Athens, GA on October 17.

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Unraveling the MSTery” at the American Chemical Society Midwest Regional Meeting here at KU on October 20. She also served as the discussion leader for the “Chemical Biology of Microbial Processes” morning session at the conference.

Jeff McFarlane (graduate student, Lamb lab) gave an invited talk entitled “The biosynthesis of opine metallophores by bacterial pathogens” at the Midwest Enzyme Chemistry Conference at Loyola University Chicago on October 14. He gave a poster on the same topic a week later at the American Chemical Society Midwest Regional Meeting here at KU.

 

October 2017 Presentations

Yinglong Miao (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Accelerated Computer Simulations and Drug Discovery of G-Protein-Coupled Receptors” at the 4th Biennial Symposium – Optical Micro-spectroscopy & Molecular Imaging held at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Aug 31 -  Sept 1.

David Davido (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled “To be lytic or not to be lytic: a question of HSV-1-host interactions” at the Department of Diagnostic Medicine and Pathobiology at Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine on September 7. 

 

September 2017 Presentations

Joanne Chapman (postdoc, Unckless lab) presented her research at two international conferences this month. First, she presented a poster at the 2017 International Meeting on Antimicrobial Peptides in Copenhagen, Denmark (Aug 25-27).  Second, she gave a talk entitled “Balancing selection is pervasive in Drosophila antimicrobial peptides” at the Ecological Immunology Workshop in Blossin, Germany on August 29th.

Thelma Chiremba (graduate student, Neufeld lab) gave a Borgendale talk at the annual graduate student symposium on August 18 entitled “Investigating a role for Musashi-1 in intestinal development and organ size regulation.”

Jennifer Klaus (graduate student, Chandler lab) gave a Borgendale talk at the annual graduate student symposium on August 18 entitled “Regulation and virulence effects of malleilactone, a small-molecule cytotoxin in Burkholderia pseudomallei.

 

August 2017 Presentations

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Dissecting Trait Variation using Multiparental Mapping Populations in Drosophila” at the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology special symposium Evolution and Core Processes in Gene Expression held at the Stowers Institute July 13-17.

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Unraveling the MSTery” in the Enzymes Structure, Discovery and Mechanism session of the Enzymes, Coenzymes and Metabolic Pathways Gordon Research Conference in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire, July 16-21.

Tom Hill (postdoc, Unckless lab) gave a talk entitled “Adaptation of Baculoviruses and Nudiviruses in Drosophila and other arthropods” at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution 2017 in Austin, Texas, July 5. 

 

July 2017 Presentations

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Adaptation of Nucleopolyhedroviruses in Drosophilaand other arthropods” at the Entomological Society of America’s North Central Branch Meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana on June 5.

 

June 2017 Presentations

Yoshi Azuma (professor) gave a seminar entitled “SUMO wrestles at the mitotic centromere to protect the integrity of genome” at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Bethesda, Maryland on May 3.

Vi Leitenberger (Ackley lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “C. elegans LIN-12/Notch functions in parallel to Wnt signaling and FMI-1/Flamingo in anteroposterior axon guidance” on May 3.

Bryce Blankenfeld (Gamblin lab) successfully defended his masters thesis entitled “Characterization of a Novel Tau Aggregation Inhibitor Isolated from Fungal Secondary Metabolites” on May 8.

 

May 2017 Presentations

Saida Benomar (postdoc, Chandler lab) gave an invited talk to the Division of Biology at Kansas State University entitled, "Microbial communities: friendship or war in an artificial bacterial consortium” on April 20.

 

April 2017 Presentations

Kristi Neufeld (professor) was hosted by the KUMC Vice Chancellor of Research for her TED-like talk entitled “Go with Your Gut: The Study of a Protein that Fights Colon Cancer” presented at the Research and Discovery Grand Rounds on March 30.

Nikola Kenjic and Jeff McFarlane (graduate students, Lamb lab) gave talks at the 22nd Annual Symposium of the graduate training program in Dynamic Aspects of Chemical Biology.  Nikola’s talk was entitled PvdF as potential novel transformylase from Pseudomonas aeruginosa,” whereas Jeff spoke about the “Characterization of a novel metallophore biosynthetic pathway found in Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus.

 

March 2017 Presentations

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) gave an invited lecture entitled “Leveraging a multiparental population to dissect the genetic basis of variation in Drosophila” in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh on February 20.

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave an invited lecture entitled “Iron In: Unusual regulation of siderophore biosynthesis” in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department of Penn State on January 31.

 

February 2017 Presentations

Mizuki Azuma (associate professor) gave three invited lectures recently, each entitled “Function of Ewing sarcoma EWS protein in skeletogenesis and tumorigenesis”. On December 19, she spoke in the Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology and on January 26, in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, both at KU Medical Center.  On January 13, she presented at the Retirement Symposium for Dr. Igor Dawid at the NIH National Institute of Child Health and Human Development - Division of Developmental Biology, Bethesda Maryland.

Yoshi Azuma (associate professor) gave a seminar entitled ” SUMO Wrestles at the Mitotic Centromere to Protect the Integrity of Genome” at the Department of Microbiology, Molecular Genetics & Immunology, KUMC on January 19.

 

January 2017 Presentations

Denny Swartzlander (Gleason lab) successful defended his doctoral dissertation entitled “Gene Expression and Introgression of Two Genes Implicated in Behavioral Reproductive Isolation between Drosophila simulans and D. sechellia” on December 9.Denny Swartzlander (Gleason lab) successful defended his doctoral dissertation entitled “Gene Expression and Introgression of Two Genes Implicated in Behavioral Reproductive Isolation between Drosophila simulans and D. sechellia” on December 9.

December 2016 Presentations

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) gave two invited lectures recently.  On November 2, he spoke in the department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Kansas State University about “Convergence and balancing selection in insect antimicrobial peptides.”  He gave a talk entitled "The maintenance of genetic variation through conflict” in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department here at KU on November 8. 

David Davido (associate professor) gave two presentations in October entitled “To be lytic or not to be lytic: a question of HSV-1-host interactions.”  The first presentation was at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Biological Sciences on October 6 in Kansas City and the second presentation was at the Oklahoma Center for Respiratory and Infectious Diseases on October 19. 

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave a lecture entitled “Iron In: Unusual regulation of siderophore biosynthesis” at the 14th Annual Symposium at the University of Nebraska Redox Biology Center on November 8.

Angela Fowler (Davido lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “Identifying cellular kinases that regulate HSV-1 ICP0 activities and viral replication ” on November 2.

Thelma ChirembaChristian Gomez and Andy Wolfe (graduate students, Neufeld lab) gave research presentations for the high school Genetics & Biotechnology class at Bishop Seabury Academy in Lawrence on November 16.

 

November 2016 Presentations

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Genomewide dissection of natural variation in sleep and drug resistance in flies” at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Biological Sciences on October 13.

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Pyochelin Biosynthesis: The Enzymes from A to G” in the department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Kansas Medical Center on October 21.

Aidan Dmitriev (undergraduate, Hefty lab) was invited to give a talk at the 2016 Gulf Coast Undergraduate Research Symposium at Rice University on October 22nd. The symposium featured undergraduate researchers from diverse fields, including bioscience, chemistry, physics, and engineering. Traveling from locations spanning New York to California and Idaho to Costa Rica, sixty-one participants in the bioscience track all gave fifteen minute presentations and received evaluations from Rice faculty and graduate students. Aidan presented on "Structural Proteomics in Chlamydia trachomatis.”

 

October 2016 Presentations

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) gave an invited lecture entitled “Making friends to make war: Quorum sensing, cooperation and interspecies competition” in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at McGill University in Montreal Quebec on August 23.

Tom Hill (postdoc, Unckless lab) gave a seminar in the Department of Biology at the University of Rochester entitled “Hybrid dysgenesis in Drosophila simulans associated with a rapid global invasion of the P element” on September 30th.

 

September 2016 Presentations

Yuxiao Guo (Xu lab) successfully defended her master's thesis entitled “Taxotere suppresses breast cancer growth through inducing lincRNA-p21 expression” on August 31.

 

August 2016 Presentations

Christian Ray (Assistant Professor) gave a talk entitled, “Phenotypic Heterogeneity and Static Protein Distributions in Growth-Arrested Microbes” at the Tenth Annual q-bio Conference at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN on July 29.

Matthew Buechner (Associate Professor) gave an invited seminar “Tube Formation in the Model Nematode C. elegans” at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Sydney, Australia, on July 21, 2016. 

Mahekta Gujar (graduate student, Lundquist lab) presented a platform talk entitled "UNC-33/CRMP inhibits growth cone protrusion in axon repulsion from UNC-6/netrin” at The Allied Genetics Conference, July 13-17, 2016 in Orlando, FL.

Chad Highfill (Macdonald lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled “The complex genetic architecture of lifespan and xenobiotic resistance” on July 5.

Kawaljit Kaur (De Guzman lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “NMR studies of molecular interactions involved in the type III secretion system, sumoylation, and the RNA binding protein HuR” on July 8.

Erin Suderman (Ward lab) successfully defended her masters thesis entitled “Genetic control of tissue specific growth in the Drosophila trachea” on July 7.

Makoto Yoshida (Y. Azuma lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled “SUMOylation at the centromere: The role of SUMOylation of the DNA topoisomerase Iiα C-terminal domain in the regulation of mitotic kinases in cell cycle progression” on July 12.

 

July 2016 Presentations

Rob Ward (associate professor) was the guest speaker at the Science Café Woo in Worchester, Massachusetts, presenting a talk entitled “Small Fly, Big insight into growth: using fly genetics to understand tissue specific growth” on June 20.  The science cafe is organized by postdocs at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.  The goal of the cafe is to showcase scientists and provide them a platform to showcase the importance of their work to the non-science community.

 

June 2016 Presentations

David Davido (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Mutations in HSV-1 UL39 impair pathogenesis in mice and constitute a potential vaccine against HSV-1” at the Colorado Alphaherpesvirus Latency Symposium in Vail, CO, May 18-20.  He also co-chaired the graduate student and post-doctoral trainee presentation session. 

Berl Oakley (Irving S. Johnson distinguished professor) gave a seminar today entitled "Discovery of McrA: a master regulator of fungal secondary metabolism" in Center for Functional and Structural Genomics at Concordia University in Montreal on May 27.

Andrew McSchan (De Guzman lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled “Elucidation of the Needle-Tip and Tip-Translocon Interactions of the Salmonella SPI-1 Type III Secretion System and Identification of Small Molecule Binders of the Tip and Translocon” on May 11.

Haifa Alhadyian (Ward lab) successfully defended her masters thesis entitled “Macroglobulin complement-related, Coracle and Neuroglian are required for the Drosophila egg morphogenesis” on May 11.

 

May 2016 Presentations

Christian Ray (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled “Lineage as a conception of space in compartmental stochastic processes across cellular populations” at the Advances in numerical and analytical approaches for the study of non-spatial stochastic dynamical systems in molecular biology workshop at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences at Cambridge University in Cambridge, UK on April 8.  

Eric Deeds (associate professor) gave two invited talks in April.  He spoke on “The noise is the signal: information flow in single cells and cellular populations” at the Advances in numerical and analytical approaches for the study of non-spatial stochastic dynamical systems in molecular biology workshop at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences at Cambridge University in Cambridge, UK on April 6.  He also gave a seminar on “Crosstalk and the evolvabililty of intracellular communication” in the Département d'Informatique, École Normale Supérieure in Paris, France.

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Dissecting Complex Trait Variation in Flies Using a Multiparental Mapping Population” at the University of Oklahoma, Department of Biology in Norman on April 20.

Roberto De Guzman (professor) gave a talk at the Type III Secretion Systems 2016 meeting at the University of Tuebingen, Germany on April 5 entitled “The (un)structure of LcrG and PcrG”.  He also gave seminars at the University of Potsdam (near Berlin) on April 7 and another seminar at Ruhr University Bochum on Apr 14.  The title of his seminar in Potsdam and Bochum was “NMR Studies of Bacterial Nanoinjectors.”  

Berl Oakley (Irving S. Johnson distinguished professor) gave two talks in Europe recently.  At Asperfest 13 (the Thirteenth International Aspergillus Meeting) in Paris, France on April 3, Berl spoke about “Building a diamond-level assembly of the Aspergillus nidulans genome.”  He also visited Novartis in Basel, Switzerland and spoke on “Engineering Aspergillus nidulans for natural product discovery and production” on April 8.

The following students successfully defended their doctoral dissertations:

        Olivia Arizmendi (Wendy Picking lab) on April 28; “Investigation of the Effector Role of IpaD from the Type III Secretion System of Shigella flexneri

        Matthew Josephson (Lundquist lab) on April 29; “New roles for Hox and Wnt in Cell Migration”

        Vinidhra Sridharan (Y. Azuma lab) on April 27; “SUMOylation in centromere organization: Regulation of a putative chromatin remodeler, Polo-like kinase 1 interacting checkpoint helicase (PICH) by mitotic SUMOylation”

KyeongMin Bae (Richter lab) successfully defended his master’s thesis entitled “Role of Zinc in Parkin RING2 E3 Ubiquitin Ligase Ubiquitination” on April 27.

 

April 2016 Presentations

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled “Making friends to make war: quorum sensing, cooperation and interspecies competition” at the Missouri Valley Branch Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in Kansas City on March 4.

Scott Hefty (associate professor) gave the keynote lecture at the German Workshop on Chlamydia in Freiburg, Germany on March 16-18.  The presentation was entitled “Genetic Tools for Chlamydia.

John Karanicolas (associate professor) gave two talks in March.  He spoke on “Chemical tools to modulate p53 folding in cells” at the 251st American Chemical Society National Meeting and Symposium in San Diego, California, March 13-17.  He discussed “Modulating Antibody Activity using Chemical Biology” at the Antibody Biology & Engineering Gordon Research Conference in Galveston, Texas, March 20-25.

Chris Gamblin (professor) gave a talk entitled “Fungal Metabolome as a rich resource for tau aggregation inhibitors” in the Bioactives & Neurodenerative Diseases session In the Division of Agricultural and Food Chemistry at the 251st American Chemical Society National Meeting and Symposium in San Diego, California, March 13-17. 

Audrey Lamb (professor) have an invited talk entitled “Pyochelin biosynthesis: the enzymes from A to Z” in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Missouri-Kansas City on March 3.

 

March 2016 Presentations

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled “Making friends to make war: quorum sensing, cooperation and interspecies competition” three times.   She spoke in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology department at the KU Medical Center on February 5, at the Kansas State University department of Diagnostic Medicine/Pathobiology on February 11 and the 2016 Higuchi Biosciences Center Science Talks on February 19.

Audrey Lamb (professor) have an invited talk entitled “Pyochelin biosynthesis: the enzymes from A to Z” in the department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Pennsylvania State University on February 22.

 

February 2016 Presentations

Mizuki Azuma (associate professor) and Chad Slawson (KUMC) gave a joint talk as recipients of cancer biology program pilot award at KUCC Cancer Biology Research Program Meeting on January 22.  The title of the talk was "O-GlcNAcylation in mitosis.”

Brian Ackley (associate professor) presented a talk entitled “Keep CALM and mind the synapse” at the 14th Annual K-INBRE Symposium in Overland Park, KS on January 16th.

Lynn Hancock (associate professor) gave an invited seminar entitled “The role of peptide signaling in the biology of Enterococcus faecalis” in the department of Pathology and Microbiology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha on January 13.

Rana Aliani (undergraduate, Lundquist lab) presented a talk entitled “The Neurofibromatosis type 2 molecule NFM-1 controls neuronal migration in C. elegans” at the 14th Annual K-INBRE Symposium in Overland Park, KS on January 16th.

Jessica van Loben Sels (undergraduate, Davido lab) presented a talk entitled “The N-terminus of the NSF-1 E3 ligase ICP0 stimulates viral replication and gene expression in cells exposed to interferon-b” at the 14th Annual K-INBRE Symposium in Overland Park, KS on January 16th.

 

January 2016 Presentations

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave an invited lecture entitled “Pyochelin Biosynthesis: the enzymes from A to G” in the department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee on December 11.

Seth Lewin (M. Azuma lab) successfully defended his Masters thesis entitled “The role of Ewing sarcoma protein EWS in endochondral ossification and vasculogenesis” on December 9.

December 2015 Presentations

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) gave two invited lectures recently.  At the Great Plains Infectious Diseases Conference on October 7 she spoke about “Quorum sensing-controlled antibiotics and antibiotic-resistance factors and their role in interspecies competition."  On October 1, Josie spoke at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, School of Biological Sciences about “Making friends to make war: quorum sensing, cooperation and interspecies competition."

 

David Davido (associate professor) gave a presentation in the department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at the University of Florida School of Medicine entitled “To be lytic or not to be lytic: a question of HSV-1-host interactions” on November 2.

Berl Oakley (Irving S. Johnson Distinguished Professor) gave the Roger E. Koeppe Endowed Lecture in the department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Oklahoma State University on November 20.  The lecture was entitled “A new/old path to drug discovery: Reengineering the Aspergillus genome for natural product discovery and production.”

November 2015 Presentations

Scott Hefty (associate professor) gave an invited seminar entitled “Structural Proteomics and (Early) Functional Genomics in Chlamydia”  at the University of Washington, Department of Global Health (Seattle) on October 15 and at Oregon State University, College of Veterinary Medicine on October 20.

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave an invited seminar entitled “Breaking a Pathogen’s Iron Will: inhibiting siderophore production as an antimicrobial strategy” at the department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis on October 28.

Amber Smith (Xu lab) successfully defended her dissertation entitled “The regulation of Musashi RNA binding proteins and its implications for cancer therapy” on October 8.

 

October 2015 Presentations

Yoshi Azuma (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “SUMOylated DNA Topoisomerase IIα regulates phosphorylated histone H3 kinase Haspin at the centromere” at the EMBO Workshop on DNA topoisomerases, DNA topology and human health in Les Diablerets, Switzerland on September 17.

David Davido (associate professor) gave a presentation in the Department of Medical Microbiology, Immunology, and Cell Biology at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine entitled “Taking control of the HSV-1 life cycle: role of viral and host factors” on September 25.

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled "One Renegade Cell: Understanding Cancer" at the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library, Topeka, KS on September 23.

Liang Xu (associate professor) gave a presentation at the KU Cancer Center Seminar Series entitled “Drug the ‘undruggable’: New Frontiers in Precision Medicine” on August 25.  He gave a similarly titled presentation at the 2nd Annual Center for Drug Discovery Symposium at Purdue University on September 18.

Chris Gamblin (professor) and Berl Oakley (Irving S. Johnson Distinguished Professor of Molecular Biology) gave a presentation entitled “Fungal Natural Products as Lead Compounds for Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease” at the KU Alumni Association Meeting in Winfield, Kansas, on September 15.

 

September 2015 Presentations

Susan Egan (professor) gave an oral presentation entitled “Allosteric Rhamnose Signaling in the E. coli AraC Family Protein RhaR” at the Molecular Genetics of Bacteria and Phages Meeting in Madison, WI, on August 5.

 

August 2015 Presentations

Smita Paranjape (Gamblin lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “Inhibition of Alzheimer's type toxic aggregates of tau with fungal secondary metabolites” on July 7.

 

July 2015 Presentations

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) gave an invited lecture entitled "Genetic Dissection of Sleep Variation in the Drosophila Synthetic Population Resource" at the 14th Annual Complex Trait Community Annual Meeting in Portland OR on June 10th.

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave an invited lecture entitled “Breaking a Pathogen’s Iron Will: inhibiting siderophore production as an antimicrobial strategy” for the Summer Science Seminars at Wesleyan University on June 25.

Sonia Hall (Ward lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “An analysis of the requirement for septate junction proteins in essential morphogenetic events” on June 15.

 

June 2015 Presentations

Samantha Hartin (Ackley lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “Reduce, reuse, recycle: the tale of two Wnts and the lone C. elegans syndecan, SDN-1” on May 1.

 

May 2015 Presentations

Mizuki Azuma (assistant professor) gave an invited seminar entitled “Function of EWS in mitosis and tumorigenesis” at the Inaugural Ewing Sarcoma Symposium sponsored by Texas Children’s Cancer and Hematology Centers and Baylor College of Medicine on April 23.

Lynn Hancock (associate professor) gave an invited seminar entitled “The role of peptide signaling in Enterococcus faecalis” at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at Houston in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics on April 9.

John Karanicolas (associate professor) gave an invited seminar entitled “New computational approaches for addressing non-traditional drug targets” to the KU Cancer Center on April 28.

Angela Fowler (graduate student, Davido Lab) gave a talk entitled “Determining the Roles CDKs 1, 2, 4, & 6 Play in Regulating the Activities of HSV-1 ICP0” at the 2015 Nebraska Center for Virology Annual Retreat.

Jessica van Loben Sels (undergraduate, Davido) gave a talk entitled “The N-terminus of the HSV-1 E3 Ubiquitin Ligase ICP0 Stimulates Viral Replication and Gene Expression in Cells Exposed to Interferon-beta” at the 2015 Nebraska Center for Virology Annual Retreat.

 

April 2015 Presentations

David Davido (associate professor) gave two presentations in Europe. The first was entitled “Taking Control of the HSV-1 life cycle: role of viral and host factors” to members of the intrinsic and innate immunity research groups at the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research on February 23 in Glasgow, United Kingdom.  He also gave a similarly titled presentation at the Free University (Freie Universitaet) Berlin on March 2 in Berlin, Germany.

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Deciphering the cancer puzzle: Exploring the functions of colon tumor suppressor APC” for the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Departments at MidAmerica Nazarene University, Olathe, KS on March 13.

Erik Lundquist (professor) gave a seminar presentation entitled “Using the Model Organism Nematode Worm C. elegans To Understand Nervous System Development at Southwestern Oklahoma State University, Department of Biology on March 10.

Berl Oakley (Irving S. Johnson Distinguished Professor of Molecular Biology) gave a plenary session talk entitled “γ-Tubulin: a Multifunctional Cell Organizer” on March 19 at the 28th Fungal Genetics Conference at Pacific Grove (Asilomar) California.

 

March 2015 Presentations

Audrey Lamb (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Expanding the Results of a High Throughput Screen Against an Isochorismate-Pyruvate Lyase to Enzymes of a Similar Scaffold or Mechanism” in the Focusing on Difficult Target Enzymes session at GTCbio's Inaugural Enzymes in Drug Discovery Conference, February 26 - 27 in San Diego, CA.  She also served as the moderator of the New Chemical Approaches to Target Enzymes session.

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Reconsidering tumorigenesis studies: Genetic modifiers can confound xenografts in outbred Mice” at the second annual KU Cancer Center Cancer Biology Program meeting, February 13 in Lawrence, KS

 

February 2015 Presentations

Scott Hefty (associate professor) gave a seminar at the University of Dusseldorf, Germany (Heinrich-Hiene University - Institute for Functional Genomics of Microorganisms) entitled "Molecular Biology and Genetics of Chlamydia" on December 3rd. This presentation was part of a mini-symposium for which Dr. Hefty was joined by Dr. Michael Starnbach (Harvard University) and Dr. Agathe Subtil (Pasteur Institute) as keynote speakers.

John Karanicolas (associate professor) gave a seminar at the 2015 Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence Symposium entitled “Designing inhibitors of non-traditional drug targets: protein-RNA interactions” on January 17.

Christian Ray (assistant professor) gave a seminar at the 2015 Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence Symposium entitled “The outsized effects of enzyme saturation on cellular physiology” on January 18.

Erik Lundquist (professor) gave a seminar presentation at Clemson University and the Greenwood Genetic Center, Greenwood, South Carolina, entitled “Using the Model Organism Nematode Worm C. elegans to Understand Human Genetics” on January 13.

Christian Gomez (graduate student, Neufeld lab) gave a seminar for the Biology Department at Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas, entitled “Goblet Cells of Human and Mouse Intestinal Tissues Show Increased Levels of the Tumor Suppressor Protein APC” on October 24, 2014.

 

January 2015 Presentations

Erik Lundquist (professor) gave a seminar presentation at the University of Minnesota Department of Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development entitled “Mechanisms of Netrin-mediated axon repulsion”, December 4.

Sriram Varahan (Hancock lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled “Role of Enterococcal Membrane Proteins in Cell-Cell Communication and Stress Adaptation” on December 10.

Mauricio Galdos (Blumenstiel lab) successfully defended his masters thesis entitled “Identifying Factors That Control Germline Transposable Element Activity in Drosophila” on December 17.

 

December 2014 Presentations

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) gave a lecture entitled “Making friends to make war: the role of cell-cell signaling in bacterial interspecies competition” in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department at the University of Kansas on November 18.

Yoshi Azuma (associate professor) gave a lecture entitled “The role of mitotic SUMOylation on the centromeric functions” in the department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics department at the University of Minnesota, on November 5.

Erik Lundquist (professor) gave a seminar presentation at Kennesaw State University Department of Biology and Physics entitled “Mechanisms of Netrin-mediated axon repulsion” on November 21.

Amber Smith (graduate student, Xu lab) gave a platform talk at the annual KU Cancer Center Research Symposium and Multi-Disciplinary Oncology Conference on November 14th at the University of Kansas, Edwards campus. Her talk was titled “A New Tale of David & Goliath; miR-137 Targets the Samurai Warrior of Cancer, Musashi-1”

November 2014 Presentations

Christian Ray (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled "Structured cellular populations emerging from enzyme-metabolite interactions" at the Modeling of Protein Interactions Conference in Lawrence, KS on October 24.

Audrey Lamb (associate professor) gave a lecture entitled “The Importance of Magnesium in MST Enzymes” in the Roy J. Carver Department of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology at Iowa State University on October 23.

Liang Xu (associate professor) gave a talk entitled “Antibody against CD44s Inhibits Pancreatic Tumor Initiation and Post-Radiation Recurrence in Mice” at the 4th World Congress on Cancer Science & Therapy in Chicago, Oct 20-22, 2014.

Kara Hinshaw (graduate student, Chandler lab) gave a talk entitled “Bacterial communication and interspecies competition” at the 20th Annual Symposium of the Dynamic Aspects of Chemical Biology Training Grant on October 10.

Amber Smith (graduate student, Xu lab) gave a talk entitled “Therapeutic strategies targeting the samurai warrior of cancer, Musashi-1” at the 20th Annual Symposium of the Dynamic Aspects of Chemical Biology Training Grant on October 10.

October 2014 Presentations

Roberto De Guzman (associate professor) gave a talk entitled "PRE studies of assembly of bacterial nanoinjectors" at the 26th International Conference on Magnetic Resonance in Biological Systems (ICMRBS), in Dallas, Texas, August 24-29, 2014

Sriram Varahan (graduate student, Hancock lab) presented a platform presentation entitled “Deletion of an RNPP family protein results in hyper biofilm formation in Enterococcus faecalis” at the 13th Annual Great Plains Infectious Disease meeting held in Columbia, Missouri, September 26-27, 2014

September 2014 Presentations

Chris Gamblin (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Novel Inhibitors of Tau Aggregation” as part of the 2014 Alzheimer’s Disease/Parkinson’s Disease Seminar Series at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Department of Pathology, Harvard Medical School on August 12.

Steve Benedict (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Manipulating the immune response to design therapies for autoimmune disease and transplant rejection in humans, mice and horses" at the Ward Family Heart Center, Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City on August 11.

Susan Egan (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Novel Antibacterial Strategies with Potential to Reduce Development of Resistance” at the Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute symposium entitled “Antibiotics: Choosing the Path of Least Resistance” on August 25. 

Berl Oakley (Irving S. Johnson distinguished professor) gave an invited talk entitled “A system for heterologous expression of fungal secondary metabolite genes in Aspergillus nidulans” at the Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology annual meeting in St. Louis on  July 23.

Haiyan Zhao (research associate, Tang lab) gave an invited talk entitled “High resolution structures of a viral DNA-packaging nuclease reveal an unusual metal ion configuration in the active site” at the American Society for Virology 2014 annual meeting in Fort Collins, Colorado, June 21-25.

Yan Xia (Karanicolas lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled “Modulating protein function with small molecules through computational and experimental design techniques” on August 15.

August 2014 Presentations

Scott Hefty (associate professor) presented an invited review entitled “Molecular Biology of Chlamydia” at the International Symposium of Human Chlamydia Infections in Pacific Grove, CA. The meeting is attended by clinicians and academic, commercial, and governmental researchers. He also gave an invited research presentation on “Conditional Expression of Sigma 28 in C. trachomatis”.

Michael Barta (post-doctoral fellow; Hefty Lab) gave an invited research presentation at the International Symposium of Human Chlamydia Infections in Pacific Grove, CA, entitled “CT398 (CdsZ) interacts with Sigma 54 and Type III Secretion Export System.”

Nadeem Asad (graduate student, Timmons lab) presented a talk entitled "Cytoplasmic versus nuclear RNAi mechanisms in transgene-induced gene silencing in Caenorhabditis elegans" at the 2014 Genetics Association of America Aging, Metabolism, Stress, Pathogenesis and Small RNAs Meeting in Madison, WI on July 12.  

Matthew Josephson (graduate student, Lundquist lab) presented a talk entitled “SPON-1/F-spondin non-autonomously regulates Q migrations in response to MAB-5/Hox patterning“ at the 2014 C. elegans Topic Meeting: Neuronal Development, Synaptic Function and Behavior in Madison, WI on July 8.

Lakshmi Sundararajan (Lundquist lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “Genetic control of neuroblast migration” on July 3.

Nadeem Asad (Timmons lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled “Cytoplasmic vs. nuclear RNAi in Caenorhabditis elegans” on July 18.

Mirna Perusina Lanfranca (Davido lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “HSP-1 ICP0-mediated impairment of host intrinsic and innate immune factors” on July 21.

July 2014 Presentations

Brian Ackley (associate professor) gave a lecture at the 7thInternational Adhesion GPCR Workshop entitled “The C. elegans Celsr ortholog, FMI-1, regulates axon guidance and synaptogenesis via distinct mechanisms.”  The workshop was held at The Children’s Hospital in Boston, MA on June 6th.

Dr. Wonpil Im (associate professor) gave a lecture in theCentre Européen de Calcul Atomique et MoléculaireWorkshop in Dublin, Ireland entitled “Membrane Protein Simulation: One Step Closer to Users” on June 4.   He also gave a lecture entitled “Biomolecular Modeling and Simulation using CHARMM-GUI” at the 2nd Molecular Simulation Summer School in Calgary, Canada on June 24.

Dr. Erik Lundquist (Professor) presented a talk entitled “Using the model organism nematode worm C. elegans to understand neuronal development” at the NIH, NIGMS Fifth Biennial National IDeA Symposium of Biomedical Research Excellence (NISBRE)  in Washington D.C. on June 18th.

June 2014 Presentations

Brian Ackley (associate professor) presented a seminar entitled “Keep CALM and Mind the Gap” in the department of Pharmacological and Physiological Science at Saint Louis School of Medicine on May 6.

Wonpil Im (associate professor) participated in the Frontiers in Membrane Protein Structural Dynamics 2014 Conference (May 7-9), which is hosted by the Membrane Protein Structure and Dynamics Consortium, and gave lectures in the computational modeling core workshop and mini-symposium.

Susan Egan (professor) presented a seminar entitled “AraC Family Transcriptional Regulators: Mechanisms and Potential as Antibacterial Targets” to the Microbiology, Immunology and Cancer Biology Program at the University of Minnesota on April 28.

Gada Al-Ani (Fischer lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “Elucidation of the mechanisms of nucleosome binding and repositioning by a chromatin remodeler: monomeric ISWI remodels nucleosomes through a random walk” on May 6.

Four undergraduates successfully defended their theses to earn honors in biology:

  • Ted Christianson (Tang lab) “Structural and function analysis of terminase in dsDNA packaging in Sf6 during phage maturation”         
  • Betsy Ramirez (Lamb lab) “Isolation and crystallization of PvdJp2, a non-ribosomal peptide synthetase domain in Pseudomonas aeruginosa”
  • Tim Turkalo (M. Azuma lab) “Ewing’s sarcoma protein Ewsa regulates chondrogenesis in zebrafish by modulation of Sox9 transcriptional activity”
  • Ryan Xiao (Ackley lab) “The C. elegans hmr-1 classical cadherin interacts with a Wnt pathway and fmi-1/flamingo to control anterio-posterior axon outgrowth in the VD GABAergic neurons”

 

May 2014 Presentations

Audrey Lamb (associate professor) presented a seminar entitled “Engineering enzymatic pericyclic reactions” at the Institute of Molecular Biophysics and the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Florida State University on April 1.

Liang Xu (associate professor) presented a seminar entitled “Blocking Post-Radiation Tumor Recurrence by Molecular Therapy Targeting Cancer Stem Cells” at the KU Cancer Center Clinical Research and Translational Meeting in Kansas City on April 22.

Erik Lundquist (professor) gave a seminar presentation at the University of Texas-Austin Department of Molecular Biosciences entitled “Mechanisms of Netrin-mediated axon repulsion”, March 4.

Keasha Restivo (Hefty lab) successfully defended her master’s thesis entitled “The Development and Validation of a High-throughput Screening Method for Chlamydia trachomatis” on April 1.

Amy Newton (Benedict lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “Novel roles for CTLA-4 and lipoproteins in human naïve CD4+ T cell function and differentiation” on April 15.

April 2014 Presentations

Raymond Caylor (Ackley lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled “Calcium signaling components and their effect on synaptic morphology during neuronal development” on March 14.

Heba Mostafa (Davido lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “Interplay between viral and host factors determines the fate of HSV-1 infection” on March 25.

March 2014 Presentations

David Davido (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Taking Control of the HSV-1 Life Cycle: Role of Viral and Host Factors” in the Department of Biological Sciences at University of Buffalo on February 6.

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Genetic analysis of sexual trait variation in Drosophila” at the Institute for Reproductive Health and Regenerative Medicine, The University of Kansas Medical Center on January 29.  He also spoke about “The genetic basis of xenobiotic resistance in Drosophila” at the Higuchi Biosciences Center Science Talks on February 7.

Maged Zeineldin (postdoctoral fellow, Neufeld lab) presented a talk entitled “Nuclear functions of tumor suppressor APC” at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital on January 14 and in the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School on February 13.

Matt Josephson (graduate student, Lundquist lab) presented a talk entitled "The role of SPON-1/F-spondin in directed neuronal migration" to the Guangshuo Ou lab group at Tsinghua University in Beijing on February 17.

Lakshmi Sundararajan (graduate student, Lundquist lab) presented a talk entitled "The Fat-like cadherin CDH-4 regulates anterior-posterior neuroblast migration" in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine on February 5.

Three graduate students gave short talks on January 27 as the finalists for the Newmark Award:

Ragul Gowthaman (Karanicolas lab) “Mapping surface topography by ray-casting can identify novel small-molecule inhibitors of protein-protein interactions”
Sriram Varaham (Hancock lab) “An ABC transporter is essential for the secretion of peptide sex pheromones in Enterococcus faecalis
Yan Xia (Karanicolas lab) “Designing inhibitors targeting RNA-binding protein Musashi-1”

February 2014 Presentations

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) gave an invited lecture entitled “The genetic basis of Complex Trait Variation: Insights from Drosophila” at the K-INBRE Symposium in Kansas City on January 18.

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Mouse model reveals roles for nuclear Apc in regulation of differentiation, inflammation, & tumor suppression” in the University of Kansas Medical Center Department of Molecular & Integrative Physiology on January 13.

Timothy Turkalo (undergraduate, M. Azuma lab) was selected to present a talk entitled “Ewing’s sarcoma Ewsa protein regulates Sox9 during skeletogenesis in zebrafish” at the  at the K-INBRE Symposium in Kansas City on January 18.

January 2014 Presentations

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Mouse model reveals roles for nuclear Apc in regulation of differentiation, inflammation, & tumor suppression” in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology on December 10.

 

Lisa Timmons (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled "Roles for small RNAs in chromatin disjunction and ABC transporters in RNAi" in the Department of Diagnostic Medicine/Pathobiology at Kansas State University on December 12.

Ichie Osaka (Hefty lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “In Vitro Susceptibility of Chlamydia trachomatis to LPS-binding Polyamines and Cellulose Ether Polymers: Towards the Development of a Microbicide against Chlamydia infection” on December 6.

 2013 Research Presentations

December

Brian Ackley (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “The adhesion GPCR flamingo functions in axon guidance, extension and synaptogenesis in C. elegans” at the 2013 annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego, CA, November 9-13.

David Davido (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Virus-host interactions influence the outcome of HSV-1 infection” in the Department of Microbiology at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities on November 11.

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Mouse model reveals roles for nuclear Apc in regulation of Wnt signaling, differentiation, inflammation, & tumor suppression” in the Department of Biology at the University of Iowa on November 13.

 

Chris Gamblin (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled "Models to determine the toxicity of tau aggregates"  at the 2013 Annual curePSP International Research Symposium in Baltimore, MD on November 23, 2013.

Bria Kettle (Egan Lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “Genetic Analysis of Allosteric Signaling in RhaR from Escherichia coli and Characterization of the VirF Protein from Shigella flexneri” on November 14.

November

John Karanicolas (assistant professor) gave a presentation entitled “Designing chemical tools to modulate protein function” at the Drug Discovery Center at Virginia Tech on October 8 and at the Laufer Center for Physical & Quantitative Biology of Stony Brook University on October 10.

Brian Ackley (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Getting the Right Start:  Directional Axon Initiation is Guided by Multiple Pathways” in the department of Cell and Molecular Biology of the Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine on October 28.

David Davido (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Virus-host interactions influence the outcome of HSV-1 infection” in the department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at St. Louis University on October 24.

Audrey Lamb (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Structural and functional characterization of an N-hydroxylating flavin monooxygenase, the ornithine hydroxylase from Pseudomonas aeruginosa” in the department of Biochemistry at Virginia Tech on October 25.

Veerendra Koppolu (Egan lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled “Molecular mechanisms and inhibition of transcription activation by bacterial AraC family activator proteins” on October 25.

October 

Eric Deeds (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled “The evolution of crosstalk in signaling networks” at the jointCarnegie Mellon - University of Pittsburgh Ph.D. program in Computational Biology on September 20.

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) gave a talk entitled “Genomics and Systems Biology of Complex Traits in Drosophila” at the KU Cancer Center on September 24.

Chris Gamblin (associate professor) and Berl Oakley(Irving S. Johnson distinguished professor) gave a presentation entitled “Identification of fungal secondary metabolites as lead compounds for treatment of senile dementias” at the H.L. Synder Medical Foundation in Winfield, Kansas on September 25.

Berl Oakley (Irving S. Johnson distinguished professor) gave a presentation entitled “Gamma-tubulin: A multitasking cell organizer” in the department of Microbiology, Molecular Genetics & Immunology at the University of Kansas Medical Center on September 19.

Yamini Mutreja (graduate student, Gamblin lab) gave a presentation entitled “Cellular Models of Progressive Supranuclear Palsy” in a Translational Discovery Forum hosted by the Kansas University Medical Center Institute for Neurological Discoveries on September 20.

September

Eric Deeds (assistant professor) gave a lecture entitled “The Evolution of Crosstalk in Signaling Networks” at the Seventh Annual q-bio Conference, Santa Fe, NM on August 9.

Ilya Vakser (full professor) gave a lecture entitled “Knowledge Based modeling of PPI” at the Conference on Modeling Biomolecular Structures, Interactions and Functions in Telluride, CO on July 1.

August

Mizuki Azuma (assistant professor) gave a presentation entitled “Role of Ewing’s sarcoma Ewsa protein during skeletogenesis in zebrafish” at the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, France on July 8.

Kelly Grussendorf (graduate student, Buechner lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “Cloning and characterization of EXC-1, an IRGP homologue that controls intracellular trafficking and maintenance of shape in small biological tubes” on July 16.

Miles Smith (graduate student, Davido lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled “Influence of the host cell factors, CK2, hTERT, and PML, on the antiviral response to herpes simplex virus type 1 infection” on July 3.

July

John Karanicolas (assistant professor) gave a presentation entitled “Small-molecule modulators of protein interactions” at the Proteins Gordon Research Conference in Holderness, NH on June 17.

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) has given several presentations recently.  At the Workshop on MAGIC-type Populations, National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB), Cambridge, UK, he gave a talk entitled “Dissecting complex trait variation with the Drosophila Synthetic Population Resource.”  He gave the talk entitled “The Drosophila Synthetic Population Resource” at the same workshop and at the 12th Annual Complex Trait Community Meeting, Madison, WI.

June

Eric Deeds (assistant professor) gave an invited lecture entitled “Crosstalk and the topological evolution of signaling networks” in the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School on May 20.

Matthew Buechner (associate professor) gave an invited lecture entitled "Keeping tubes in shape:  EXC proteins regulate apical endosome trafficking in C. elegans" to the National Science Foundation in Washington on May 23.

David Davido (associate professor) gave an invited lecture 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 Colorado Alphaherpesvirus Latency Symposium in Vail, CO on May 16. 

Audrey Lamb (associate professor) gave an invited lecture entitled “Structure informs on function: the thiazolinyl imine reductase of siderophore biosynthesis” in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Iowa on May 10.

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) gave an invited lecture entitled “Nuclear APC Suppresses Inflammation-Associate Colon Tumorigenesis” at the 2013 Central Region IDeA Conference; Kansas City, MO; May 20-22.

Makoto Yoshida (graduate student, Y. Azuma lab) was the recipient of a Carr Travel award.  He gave an oral presentation entitled “SUMOylation of Topoisomerase IIα C-terminus domain regulates protein interaction at the centromere during mitosis” at The Ubiquitin Family Meeting at Cold Spring Harbor on May 17. 

Vinidhra Sridharan (graduate student, Y. Azuma lab) was the recipient of a Candlin Travel award.  She gave a poster presentation entitled “SUMOylated PARP1 mediated regulation of nucleosome organization at centromere during mitosis” at The Ubiquitin Family Meeting at Cold Spring Harbor on May 16.

May

Yoshi Azuma (associate professor) gave an invited lecture entitled "The role of mitotic SUMOylation on the regulation of centromeric functions" at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Research Triangle Park, NC on April 18.

Audrey Lamb (associate professor) gave an invited lecture entitled “Structure informs on function: the thiazolinyl imine reductase of siderophore biosynthesis” in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Kansas State University on April 10.

Andy Wolfe (graduate student, Neufeld lab) gave an invited oral presentation entitled, “Musashi 1 stabilizes and blocks translation of Adenomatous Polyposis Coli mRNA in intestinal cells” at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting, April 6-10 in Washington, DC. More than 18,000 researchers from around the world attended this meeting, and Andy’s abstract was selected from over 6,100 for the honor of an oral presentation.

 

The following students successfully defended their doctoral dissertations:

Kyle Kemege (Hefty lab) “Utilizing Protein Structure to Inform Function: Three Proteins of Unknown Function from Chlamydia trachomatis” on April 4.

Ben Combs (Gamblin lab) "Modifications of the tau protein and their varied effects on aggregation and function" on April 11.

Sunhwan Jo (Im and De Guzman labs) “Characterization of the N-glycan structural diversity and development of computational tools for N-glycosylated glycan modeling” on April 12.

Sukanya Chaudhury (De Guzman lab) "Structural studies of chaperones and chaperone-tip interactions from the Type III Secretion Systems of Yersinia and Pseudomonas" on April 15.

Srirupa Chatterjee (De Guzman lab) "Characterization of the protein-protein interactions involved in the assembly of the Salmonella and Shigella type III secretion system needle tip and tip-translocon" on April 17.

 

The following students successfully defended their masters theses:

Namita Balwalli (Hefty lab) “Functional analysis of actin-like protein MreB and alternative sigma factor RpoN in chlamydial developmental cycle” on March 29.

Chris Merkes (M. Azuma lab) "Ewing's Sarcoma EWS protein regulates skeletal development through modulation of SOX9” on April 12.

April

John Karanicolas (assistant professor) gave an invited lecture entitled “Designing chemical tools to modulate protein function” as a guest of the Chemistry-Biology Interface Program at the University of Michigan.

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) gave an invited lecture entitled “Mouse model reveals roles for nuclear Apc in regulation of Wnt signaling, proliferation, inflammation, & tumor suppression“ to the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular & Cellular Biology at Georgetown University, Washington, DC.

Liang Xu (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Molecular Therapy Targeting Cancer & Cancer Stem Cells” at the Inaugural Clinical Research and Translational Meeting at KU Cancer Center, Kansas City.

Kyle Kemege (graduate student, Hefty lab) gave an invited stage presentation entitled “Structural and functional analyses support that Chlamydia trachomatis protein CT009 is a homolog to the key morphogenesis component RodZ at the Chlamydia Basic Research Society meeting in San Antonio, TX, March 19-22.

 Ichie Osaka (graduate student, Hefty lab) gave an invited stage presentation entitled “Inhibition of attachment and entry of Chlamydia trachomatis by LPS-binding alkylpolyamine DS-96” at the Chlamydia Basic Research Society meeting in San Antonio, TX, March 19-22.

February

Audrey Lamb (associate professor) gave an invited lecture entitled “Catalysis in enzymatic pericyclic reactions: analyses of the isochorismate synthase and isochorismate-pyruvate lyase” at the 23rd Enzyme Mechanisms Conference in Coronado, California on January 6th.

Maged Zeineldin (postdoctoral fellow, Neufeld lab) was selected to give an oral platform presentation entitled “Induction of the heat-shock response upregulates the tumor suppressor APC and alters intestinal tumorigenesis in mice” at the 11th Annual K-INBRE Symposium, Manhattan, KS on January 19-20.

January

Dr. Chris Gamblin(associate professor) gave a research presentation "Biochemical Determinants of Tau Toxicity" at the Alzheimer's and Aging Research Colloquium organized by the KU Alzheimer's Disease Center and held at the KU Edwards Campus BEST Conference Center on December 14.

Kelli Williams (graduate student, Benedict lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “Intercellular Adhesion Molecule-1 Guides Naïve T Cell Differentiation and Regulatory T Cell Induction” on December 10.

Katelyn Deckert (graduate student, Karanicolas lab) successfully defended her masters thesis entitled “Designing allosteric control into enzymes by chemical rescue of structure” on December 10.

2012 Research Presentations

December

Dr. Erik Lundquist (professor) presented a seminar in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN on November 12th, 2012.  The seminar was entitled “UNC-6/Netrin and Rac GTPases regulate growth cone protrusion in attractive and repulsive axon guidance in C. elegans.”

 

Dr. Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Use of Heat Shock Induction to Alter Intestinal Tumorigenicity” at The University of Kansas Cancer Center 2012 Research Symposium held at KU Medical Center in Kansas City on November 8.

Dr. Dyan Morgan (postdoctoral researcher, Lundquist lab) gave an invited talk entitled "Genetic Controls of Nervous System Development in C. elegans" to the Department of Biology at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio on November 16.

Amy Hinkelman Newton (graduate student, Benedict lab) gave an oral presentation entitled "Oxidized low density lipoprotein supports differentiation of human naïve T cells to an activated/effector-like population" at the Annual Autumn Immunology Conference in Chicago on November 17.

Kawaljit Kaur (graduate student, De Guzman lab) presented a talk entitled "Characterization of the Interaction between SUMO Isoforms and E3 SUMO Ligase using NMR Spectroscopy" describing the results of a collaboration between the labs of Yoshi Azuma (SUMO) and De Guzman (NMR) at the 2012 Great Plains Regional Annual Symposium on Protein and Biomolecular NMR held at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas on Nov 2-3, 2012.

Elvis Huarcaya Najarro (graduate student, Ackley lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled “fmi-1/flamingo and Wnt pathway regulate the direction of axon growth in C. elegans” on November 1.

November

Dr. Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) was the Keynote speaker at Bethel College's STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Symposium held during the Fall Festival October 12 and 13. Each year, three distinguished alumni of the featured department are asked to give talks about the work they have been doing since graduation. The 2012 Symposium featured biology and honored Professor Emeritus of Biology A. Wayne Wiens. In addition to her seminar, Neufeld was part of a panel to discuss careers in Biological Sciences. Neufeld was also elected as a member of the Bethel College STEM Alumni Advisory Council.

October

Dr. John Karanicolas (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled ""Designing chemical tools to modulate protein function", as an invited guest of the Chemistry-Biology Interface Program at the University of Delaware on September 26.

Dr. Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled "Genomewide Dissection of Complex Trait Variation in Drosophila" at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City, MO, on September 5.

September

Dr. David Davido (associate professor) gave an oral presentation entitled "N-terminal HSV-1 ICP0 phosphorylation site mutations differentially regulate ICP0's functions and impair viral replication" at the 37th International Herpesvirus Workshop in Calgary, Canada, August 4-9.

Dr. John Karanicolas(associate professor) gave three presentations in August:“Designing allosteric control into enzymes by chemical rescue of structure”, Protein Society, San Diego CA;“Designing chemical tools to modulate protein function”, Department of Molecular Biology, The Scripps Research Institute; and“Designing chemical tools to modulate protein function”, Department of Biochemistry, Kansas State University.

Dr. Liang Tang(associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled “The Structural Basis of DNA-packaging Initiation by The Bacteriophage Sf6 Terminase Small Subunit: a DNA-Spooling Device” at the 2012 American Crystallographic Association annual conference in Boston, July 28-Aug. 2. Co-authors for this research include: Haiyan Zhao, Yvonne Kamau and Theodore Christensen.

August

Dr. Wonpil Im(associate professor) gave talk entitled "Ion channel Brownian dynamics: approximate, yet still useful approach" at the Ion Channels Gordon Research Conference at Mount Holyoke College on July 11.

Casey McNeil (graduate student, Macdonald lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled "Genetic mapping of quantitative traits in Drosophila melanogaster" on July 23rd. He will be starting his new position as an assistant professor of biology at Newman University this fall.

Raghavi Sudharsan (graduate student, Y. Azuma lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled "SUMOylation in cell death: SUMO E3 ligase PIAS1 plays a critical role in determining survival following UV stress" on July 24th.

July

Dr.Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) gave a talk entitled "Genetic dissection of genome-wide expression variation in Drosophila heads" at the 14th annual meeting of the International Behavioral and Neural Genetics Society (IBANGS), in Boulder, CO at the end of May.

May

Audrey Lamb (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled "Two structures of an N-Hydroxylating Flavoprotein Monooxgenase: the Ornithine Hydroxylase (PvdA) from Pseudomonas aeruginosa" in the chemistry department of Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, on April 6.

Dr. Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled "Mouse model reveals roles for nuclear APC in regulation of Wnt signaling, proliferation, inflammation, and tumor suppression" in the University of Kansas Cancer Center Seminar Series, KUMC, Kansas City, Kansas on April 24.

Sonia Hall (graduate student, Ward lab) presented a talk entitled "Macroglobulin complement related is a secreted core septate junction protein whose localization is mediated through the transmembrane protein Neuroglian" at the 53rd Annual Drosophila Research Conference in Chicago, Illinois, March 7-11.

Abby Dotson (graduate student, Benedict lab) successfully defended her Doctoral dissertation entitled "Intercellular adhesion molecule-1 in T cell differentiation and as a target for peptide therapy of type 1 diabetes" on April 10th.

Courtney Gdowski (graduate student, Benedict lab) successfully defended her Masters thesis entitled "Interaction of ICAM-1 with LFA-1: intercellular signaling and implication in type 1 diabetes" on April 12.

April

Jose Olucha (graduate student, Lamb lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled "Structural, Functional and Computational Characterization of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Siderophore Biosynthetic Pathway Accessory Proteins PchB and PvdA" on March 30.

Jeff Skredenske (graduate student, Egan lab) successfully defended his Master's thesis entitled "Identification and Characterization of a Small-Molecule Inhibitor of AraC-Family Virulence Activators" on March 30

Liang Xu (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled "Molecular therapy targeting cancer and cancer stem cells" in the University of Kansas Cancer Center Seminar Series at KU Medical Center on March 13.

Maged Zeineldin (graduate student, Neufeld lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled "The tumor suppressor APC: nuclear functions and regulation by heat shock response" on March 28.

March

Eric Deeds (assistant professor) gave a presentation entitled "Optimizing ring assembly: the strength of weak interactions" at the Systems Biology and Bioenergetics Symposium, Centre for Systems Biology and Bioenergetics, Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, the Netherlands on February 13 and a second presentation entitled "The dynamics of assembly in biological networks" in the Département d'Informatique, École Normale Supérieure, Paris, France on February 15.

Liang Xu (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled "Molecular cancer therapy targeting cancer stem cells" in the department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of Kansas School of Pharmacy on
February 14.

February

Berl Oakley (professor) gave a presentation entitled "Accessing the fungal secondary metabolome to improve human health" in the Department of Molecular Virology, Immunology and Medical Genetics, Ohio State University School of Medicine, Columbus, Ohio on January 11. He also gave a presentation entitled "Accessing the fungal secondary metabolome—a rich source of medically important compounds" in the Department of Plant Pathology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas on January 19.

January

Amanda Ernlund (graduate student, Neufeld lab) successfully defended her Master's thesis entitled "Small and large intestines of Musashi1 knockout mice reveal differential homeostatic response and contribution of APC to phenotypes" on November 30.

Sudharsan Parthasarathy (graduate student, Kuczera and Benson labs) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled "Evolutionary divergence in proteins: experimental and theoretical studies on the stability and electrochemical properties of cytochrome b5" on December 16.

December 2016 Presentations

Rob Unckless (assistant professor) gave two invited lectures recently.  On November 2, he spoke in the department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Kansas State University about “Convergence and balancing selection in insect antimicrobial peptides.”  He gave a talk entitled "The maintenance of genetic variation through conflict” in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department here at KU on November 8. 

David Davido (associate professor) gave two presentations in October entitled “To be lytic or not to be lytic: a question of HSV-1-host interactions.”  The first presentation was at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Biological Sciences on October 6 in Kansas City and the second presentation was at the Oklahoma Center for Respiratory and Infectious Diseases on October 19. 

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave a lecture entitled “Iron In: Unusual regulation of siderophore biosynthesis” at the 14th Annual Symposium at the University of Nebraska Redox Biology Center on November 8.

Angela Fowler (Davido lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “Identifying cellular kinases that regulate HSV-1 ICP0 activities and viral replication ” on November 2.

Thelma ChirembaChristian Gomez and Andy Wolfe (graduate students, Neufeld lab) gave research presentations for the high school Genetics & Biotechnology class at Bishop Seabury Academy in Lawrence on November 16.

 

November 2016 Presentations

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Genomewide dissection of natural variation in sleep and drug resistance in flies” at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Biological Sciences on October 13.

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Pyochelin Biosynthesis: The Enzymes from A to G” in the department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Kansas Medical Center on October 21.

Aidan Dmitriev (undergraduate, Hefty lab) was invited to give a talk at the 2016 Gulf Coast Undergraduate Research Symposium at Rice University on October 22nd. The symposium featured undergraduate researchers from diverse fields, including bioscience, chemistry, physics, and engineering. Traveling from locations spanning New York to California and Idaho to Costa Rica, sixty-one participants in the bioscience track all gave fifteen minute presentations and received evaluations from Rice faculty and graduate students. Aidan presented on "Structural Proteomics in Chlamydia trachomatis.”

 

October 2016 Presentations

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) gave an invited lecture entitled “Making friends to make war: Quorum sensing, cooperation and interspecies competition” in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at McGill University in Montreal Quebec on August 23.

Tom Hill (postdoc, Unckless lab) gave a seminar in the Department of Biology at the University of Rochester entitled “Hybrid dysgenesis in Drosophila simulans associated with a rapid global invasion of the P element” on September 30th.

 

September 2016 Presentations

Yuxiao Guo (Xu lab) successfully defended her master's thesis entitled “Taxotere suppresses breast cancer growth through inducing lincRNA-p21 expression” on August 31.

 

August 2016 Presentations

Christian Ray (Assistant Professor) gave a talk entitled, “Phenotypic Heterogeneity and Static Protein Distributions in Growth-Arrested Microbes” at the Tenth Annual q-bio Conference at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN on July 29.

Matthew Buechner (Associate Professor) gave an invited seminar “Tube Formation in the Model Nematode C. elegans” at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Sydney, Australia, on July 21, 2016. 

Mahekta Gujar (graduate student, Lundquist lab) presented a platform talk entitled "UNC-33/CRMP inhibits growth cone protrusion in axon repulsion from UNC-6/netrin” at The Allied Genetics Conference, July 13-17, 2016 in Orlando, FL.

Chad Highfill (Macdonald lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled “The complex genetic architecture of lifespan and xenobiotic resistance” on July 5.

Kawaljit Kaur (De Guzman lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “NMR studies of molecular interactions involved in the type III secretion system, sumoylation, and the RNA binding protein HuR” on July 8.

Erin Suderman (Ward lab) successfully defended her masters thesis entitled “Genetic control of tissue specific growth in the Drosophila trachea” on July 7.

Makoto Yoshida (Y. Azuma lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled “SUMOylation at the centromere: The role of SUMOylation of the DNA topoisomerase Iiα C-terminal domain in the regulation of mitotic kinases in cell cycle progression” on July 12.

 

July 2016 Presentations

Rob Ward (associate professor) was the guest speaker at the Science Café Woo in Worchester, Massachusetts, presenting a talk entitled “Small Fly, Big insight into growth: using fly genetics to understand tissue specific growth” on June 20.  The science cafe is organized by postdocs at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.  The goal of the cafe is to showcase scientists and provide them a platform to showcase the importance of their work to the non-science community.

 

June 2016 Presentations

David Davido (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Mutations in HSV-1 UL39 impair pathogenesis in mice and constitute a potential vaccine against HSV-1” at the Colorado Alphaherpesvirus Latency Symposium in Vail, CO, May 18-20.  He also co-chaired the graduate student and post-doctoral trainee presentation session. 

Berl Oakley (Irving S. Johnson distinguished professor) gave a seminar today entitled "Discovery of McrA: a master regulator of fungal secondary metabolism" in Center for Functional and Structural Genomics at Concordia University in Montreal on May 27.

Andrew McSchan (De Guzman lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled “Elucidation of the Needle-Tip and Tip-Translocon Interactions of the Salmonella SPI-1 Type III Secretion System and Identification of Small Molecule Binders of the Tip and Translocon” on May 11.

Haifa Alhadyian (Ward lab) successfully defended her masters thesis entitled “Macroglobulin complement-related, Coracle and Neuroglian are required for the Drosophila egg morphogenesis” on May 11.

 

May 2016 Presentations

Christian Ray (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled “Lineage as a conception of space in compartmental stochastic processes across cellular populations” at the Advances in numerical and analytical approaches for the study of non-spatial stochastic dynamical systems in molecular biology workshop at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences at Cambridge University in Cambridge, UK on April 8.  

Eric Deeds (associate professor) gave two invited talks in April.  He spoke on “The noise is the signal: information flow in single cells and cellular populations” at the Advances in numerical and analytical approaches for the study of non-spatial stochastic dynamical systems in molecular biology workshop at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences at Cambridge University in Cambridge, UK on April 6.  He also gave a seminar on “Crosstalk and the evolvabililty of intracellular communication” in the Département d'Informatique, École Normale Supérieure in Paris, France.

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Dissecting Complex Trait Variation in Flies Using a Multiparental Mapping Population” at the University of Oklahoma, Department of Biology in Norman on April 20.

Roberto De Guzman (professor) gave a talk at the Type III Secretion Systems 2016 meeting at the University of Tuebingen, Germany on April 5 entitled “The (un)structure of LcrG and PcrG”.  He also gave seminars at the University of Potsdam (near Berlin) on April 7 and another seminar at Ruhr University Bochum on Apr 14.  The title of his seminar in Potsdam and Bochum was “NMR Studies of Bacterial Nanoinjectors.”  

Berl Oakley (Irving S. Johnson distinguished professor) gave two talks in Europe recently.  At Asperfest 13 (the Thirteenth International Aspergillus Meeting) in Paris, France on April 3, Berl spoke about “Building a diamond-level assembly of the Aspergillus nidulans genome.”  He also visited Novartis in Basel, Switzerland and spoke on “Engineering Aspergillus nidulans for natural product discovery and production” on April 8.

The following students successfully defended their doctoral dissertations:

        Olivia Arizmendi (Wendy Picking lab) on April 28; “Investigation of the Effector Role of IpaD from the Type III Secretion System of Shigella flexneri

        Matthew Josephson (Lundquist lab) on April 29; “New roles for Hox and Wnt in Cell Migration”

        Vinidhra Sridharan (Y. Azuma lab) on April 27; “SUMOylation in centromere organization: Regulation of a putative chromatin remodeler, Polo-like kinase 1 interacting checkpoint helicase (PICH) by mitotic SUMOylation”

KyeongMin Bae (Richter lab) successfully defended his master’s thesis entitled “Role of Zinc in Parkin RING2 E3 Ubiquitin Ligase Ubiquitination” on April 27.

 

April 2016 Presentations

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled “Making friends to make war: quorum sensing, cooperation and interspecies competition” at the Missouri Valley Branch Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in Kansas City on March 4.

Scott Hefty (associate professor) gave the keynote lecture at the German Workshop on Chlamydia in Freiburg, Germany on March 16-18.  The presentation was entitled “Genetic Tools for Chlamydia.

John Karanicolas (associate professor) gave two talks in March.  He spoke on “Chemical tools to modulate p53 folding in cells” at the 251st American Chemical Society National Meeting and Symposium in San Diego, California, March 13-17.  He discussed “Modulating Antibody Activity using Chemical Biology” at the Antibody Biology & Engineering Gordon Research Conference in Galveston, Texas, March 20-25.

Chris Gamblin (professor) gave a talk entitled “Fungal Metabolome as a rich resource for tau aggregation inhibitors” in the Bioactives & Neurodenerative Diseases session In the Division of Agricultural and Food Chemistry at the 251st American Chemical Society National Meeting and Symposium in San Diego, California, March 13-17. 

Audrey Lamb (professor) have an invited talk entitled “Pyochelin biosynthesis: the enzymes from A to Z” in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Missouri-Kansas City on March 3.

 

March 2016 Presentations

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled “Making friends to make war: quorum sensing, cooperation and interspecies competition” three times.   She spoke in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology department at the KU Medical Center on February 5, at the Kansas State University department of Diagnostic Medicine/Pathobiology on February 11 and the 2016 Higuchi Biosciences Center Science Talks on February 19.

Audrey Lamb (professor) have an invited talk entitled “Pyochelin biosynthesis: the enzymes from A to Z” in the department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Pennsylvania State University on February 22.

 

February 2016 Presentations

Mizuki Azuma (associate professor) and Chad Slawson (KUMC) gave a joint talk as recipients of cancer biology program pilot award at KUCC Cancer Biology Research Program Meeting on January 22.  The title of the talk was "O-GlcNAcylation in mitosis.”

Brian Ackley (associate professor) presented a talk entitled “Keep CALM and mind the synapse” at the 14th Annual K-INBRE Symposium in Overland Park, KS on January 16th.

Lynn Hancock (associate professor) gave an invited seminar entitled “The role of peptide signaling in the biology of Enterococcus faecalis” in the department of Pathology and Microbiology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha on January 13.

Rana Aliani (undergraduate, Lundquist lab) presented a talk entitled “The Neurofibromatosis type 2 molecule NFM-1 controls neuronal migration in C. elegans” at the 14th Annual K-INBRE Symposium in Overland Park, KS on January 16th.

Jessica van Loben Sels (undergraduate, Davido lab) presented a talk entitled “The N-terminus of the NSF-1 E3 ligase ICP0 stimulates viral replication and gene expression in cells exposed to interferon-b” at the 14th Annual K-INBRE Symposium in Overland Park, KS on January 16th.

 

January 2016 Presentations

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave an invited lecture entitled “Pyochelin Biosynthesis: the enzymes from A to G” in the department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee on December 11.

Seth Lewin (M. Azuma lab) successfully defended his Masters thesis entitled “The role of Ewing sarcoma protein EWS in endochondral ossification and vasculogenesis” on December 9.

December 2015 Presentations

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) gave two invited lectures recently.  At the Great Plains Infectious Diseases Conference on October 7 she spoke about “Quorum sensing-controlled antibiotics and antibiotic-resistance factors and their role in interspecies competition."  On October 1, Josie spoke at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, School of Biological Sciences about “Making friends to make war: quorum sensing, cooperation and interspecies competition."

 

David Davido (associate professor) gave a presentation in the department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at the University of Florida School of Medicine entitled “To be lytic or not to be lytic: a question of HSV-1-host interactions” on November 2.

Berl Oakley (Irving S. Johnson Distinguished Professor) gave the Roger E. Koeppe Endowed Lecture in the department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Oklahoma State University on November 20.  The lecture was entitled “A new/old path to drug discovery: Reengineering the Aspergillus genome for natural product discovery and production.”

November 2015 Presentations

Scott Hefty (associate professor) gave an invited seminar entitled “Structural Proteomics and (Early) Functional Genomics in Chlamydia”  at the University of Washington, Department of Global Health (Seattle) on October 15 and at Oregon State University, College of Veterinary Medicine on October 20.

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave an invited seminar entitled “Breaking a Pathogen’s Iron Will: inhibiting siderophore production as an antimicrobial strategy” at the department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis on October 28.

Amber Smith (Xu lab) successfully defended her dissertation entitled “The regulation of Musashi RNA binding proteins and its implications for cancer therapy” on October 8.

 

October 2015 Presentations

Yoshi Azuma (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “SUMOylated DNA Topoisomerase IIα regulates phosphorylated histone H3 kinase Haspin at the centromere” at the EMBO Workshop on DNA topoisomerases, DNA topology and human health in Les Diablerets, Switzerland on September 17.

David Davido (associate professor) gave a presentation in the Department of Medical Microbiology, Immunology, and Cell Biology at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine entitled “Taking control of the HSV-1 life cycle: role of viral and host factors” on September 25.

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled "One Renegade Cell: Understanding Cancer" at the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library, Topeka, KS on September 23.

Liang Xu (associate professor) gave a presentation at the KU Cancer Center Seminar Series entitled “Drug the ‘undruggable’: New Frontiers in Precision Medicine” on August 25.  He gave a similarly titled presentation at the 2nd Annual Center for Drug Discovery Symposium at Purdue University on September 18.

Chris Gamblin (professor) and Berl Oakley (Irving S. Johnson Distinguished Professor of Molecular Biology) gave a presentation entitled “Fungal Natural Products as Lead Compounds for Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease” at the KU Alumni Association Meeting in Winfield, Kansas, on September 15.

 

September 2015 Presentations

Susan Egan (professor) gave an oral presentation entitled “Allosteric Rhamnose Signaling in the E. coli AraC Family Protein RhaR” at the Molecular Genetics of Bacteria and Phages Meeting in Madison, WI, on August 5.

 

August 2015 Presentations

Smita Paranjape (Gamblin lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “Inhibition of Alzheimer's type toxic aggregates of tau with fungal secondary metabolites” on July 7.

 

July 2015 Presentations

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) gave an invited lecture entitled "Genetic Dissection of Sleep Variation in the Drosophila Synthetic Population Resource" at the 14th Annual Complex Trait Community Annual Meeting in Portland OR on June 10th.

Audrey Lamb (professor) gave an invited lecture entitled “Breaking a Pathogen’s Iron Will: inhibiting siderophore production as an antimicrobial strategy” for the Summer Science Seminars at Wesleyan University on June 25.

Sonia Hall (Ward lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “An analysis of the requirement for septate junction proteins in essential morphogenetic events” on June 15.

 

June 2015 Presentations

Samantha Hartin (Ackley lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “Reduce, reuse, recycle: the tale of two Wnts and the lone C. elegans syndecan, SDN-1” on May 1.

 

May 2015 Presentations

Mizuki Azuma (assistant professor) gave an invited seminar entitled “Function of EWS in mitosis and tumorigenesis” at the Inaugural Ewing Sarcoma Symposium sponsored by Texas Children’s Cancer and Hematology Centers and Baylor College of Medicine on April 23.

Lynn Hancock (associate professor) gave an invited seminar entitled “The role of peptide signaling in Enterococcus faecalis” at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at Houston in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics on April 9.

John Karanicolas (associate professor) gave an invited seminar entitled “New computational approaches for addressing non-traditional drug targets” to the KU Cancer Center on April 28.

Angela Fowler (graduate student, Davido Lab) gave a talk entitled “Determining the Roles CDKs 1, 2, 4, & 6 Play in Regulating the Activities of HSV-1 ICP0” at the 2015 Nebraska Center for Virology Annual Retreat.

Jessica van Loben Sels (undergraduate, Davido) gave a talk entitled “The N-terminus of the HSV-1 E3 Ubiquitin Ligase ICP0 Stimulates Viral Replication and Gene Expression in Cells Exposed to Interferon-beta” at the 2015 Nebraska Center for Virology Annual Retreat.

 

April 2015 Presentations

David Davido (associate professor) gave two presentations in Europe. The first was entitled “Taking Control of the HSV-1 life cycle: role of viral and host factors” to members of the intrinsic and innate immunity research groups at the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research on February 23 in Glasgow, United Kingdom.  He also gave a similarly titled presentation at the Free University (Freie Universitaet) Berlin on March 2 in Berlin, Germany.

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Deciphering the cancer puzzle: Exploring the functions of colon tumor suppressor APC” for the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Departments at MidAmerica Nazarene University, Olathe, KS on March 13.

Erik Lundquist (professor) gave a seminar presentation entitled “Using the Model Organism Nematode Worm C. elegans To Understand Nervous System Development at Southwestern Oklahoma State University, Department of Biology on March 10.

Berl Oakley (Irving S. Johnson Distinguished Professor of Molecular Biology) gave a plenary session talk entitled “γ-Tubulin: a Multifunctional Cell Organizer” on March 19 at the 28th Fungal Genetics Conference at Pacific Grove (Asilomar) California.

 

March 2015 Presentations

Audrey Lamb (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Expanding the Results of a High Throughput Screen Against an Isochorismate-Pyruvate Lyase to Enzymes of a Similar Scaffold or Mechanism” in the Focusing on Difficult Target Enzymes session at GTCbio's Inaugural Enzymes in Drug Discovery Conference, February 26 - 27 in San Diego, CA.  She also served as the moderator of the New Chemical Approaches to Target Enzymes session.

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Reconsidering tumorigenesis studies: Genetic modifiers can confound xenografts in outbred Mice” at the second annual KU Cancer Center Cancer Biology Program meeting, February 13 in Lawrence, KS

 

February 2015 Presentations

Scott Hefty (associate professor) gave a seminar at the University of Dusseldorf, Germany (Heinrich-Hiene University - Institute for Functional Genomics of Microorganisms) entitled "Molecular Biology and Genetics of Chlamydia" on December 3rd. This presentation was part of a mini-symposium for which Dr. Hefty was joined by Dr. Michael Starnbach (Harvard University) and Dr. Agathe Subtil (Pasteur Institute) as keynote speakers.

John Karanicolas (associate professor) gave a seminar at the 2015 Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence Symposium entitled “Designing inhibitors of non-traditional drug targets: protein-RNA interactions” on January 17.

Christian Ray (assistant professor) gave a seminar at the 2015 Kansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence Symposium entitled “The outsized effects of enzyme saturation on cellular physiology” on January 18.

Erik Lundquist (professor) gave a seminar presentation at Clemson University and the Greenwood Genetic Center, Greenwood, South Carolina, entitled “Using the Model Organism Nematode Worm C. elegans to Understand Human Genetics” on January 13.

Christian Gomez (graduate student, Neufeld lab) gave a seminar for the Biology Department at Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas, entitled “Goblet Cells of Human and Mouse Intestinal Tissues Show Increased Levels of the Tumor Suppressor Protein APC” on October 24, 2014.

 

January 2015 Presentations

Erik Lundquist (professor) gave a seminar presentation at the University of Minnesota Department of Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development entitled “Mechanisms of Netrin-mediated axon repulsion”, December 4.

Sriram Varahan (Hancock lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled “Role of Enterococcal Membrane Proteins in Cell-Cell Communication and Stress Adaptation” on December 10.

Mauricio Galdos (Blumenstiel lab) successfully defended his masters thesis entitled “Identifying Factors That Control Germline Transposable Element Activity in Drosophila” on December 17.

 

December 2014 Presentations

Josie Chandler (assistant professor) gave a lecture entitled “Making friends to make war: the role of cell-cell signaling in bacterial interspecies competition” in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department at the University of Kansas on November 18.

Yoshi Azuma (associate professor) gave a lecture entitled “The role of mitotic SUMOylation on the centromeric functions” in the department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics department at the University of Minnesota, on November 5.

Erik Lundquist (professor) gave a seminar presentation at Kennesaw State University Department of Biology and Physics entitled “Mechanisms of Netrin-mediated axon repulsion” on November 21.

Amber Smith (graduate student, Xu lab) gave a platform talk at the annual KU Cancer Center Research Symposium and Multi-Disciplinary Oncology Conference on November 14th at the University of Kansas, Edwards campus. Her talk was titled “A New Tale of David & Goliath; miR-137 Targets the Samurai Warrior of Cancer, Musashi-1”

November 2014 Presentations

Christian Ray (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled "Structured cellular populations emerging from enzyme-metabolite interactions" at the Modeling of Protein Interactions Conference in Lawrence, KS on October 24.

Audrey Lamb (associate professor) gave a lecture entitled “The Importance of Magnesium in MST Enzymes” in the Roy J. Carver Department of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology at Iowa State University on October 23.

Liang Xu (associate professor) gave a talk entitled “Antibody against CD44s Inhibits Pancreatic Tumor Initiation and Post-Radiation Recurrence in Mice” at the 4th World Congress on Cancer Science & Therapy in Chicago, Oct 20-22, 2014.

Kara Hinshaw (graduate student, Chandler lab) gave a talk entitled “Bacterial communication and interspecies competition” at the 20th Annual Symposium of the Dynamic Aspects of Chemical Biology Training Grant on October 10.

Amber Smith (graduate student, Xu lab) gave a talk entitled “Therapeutic strategies targeting the samurai warrior of cancer, Musashi-1” at the 20th Annual Symposium of the Dynamic Aspects of Chemical Biology Training Grant on October 10.

October 2014 Presentations

Roberto De Guzman (associate professor) gave a talk entitled "PRE studies of assembly of bacterial nanoinjectors" at the 26th International Conference on Magnetic Resonance in Biological Systems (ICMRBS), in Dallas, Texas, August 24-29, 2014

Sriram Varahan (graduate student, Hancock lab) presented a platform presentation entitled “Deletion of an RNPP family protein results in hyper biofilm formation in Enterococcus faecalis” at the 13th Annual Great Plains Infectious Disease meeting held in Columbia, Missouri, September 26-27, 2014

September 2014 Presentations

Chris Gamblin (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Novel Inhibitors of Tau Aggregation” as part of the 2014 Alzheimer’s Disease/Parkinson’s Disease Seminar Series at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Department of Pathology, Harvard Medical School on August 12.

Steve Benedict (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Manipulating the immune response to design therapies for autoimmune disease and transplant rejection in humans, mice and horses" at the Ward Family Heart Center, Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City on August 11.

Susan Egan (professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Novel Antibacterial Strategies with Potential to Reduce Development of Resistance” at the Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute symposium entitled “Antibiotics: Choosing the Path of Least Resistance” on August 25. 

Berl Oakley (Irving S. Johnson distinguished professor) gave an invited talk entitled “A system for heterologous expression of fungal secondary metabolite genes in Aspergillus nidulans” at the Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology annual meeting in St. Louis on  July 23.

Haiyan Zhao (research associate, Tang lab) gave an invited talk entitled “High resolution structures of a viral DNA-packaging nuclease reveal an unusual metal ion configuration in the active site” at the American Society for Virology 2014 annual meeting in Fort Collins, Colorado, June 21-25.

Yan Xia (Karanicolas lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled “Modulating protein function with small molecules through computational and experimental design techniques” on August 15.

August 2014 Presentations

Scott Hefty (associate professor) presented an invited review entitled “Molecular Biology of Chlamydia” at the International Symposium of Human Chlamydia Infections in Pacific Grove, CA. The meeting is attended by clinicians and academic, commercial, and governmental researchers. He also gave an invited research presentation on “Conditional Expression of Sigma 28 in C. trachomatis”.

Michael Barta (post-doctoral fellow; Hefty Lab) gave an invited research presentation at the International Symposium of Human Chlamydia Infections in Pacific Grove, CA, entitled “CT398 (CdsZ) interacts with Sigma 54 and Type III Secretion Export System.”

Nadeem Asad (graduate student, Timmons lab) presented a talk entitled "Cytoplasmic versus nuclear RNAi mechanisms in transgene-induced gene silencing in Caenorhabditis elegans" at the 2014 Genetics Association of America Aging, Metabolism, Stress, Pathogenesis and Small RNAs Meeting in Madison, WI on July 12.  

Matthew Josephson (graduate student, Lundquist lab) presented a talk entitled “SPON-1/F-spondin non-autonomously regulates Q migrations in response to MAB-5/Hox patterning“ at the 2014 C. elegans Topic Meeting: Neuronal Development, Synaptic Function and Behavior in Madison, WI on July 8.

Lakshmi Sundararajan (Lundquist lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “Genetic control of neuroblast migration” on July 3.

Nadeem Asad (Timmons lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled “Cytoplasmic vs. nuclear RNAi in Caenorhabditis elegans” on July 18.

Mirna Perusina Lanfranca (Davido lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “HSP-1 ICP0-mediated impairment of host intrinsic and innate immune factors” on July 21.

July 2014 Presentations

Brian Ackley (associate professor) gave a lecture at the 7thInternational Adhesion GPCR Workshop entitled “The C. elegans Celsr ortholog, FMI-1, regulates axon guidance and synaptogenesis via distinct mechanisms.”  The workshop was held at The Children’s Hospital in Boston, MA on June 6th.

Dr. Wonpil Im (associate professor) gave a lecture in theCentre Européen de Calcul Atomique et MoléculaireWorkshop in Dublin, Ireland entitled “Membrane Protein Simulation: One Step Closer to Users” on June 4.   He also gave a lecture entitled “Biomolecular Modeling and Simulation using CHARMM-GUI” at the 2nd Molecular Simulation Summer School in Calgary, Canada on June 24.

Dr. Erik Lundquist (Professor) presented a talk entitled “Using the model organism nematode worm C. elegans to understand neuronal development” at the NIH, NIGMS Fifth Biennial National IDeA Symposium of Biomedical Research Excellence (NISBRE)  in Washington D.C. on June 18th.

June 2014 Presentations

Brian Ackley (associate professor) presented a seminar entitled “Keep CALM and Mind the Gap” in the department of Pharmacological and Physiological Science at Saint Louis School of Medicine on May 6.

Wonpil Im (associate professor) participated in the Frontiers in Membrane Protein Structural Dynamics 2014 Conference (May 7-9), which is hosted by the Membrane Protein Structure and Dynamics Consortium, and gave lectures in the computational modeling core workshop and mini-symposium.

Susan Egan (professor) presented a seminar entitled “AraC Family Transcriptional Regulators: Mechanisms and Potential as Antibacterial Targets” to the Microbiology, Immunology and Cancer Biology Program at the University of Minnesota on April 28.

Gada Al-Ani (Fischer lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “Elucidation of the mechanisms of nucleosome binding and repositioning by a chromatin remodeler: monomeric ISWI remodels nucleosomes through a random walk” on May 6.

Four undergraduates successfully defended their theses to earn honors in biology:

  • Ted Christianson (Tang lab) “Structural and function analysis of terminase in dsDNA packaging in Sf6 during phage maturation”         
  • Betsy Ramirez (Lamb lab) “Isolation and crystallization of PvdJp2, a non-ribosomal peptide synthetase domain in Pseudomonas aeruginosa”
  • Tim Turkalo (M. Azuma lab) “Ewing’s sarcoma protein Ewsa regulates chondrogenesis in zebrafish by modulation of Sox9 transcriptional activity”
  • Ryan Xiao (Ackley lab) “The C. elegans hmr-1 classical cadherin interacts with a Wnt pathway and fmi-1/flamingo to control anterio-posterior axon outgrowth in the VD GABAergic neurons”

 

May 2014 Presentations

Audrey Lamb (associate professor) presented a seminar entitled “Engineering enzymatic pericyclic reactions” at the Institute of Molecular Biophysics and the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Florida State University on April 1.

Liang Xu (associate professor) presented a seminar entitled “Blocking Post-Radiation Tumor Recurrence by Molecular Therapy Targeting Cancer Stem Cells” at the KU Cancer Center Clinical Research and Translational Meeting in Kansas City on April 22.

Erik Lundquist (professor) gave a seminar presentation at the University of Texas-Austin Department of Molecular Biosciences entitled “Mechanisms of Netrin-mediated axon repulsion”, March 4.

Keasha Restivo (Hefty lab) successfully defended her master’s thesis entitled “The Development and Validation of a High-throughput Screening Method for Chlamydia trachomatis” on April 1.

Amy Newton (Benedict lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “Novel roles for CTLA-4 and lipoproteins in human naïve CD4+ T cell function and differentiation” on April 15.

April 2014 Presentations

Raymond Caylor (Ackley lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled “Calcium signaling components and their effect on synaptic morphology during neuronal development” on March 14.

Heba Mostafa (Davido lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “Interplay between viral and host factors determines the fate of HSV-1 infection” on March 25.

March 2014 Presentations

David Davido (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Taking Control of the HSV-1 Life Cycle: Role of Viral and Host Factors” in the Department of Biological Sciences at University of Buffalo on February 6.

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Genetic analysis of sexual trait variation in Drosophila” at the Institute for Reproductive Health and Regenerative Medicine, The University of Kansas Medical Center on January 29.  He also spoke about “The genetic basis of xenobiotic resistance in Drosophila” at the Higuchi Biosciences Center Science Talks on February 7.

Maged Zeineldin (postdoctoral fellow, Neufeld lab) presented a talk entitled “Nuclear functions of tumor suppressor APC” at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital on January 14 and in the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School on February 13.

Matt Josephson (graduate student, Lundquist lab) presented a talk entitled "The role of SPON-1/F-spondin in directed neuronal migration" to the Guangshuo Ou lab group at Tsinghua University in Beijing on February 17.

Lakshmi Sundararajan (graduate student, Lundquist lab) presented a talk entitled "The Fat-like cadherin CDH-4 regulates anterior-posterior neuroblast migration" in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine on February 5.

Three graduate students gave short talks on January 27 as the finalists for the Newmark Award:

Ragul Gowthaman (Karanicolas lab) “Mapping surface topography by ray-casting can identify novel small-molecule inhibitors of protein-protein interactions”
Sriram Varaham (Hancock lab) “An ABC transporter is essential for the secretion of peptide sex pheromones in Enterococcus faecalis
Yan Xia (Karanicolas lab) “Designing inhibitors targeting RNA-binding protein Musashi-1”

February 2014 Presentations

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) gave an invited lecture entitled “The genetic basis of Complex Trait Variation: Insights from Drosophila” at the K-INBRE Symposium in Kansas City on January 18.

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Mouse model reveals roles for nuclear Apc in regulation of differentiation, inflammation, & tumor suppression” in the University of Kansas Medical Center Department of Molecular & Integrative Physiology on January 13.

Timothy Turkalo (undergraduate, M. Azuma lab) was selected to present a talk entitled “Ewing’s sarcoma Ewsa protein regulates Sox9 during skeletogenesis in zebrafish” at the  at the K-INBRE Symposium in Kansas City on January 18.

January 2014 Presentations

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Mouse model reveals roles for nuclear Apc in regulation of differentiation, inflammation, & tumor suppression” in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology on December 10.

 

Lisa Timmons (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled "Roles for small RNAs in chromatin disjunction and ABC transporters in RNAi" in the Department of Diagnostic Medicine/Pathobiology at Kansas State University on December 12.

Ichie Osaka (Hefty lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “In Vitro Susceptibility of Chlamydia trachomatis to LPS-binding Polyamines and Cellulose Ether Polymers: Towards the Development of a Microbicide against Chlamydia infection” on December 6.

 2013 Research Presentations

December

Brian Ackley (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “The adhesion GPCR flamingo functions in axon guidance, extension and synaptogenesis in C. elegans” at the 2013 annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego, CA, November 9-13.

David Davido (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Virus-host interactions influence the outcome of HSV-1 infection” in the Department of Microbiology at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities on November 11.

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Mouse model reveals roles for nuclear Apc in regulation of Wnt signaling, differentiation, inflammation, & tumor suppression” in the Department of Biology at the University of Iowa on November 13.

 

Chris Gamblin (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled "Models to determine the toxicity of tau aggregates"  at the 2013 Annual curePSP International Research Symposium in Baltimore, MD on November 23, 2013.

Bria Kettle (Egan Lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “Genetic Analysis of Allosteric Signaling in RhaR from Escherichia coli and Characterization of the VirF Protein from Shigella flexneri” on November 14.

November

John Karanicolas (assistant professor) gave a presentation entitled “Designing chemical tools to modulate protein function” at the Drug Discovery Center at Virginia Tech on October 8 and at the Laufer Center for Physical & Quantitative Biology of Stony Brook University on October 10.

Brian Ackley (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Getting the Right Start:  Directional Axon Initiation is Guided by Multiple Pathways” in the department of Cell and Molecular Biology of the Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine on October 28.

David Davido (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Virus-host interactions influence the outcome of HSV-1 infection” in the department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at St. Louis University on October 24.

Audrey Lamb (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Structural and functional characterization of an N-hydroxylating flavin monooxygenase, the ornithine hydroxylase from Pseudomonas aeruginosa” in the department of Biochemistry at Virginia Tech on October 25.

Veerendra Koppolu (Egan lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled “Molecular mechanisms and inhibition of transcription activation by bacterial AraC family activator proteins” on October 25.

October 

Eric Deeds (assistant professor) gave a talk entitled “The evolution of crosstalk in signaling networks” at the jointCarnegie Mellon - University of Pittsburgh Ph.D. program in Computational Biology on September 20.

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) gave a talk entitled “Genomics and Systems Biology of Complex Traits in Drosophila” at the KU Cancer Center on September 24.

Chris Gamblin (associate professor) and Berl Oakley(Irving S. Johnson distinguished professor) gave a presentation entitled “Identification of fungal secondary metabolites as lead compounds for treatment of senile dementias” at the H.L. Synder Medical Foundation in Winfield, Kansas on September 25.

Berl Oakley (Irving S. Johnson distinguished professor) gave a presentation entitled “Gamma-tubulin: A multitasking cell organizer” in the department of Microbiology, Molecular Genetics & Immunology at the University of Kansas Medical Center on September 19.

Yamini Mutreja (graduate student, Gamblin lab) gave a presentation entitled “Cellular Models of Progressive Supranuclear Palsy” in a Translational Discovery Forum hosted by the Kansas University Medical Center Institute for Neurological Discoveries on September 20.

September

Eric Deeds (assistant professor) gave a lecture entitled “The Evolution of Crosstalk in Signaling Networks” at the Seventh Annual q-bio Conference, Santa Fe, NM on August 9.

Ilya Vakser (full professor) gave a lecture entitled “Knowledge Based modeling of PPI” at the Conference on Modeling Biomolecular Structures, Interactions and Functions in Telluride, CO on July 1.

August

Mizuki Azuma (assistant professor) gave a presentation entitled “Role of Ewing’s sarcoma Ewsa protein during skeletogenesis in zebrafish” at the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, France on July 8.

Kelly Grussendorf (graduate student, Buechner lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “Cloning and characterization of EXC-1, an IRGP homologue that controls intracellular trafficking and maintenance of shape in small biological tubes” on July 16.

Miles Smith (graduate student, Davido lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled “Influence of the host cell factors, CK2, hTERT, and PML, on the antiviral response to herpes simplex virus type 1 infection” on July 3.

July

John Karanicolas (assistant professor) gave a presentation entitled “Small-molecule modulators of protein interactions” at the Proteins Gordon Research Conference in Holderness, NH on June 17.

Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) has given several presentations recently.  At the Workshop on MAGIC-type Populations, National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB), Cambridge, UK, he gave a talk entitled “Dissecting complex trait variation with the Drosophila Synthetic Population Resource.”  He gave the talk entitled “The Drosophila Synthetic Population Resource” at the same workshop and at the 12th Annual Complex Trait Community Meeting, Madison, WI.

June

Eric Deeds (assistant professor) gave an invited lecture entitled “Crosstalk and the topological evolution of signaling networks” in the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School on May 20.

Matthew Buechner (associate professor) gave an invited lecture entitled "Keeping tubes in shape:  EXC proteins regulate apical endosome trafficking in C. elegans" to the National Science Foundation in Washington on May 23.

David Davido (associate professor) gave an invited lecture 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 Colorado Alphaherpesvirus Latency Symposium in Vail, CO on May 16. 

Audrey Lamb (associate professor) gave an invited lecture entitled “Structure informs on function: the thiazolinyl imine reductase of siderophore biosynthesis” in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Iowa on May 10.

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) gave an invited lecture entitled “Nuclear APC Suppresses Inflammation-Associate Colon Tumorigenesis” at the 2013 Central Region IDeA Conference; Kansas City, MO; May 20-22.

Makoto Yoshida (graduate student, Y. Azuma lab) was the recipient of a Carr Travel award.  He gave an oral presentation entitled “SUMOylation of Topoisomerase IIα C-terminus domain regulates protein interaction at the centromere during mitosis” at The Ubiquitin Family Meeting at Cold Spring Harbor on May 17. 

Vinidhra Sridharan (graduate student, Y. Azuma lab) was the recipient of a Candlin Travel award.  She gave a poster presentation entitled “SUMOylated PARP1 mediated regulation of nucleosome organization at centromere during mitosis” at The Ubiquitin Family Meeting at Cold Spring Harbor on May 16.

May

Yoshi Azuma (associate professor) gave an invited lecture entitled "The role of mitotic SUMOylation on the regulation of centromeric functions" at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Research Triangle Park, NC on April 18.

Audrey Lamb (associate professor) gave an invited lecture entitled “Structure informs on function: the thiazolinyl imine reductase of siderophore biosynthesis” in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Kansas State University on April 10.

Andy Wolfe (graduate student, Neufeld lab) gave an invited oral presentation entitled, “Musashi 1 stabilizes and blocks translation of Adenomatous Polyposis Coli mRNA in intestinal cells” at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting, April 6-10 in Washington, DC. More than 18,000 researchers from around the world attended this meeting, and Andy’s abstract was selected from over 6,100 for the honor of an oral presentation.

 

The following students successfully defended their doctoral dissertations:

Kyle Kemege (Hefty lab) “Utilizing Protein Structure to Inform Function: Three Proteins of Unknown Function from Chlamydia trachomatis” on April 4.

Ben Combs (Gamblin lab) "Modifications of the tau protein and their varied effects on aggregation and function" on April 11.

Sunhwan Jo (Im and De Guzman labs) “Characterization of the N-glycan structural diversity and development of computational tools for N-glycosylated glycan modeling” on April 12.

Sukanya Chaudhury (De Guzman lab) "Structural studies of chaperones and chaperone-tip interactions from the Type III Secretion Systems of Yersinia and Pseudomonas" on April 15.

Srirupa Chatterjee (De Guzman lab) "Characterization of the protein-protein interactions involved in the assembly of the Salmonella and Shigella type III secretion system needle tip and tip-translocon" on April 17.

 

The following students successfully defended their masters theses:

Namita Balwalli (Hefty lab) “Functional analysis of actin-like protein MreB and alternative sigma factor RpoN in chlamydial developmental cycle” on March 29.

Chris Merkes (M. Azuma lab) "Ewing's Sarcoma EWS protein regulates skeletal development through modulation of SOX9” on April 12.

April

John Karanicolas (assistant professor) gave an invited lecture entitled “Designing chemical tools to modulate protein function” as a guest of the Chemistry-Biology Interface Program at the University of Michigan.

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) gave an invited lecture entitled “Mouse model reveals roles for nuclear Apc in regulation of Wnt signaling, proliferation, inflammation, & tumor suppression“ to the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular & Cellular Biology at Georgetown University, Washington, DC.

Liang Xu (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Molecular Therapy Targeting Cancer & Cancer Stem Cells” at the Inaugural Clinical Research and Translational Meeting at KU Cancer Center, Kansas City.

Kyle Kemege (graduate student, Hefty lab) gave an invited stage presentation entitled “Structural and functional analyses support that Chlamydia trachomatis protein CT009 is a homolog to the key morphogenesis component RodZ at the Chlamydia Basic Research Society meeting in San Antonio, TX, March 19-22.

 Ichie Osaka (graduate student, Hefty lab) gave an invited stage presentation entitled “Inhibition of attachment and entry of Chlamydia trachomatis by LPS-binding alkylpolyamine DS-96” at the Chlamydia Basic Research Society meeting in San Antonio, TX, March 19-22.

February

Audrey Lamb (associate professor) gave an invited lecture entitled “Catalysis in enzymatic pericyclic reactions: analyses of the isochorismate synthase and isochorismate-pyruvate lyase” at the 23rd Enzyme Mechanisms Conference in Coronado, California on January 6th.

Maged Zeineldin (postdoctoral fellow, Neufeld lab) was selected to give an oral platform presentation entitled “Induction of the heat-shock response upregulates the tumor suppressor APC and alters intestinal tumorigenesis in mice” at the 11th Annual K-INBRE Symposium, Manhattan, KS on January 19-20.

January

Dr. Chris Gamblin(associate professor) gave a research presentation "Biochemical Determinants of Tau Toxicity" at the Alzheimer's and Aging Research Colloquium organized by the KU Alzheimer's Disease Center and held at the KU Edwards Campus BEST Conference Center on December 14.

Kelli Williams (graduate student, Benedict lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled “Intercellular Adhesion Molecule-1 Guides Naïve T Cell Differentiation and Regulatory T Cell Induction” on December 10.

Katelyn Deckert (graduate student, Karanicolas lab) successfully defended her masters thesis entitled “Designing allosteric control into enzymes by chemical rescue of structure” on December 10.

2012 Research Presentations

December

Dr. Erik Lundquist (professor) presented a seminar in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN on November 12th, 2012.  The seminar was entitled “UNC-6/Netrin and Rac GTPases regulate growth cone protrusion in attractive and repulsive axon guidance in C. elegans.”

 

Dr. Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled “Use of Heat Shock Induction to Alter Intestinal Tumorigenicity” at The University of Kansas Cancer Center 2012 Research Symposium held at KU Medical Center in Kansas City on November 8.

Dr. Dyan Morgan (postdoctoral researcher, Lundquist lab) gave an invited talk entitled "Genetic Controls of Nervous System Development in C. elegans" to the Department of Biology at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio on November 16.

Amy Hinkelman Newton (graduate student, Benedict lab) gave an oral presentation entitled "Oxidized low density lipoprotein supports differentiation of human naïve T cells to an activated/effector-like population" at the Annual Autumn Immunology Conference in Chicago on November 17.

Kawaljit Kaur (graduate student, De Guzman lab) presented a talk entitled "Characterization of the Interaction between SUMO Isoforms and E3 SUMO Ligase using NMR Spectroscopy" describing the results of a collaboration between the labs of Yoshi Azuma (SUMO) and De Guzman (NMR) at the 2012 Great Plains Regional Annual Symposium on Protein and Biomolecular NMR held at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas on Nov 2-3, 2012.

Elvis Huarcaya Najarro (graduate student, Ackley lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled “fmi-1/flamingo and Wnt pathway regulate the direction of axon growth in C. elegans” on November 1.

November

Dr. Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) was the Keynote speaker at Bethel College's STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Symposium held during the Fall Festival October 12 and 13. Each year, three distinguished alumni of the featured department are asked to give talks about the work they have been doing since graduation. The 2012 Symposium featured biology and honored Professor Emeritus of Biology A. Wayne Wiens. In addition to her seminar, Neufeld was part of a panel to discuss careers in Biological Sciences. Neufeld was also elected as a member of the Bethel College STEM Alumni Advisory Council.

October

Dr. John Karanicolas (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled ""Designing chemical tools to modulate protein function", as an invited guest of the Chemistry-Biology Interface Program at the University of Delaware on September 26.

Dr. Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled "Genomewide Dissection of Complex Trait Variation in Drosophila" at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City, MO, on September 5.

September

Dr. David Davido (associate professor) gave an oral presentation entitled "N-terminal HSV-1 ICP0 phosphorylation site mutations differentially regulate ICP0's functions and impair viral replication" at the 37th International Herpesvirus Workshop in Calgary, Canada, August 4-9.

Dr. John Karanicolas(associate professor) gave three presentations in August:“Designing allosteric control into enzymes by chemical rescue of structure”, Protein Society, San Diego CA;“Designing chemical tools to modulate protein function”, Department of Molecular Biology, The Scripps Research Institute; and“Designing chemical tools to modulate protein function”, Department of Biochemistry, Kansas State University.

Dr. Liang Tang(associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled “The Structural Basis of DNA-packaging Initiation by The Bacteriophage Sf6 Terminase Small Subunit: a DNA-Spooling Device” at the 2012 American Crystallographic Association annual conference in Boston, July 28-Aug. 2. Co-authors for this research include: Haiyan Zhao, Yvonne Kamau and Theodore Christensen.

August

Dr. Wonpil Im(associate professor) gave talk entitled "Ion channel Brownian dynamics: approximate, yet still useful approach" at the Ion Channels Gordon Research Conference at Mount Holyoke College on July 11.

Casey McNeil (graduate student, Macdonald lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled "Genetic mapping of quantitative traits in Drosophila melanogaster" on July 23rd. He will be starting his new position as an assistant professor of biology at Newman University this fall.

Raghavi Sudharsan (graduate student, Y. Azuma lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled "SUMOylation in cell death: SUMO E3 ligase PIAS1 plays a critical role in determining survival following UV stress" on July 24th.

July

Dr.Stuart Macdonald (associate professor) gave a talk entitled "Genetic dissection of genome-wide expression variation in Drosophila heads" at the 14th annual meeting of the International Behavioral and Neural Genetics Society (IBANGS), in Boulder, CO at the end of May.

May

Audrey Lamb (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled "Two structures of an N-Hydroxylating Flavoprotein Monooxgenase: the Ornithine Hydroxylase (PvdA) from Pseudomonas aeruginosa" in the chemistry department of Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, on April 6.

Dr. Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled "Mouse model reveals roles for nuclear APC in regulation of Wnt signaling, proliferation, inflammation, and tumor suppression" in the University of Kansas Cancer Center Seminar Series, KUMC, Kansas City, Kansas on April 24.

Sonia Hall (graduate student, Ward lab) presented a talk entitled "Macroglobulin complement related is a secreted core septate junction protein whose localization is mediated through the transmembrane protein Neuroglian" at the 53rd Annual Drosophila Research Conference in Chicago, Illinois, March 7-11.

Abby Dotson (graduate student, Benedict lab) successfully defended her Doctoral dissertation entitled "Intercellular adhesion molecule-1 in T cell differentiation and as a target for peptide therapy of type 1 diabetes" on April 10th.

Courtney Gdowski (graduate student, Benedict lab) successfully defended her Masters thesis entitled "Interaction of ICAM-1 with LFA-1: intercellular signaling and implication in type 1 diabetes" on April 12.

April

Jose Olucha (graduate student, Lamb lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled "Structural, Functional and Computational Characterization of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Siderophore Biosynthetic Pathway Accessory Proteins PchB and PvdA" on March 30.

Jeff Skredenske (graduate student, Egan lab) successfully defended his Master's thesis entitled "Identification and Characterization of a Small-Molecule Inhibitor of AraC-Family Virulence Activators" on March 30

Liang Xu (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled "Molecular therapy targeting cancer and cancer stem cells" in the University of Kansas Cancer Center Seminar Series at KU Medical Center on March 13.

Maged Zeineldin (graduate student, Neufeld lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled "The tumor suppressor APC: nuclear functions and regulation by heat shock response" on March 28.

March

Eric Deeds (assistant professor) gave a presentation entitled "Optimizing ring assembly: the strength of weak interactions" at the Systems Biology and Bioenergetics Symposium, Centre for Systems Biology and Bioenergetics, Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, the Netherlands on February 13 and a second presentation entitled "The dynamics of assembly in biological networks" in the Département d'Informatique, École Normale Supérieure, Paris, France on February 15.

Liang Xu (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled "Molecular cancer therapy targeting cancer stem cells" in the department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of Kansas School of Pharmacy on
February 14.

February

Berl Oakley (professor) gave a presentation entitled "Accessing the fungal secondary metabolome to improve human health" in the Department of Molecular Virology, Immunology and Medical Genetics, Ohio State University School of Medicine, Columbus, Ohio on January 11. He also gave a presentation entitled "Accessing the fungal secondary metabolome—a rich source of medically important compounds" in the Department of Plant Pathology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas on January 19.

January

Amanda Ernlund (graduate student, Neufeld lab) successfully defended her Master's thesis entitled "Small and large intestines of Musashi1 knockout mice reveal differential homeostatic response and contribution of APC to phenotypes" on November 30.

Sudharsan Parthasarathy (graduate student, Kuczera and Benson labs) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled "Evolutionary divergence in proteins: experimental and theoretical studies on the stability and electrochemical properties of cytochrome b5" on December 16.

2011 Research Presentations

December

Berl Oakley (professor) gave a presentation entitled "Illuminating the Aspergillus secondary metaolome" to the New Zealand Microbiological Society, Palmerston North, New Zealand on November 24, 2011.

Stuart Macdonald (assistant professor) gave a presentation entitled "Genetic dissection of complex traits using the Drosophila Synthetic Population Resource" at the 9th Annual Ecological Genomics Symposium in Kansas City onNovember  4.

John Karanicolas (assistant professor) gave a presentation entitled “Modulating protein function with small molecules” in the Department of Genetics at Washington University in Saint Louis on November 8.

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled "Mouse model reveals roles for nuclear Apc in regulation of Wnt signaling, proliferation, & tumor suppression" for the Online conference, Mouse Models of Cancer on November 17. http://isymposia.com/mmc-agenda/

Fusao Takusagawa (professor) gave a presentation entitled “Structure and Function of Prostaglandin E2 synthase (PGES)” at Wichita State University

November

Brian Ackley (assistant professor) gave two presentations entitled “Heads or Tails? Flamingo orients anterior-posterior axon outgrowth and synaptogenesis in C. elegans”, one at the University of New Mexico on October 6th and one at Kansas State on October 25th.

John Karanicolas (assistant professor) gave two presentations: "Identifying Inhibitors of Protein Interactions using Pocket Optimization", at the International Chemical Biology Society meeting, Kansas City and “Small molecule modulation of protein function using computational design”, at the Department of Chemistry, Wichita State University.

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Tumor Suppressor APC and Musashi1: Double-Negative Feedback, Wnt Signaling and Colon Cancer” at Kansas State University on October 12th.

October

Yoshi Azuma (associate professor) gave four research presentations, each entitled “The regulation and function of PIASy-mediated SUMOylation on vertebrate mitosis”. Lecture dates and locales were August 8, NICHD/NIH; August 9, Bloomberg School of Public Health/Johns Hopkins University; September 26, Department of Biological Sciences/Wayne State University; and September 27, Life Sciences Institute/University of Michigan.

Katelyn Deckert (graduate student, Karanicolas lab) gave an oral presentation entitled “Designing allosteric control into enzymes by chemical rescue of structure” at the University of Kansas NIH Graduate Training Program in Dynamic Aspects of Chemical Biology 17th Annual Symposium on September 28.

September

John Karanicolas (assistant professor) gave an oral presentation entitled "Designing allosteric control into enzymes" at the RosettaCon 2011 meeting in Leavenworth,Washington, August 4-7.

Dr.  Liang Xu (associate professor) gave an oral presentation entitled “Molecular cancer therapy targeting cancer and cancer stem cells” at the 1st Annual World Congress of Molecular & Cell Biology (CMCB-2011), Beijing, China, August 6-8, 2011.  Dr. Xu was also in the organizing committee, served as co-chair of a session, and gave an oral presentation entitled “Molecular cancer therapy via modulating autophagy”, at the International conference of cancer science and therapy, Las Vegas, Nevada, August 15-17.

David Johnson (graduate student, Karanicolas lab) gave an oral presentation "Transient small-molecule binding pockets at protein-protein interfaces" at the RosettaCon 2011 meeting in Leavenworth, Washington, August 4-7.

August

Heba Mostafa (graduate student, Davido lab) gave an oral presentation entitled "N-terminal HSV-1 ICP0 phosphorylation site mutations are impaired for the dissociation of ND10 constituents and viral replication" at the 30th Annual American Society for Virology Meeting in Minneapolis, MN, July 16-20.

Mirna Perusina Lanfranca (graduate student, Davido lab) gave an oral presentation entitled "HSV-1 ICP0 truncation mutants promote the dissociation and degradation of the antiviral protein, PML, from ND10" at the 30th Annual American Society for Virology Meeting in Minneapolis, MN, July 16-20.

Erick Spears (graduate student, Neufeld lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled 'Tumor Suppressor APC and Musashi1: Double-Negative Feedback, Wnt Signaling and Colon Cancer" on July 14.

July

Dr. John Karanicolas (assistant professor) presented a seminar entitled "Small-molecule modulation of protein function using computational design" at the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California San Francisco, June. He presented a second talk entitled "Designing Tumor-Specific GITRL Inhibitors to Combat Immunosubversion" at the Next Generation Protein Therapeutics Summit (IBC, San Francisco CA), also in June.

Rafael Demarco (graduate student, Lundquist lab) gave an oral presentation entitled "An axon's journey to find its path:  The Rac GEF TIAM-1 acts downstream of CDC-42 in the UNC-6/Netrin attractive pathway" at the 18th International C. elegans meeting at UCLA, June 22-25.

Andrew Ouellette (Lamb lab) successfully defended his masters thesis entitled "Structure-function study of PchB, an isochorismate-pyruvate lyase from Pseudomonas aeruginosa" on June 6

Bryce Nordhues (De Guzman lab) successfully defended his masters thesis entitled "NMR Structural Studies of Type III Secretion System Tip Proteins" on June 8.

June

Berl Oakley (professor) gave two invited lectures entitled "An unexpected role for gamma-tubulin in cell cycle regulation" at the Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, Kansas, on May 2 and at the Falkenthal Colloquium, Department of Molecular Genetics, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, on May 14.

John Karanicolas (assistant professor) gave an invited lecture entitled "Building biomolecular switches by chemical rescue" at the IDeA Central Regional Meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, on May 24.

Several seniors made research presentations at the University of Kansas Biology Honors Research Symposium on May 14. Students graduating with Biology Honors for completion of written theses and oral presentations include:

Wen Yih Aw (Timmons lab) Phenotypic and molecular analyses of an RNAi-defective mutant: ne309.

Avijeet Chopra (Dentler lab) Ciliary growth and maintenance in Tetrahymena thermophila.

Kalin Holthaus (Benedict lab) Human naïve T cell differentiation: unexpected contribution by a growth factor receptor.

Chantz Thomas (Benedict lab) Chemokine signaling after primary and secondary stimuli alters the phenotypes produced during differentiation of naïve CD4+ T cells.

Mahlet Yeshitla (Neufeld lab) Analysis of tumor number and size in the intestines of Apc mutant mice: insight into the effect of genetic modifiers on the mutant phenotype.

Tiffany Lau (Karanicolas lab) Testing for structure based chemical rescue in a Bcl-2 family protein

Kayla Nelson (A. Mizuki lab) Ewing sarcoma EWS/FLI1 protein interacts with Cdc20 and leads to mitotic defects

Meg Razak (Lundquist lab) Mutant screen identifying novel regulators of neuronal migration in Caenorhabditis elegans

Derek Setter (Buechner lab) EXC-9 is required for the recycling of apical membrane in the C. elegans excretory canal.

Jeff Hills (Hefty lab) Development and validation of an automated, image-based method for quantifying chlamydial infection

Yvonne Kamau (Tang lab) Phosphorylation alters the oligomerization state of two-component response regulator YycF

May

Susan Egan (professor) presented three invited lectures entitled “Mechanisms of AraC Family Regulation of Virulence and Carbon Metabolism” at the Department of Biological Sciences, Wichita State University (March 7), at the Missouri Valley Branch Meeting, American Society for Microbiology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln (April 1), and at the Department of Diagnostic Medicine and Pathobiology, Kansas State University (April 14).

John Karanicolas (assistant professor) gave a lecture entitled “Small-molecule binding pockets at protein interaction sites” at the Drug Discovery Chemistry: Protein-Protein Interactions as Drug Targets Conference in San Diego on April 14.

Berl Oakley (professor) gave the University of Kansas Biology Alumni Advisory Board Distinguished Lecture entitled “Ad astra per Aspergillus” on April 7.

Liang Xu (professor) gave a talk in the inaugural KU Cancer Biology Interest Group Monthly Meeting, entitled “Molecular targeted therapy of cancer stem cells” on April 22.

The following students successfully defended their doctoral dissertations:

Adam Norris (graduate student, Lundquist lab) “Watching neurons grow: guidance receptors, signal transduction machinery and cytoskeletal regulators affect growth cone morphology and dynamics in C. elegans” on March 30.

Rafael Demarco (graduate student, Lundquist lab) “An Axon's Journey to Find Its Path: In Vivo Characterization of the Modulators and Effectors of the Rac GTPase Signaling Pathway Involved in Axon Guidance” on April 6.

John Hickey (graduate student, Hefty lab) “Structural and functional studies of an atypical OmR/PhoB transcriptional regulator, ChxR, from Chlamydia trachomatis” on April 8.

Kellen Voss (graduate student, Gamblin lab) “Modulation of Tau Dysfunction In Vitro” on April 13.

Natasha DeVore (graduate student, Scott lab) “Structure and function of human cytochrome P450 enzymes: Xenobiotic metabolism by CYP2A and steroid biosynthesis by CYP17A1” on April 18.

Fernando Estrada (graduate student, De Guzman lab) “NMR Studies of the Bunyaviridae Glycoprotein Cytoplasmic Tails” on April 20.

Brendan Mattingly (graduate student, Buechner lab) “EXC-5 Controls Intracellular Trafficking in the C. elegans Excretory Canal” on April 21.

At the Missouri Valley Branch Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln on March 31, oral presentations were given by:

Jeff Skredenske (graduate student, Egan lab) “Amino Acids in Allosteric Site 1 of Escherichia coli RhaS are Involved in Interdomain Effector Signaling”

Bria Wilkins (graduate student, Egan lab) “Understanding the Mechanism of Interdomain Effector Signaling in the AraC Family Protein RhaR”

John Hickey (graduate student, Hefty lab) gave an oral presentation entitled “Structural and Functional Studies of an Atypical OmpR/PhoB Response Regulator, ChxR” at the Fifth Biennial Meeting of the Chlamydia Basic Research Society at Redondo Beach, California on March 18.

April

Dr. Liang Xu (associate professor) gave an invited lecture entitled "Molecular Therapy Targeting Cancer and Cancer Stem Cells" at the Liver Center at KU Medical Center on March 24th.

Dr. Liang Xu (associate professor) gave an invited lecture entitled "microRNAs: Native Regulators and Potential Therapeutics for Cancer Stem Cells" at the Seventh Annual Conference on microRNA in Human Disease and Development, March 28-30 2011 in Boston, MA.

March

Four graduate students were chosen as finalists for the Newmark Award and gave presentations in the departmental seminar series on February 14 as part of the competition:

Rafael Demarco (Lundquist lab): “An Axon's Journey to Find Its Path: The Rac GEF TIAM- 1 Acts Downstream of CDC-42 and UNC-6/Netrin in C. elegans”

John Hickey (Hefty lab): “Structure and Functional Analysis of ChxR: An Atypical OmpR Response Regulator”

Erick Spears (Neufeld lab): “A Novel Double-negative Feedback Loop Between APC and MSI1: Mechanisms and Implications for Colorectal Cancer”

Kellen Voss (Gamblin lab): “HSP70 differentially affects different tau isoforms directly”

February

Dr. Roberto De Guzman (assistant professor) presented a seminar entitled "Structure and Assembly of Bacterial Needles" at the 2011 Keystone Symposium on Frontiers of NMR in Biology, January 8-11, 2011, Big Sky, Montana.

Jiang Xu (graduate student, Cohen lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled "Multiple Distinct Roles for the Rab11 GTPase in the Somatic Cells of the Drosophila Egg Chamber" on January 20.

Kayla Nelson (undergraduate student, M. Azuma lab) received second place for her Platform oral presentation entitled "Ewing sarcoma EWS/FLI1 protein interacts with Cdc20 and leads to mitotic defects" at the 9th Annual K-INBRE Symposium, Kansas City, MO on January 15. Her poster presentation of the same title also received an award of excellence.

December 2010 / January 2011

Dr. Roberto De Guzman (assistant professor) presented two seminars entitled "Bacterial nanoinjectors and hantaviral zinc fingers" at the Center for Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics, University of Montana, Missoula, on October 14 and at the Deptartment of Microbiology, Montana State University, Bozeman, on October 15.

Dr. John Karanicolas (assistant professor) presented a seminar entitled "Small-molecule modulation of protein function using computational design" at the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of North Carolina, on November 9.

Dr. Audrey Lamb (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled "Catalysis of Enzymatic Pericyclic Reactions: Structural and Functional Analyses of the Isochorismate-Pyruvate Lyase from Pseudomonas aeruginosa" at the Physical Chemistry Colloquium at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, on November 10.

Dr. Liang Xu (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled "Molecular cancer Therapy: Autophagy versus Apoptosis" at the 2010 Cancer Research Symposium at the University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, Kansas, on November 4.

Fernando Estrada (graduate student, De Guzmann lab) gave a student talk entitled "NMR Structure of the Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever Virus Gn Tail Provides Insight into Virus Assembly" at the Fourth Great Plains Regional Annual Symposium on Protein and Biomolecular NMR, held in Lawrence, KS on October 29.

Lan Lan (graduate student, Cohen lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled "The specification and patterning of Drosophila egg chamber" on November 30.

Hyunju Ryu (graduate student, Y. Azuma lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled "The disclosure of mitotic SUMOylation" on November 17.

Laticia Rivera (graduate student, Timmons lab) successfully defended her masters thesis entitled "Genetic interactions with the ABC transporter, haf-6" on November 22.

2010 Research Presentations

November

Dr. Erik Lundquist (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled "Cytoskeletal signaling and axon pathfinding" at the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, on October 27.

Dr. Stuart Macdonald (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled "Approaches for the dissection of complex traits in model systems" at the Department of Biochemistry, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, on September 22.

Dr. Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) gave a selected attendee talk and poster presentation entitled “A Knock-in mouse model reveals roles for APC NLS in c-Myc regulation lymphocyte homeostasis and tumor suppression” at the Colon Cancer in Murine Models and Humans III meeting in Bar Harbor, Maine, on October 20. 

Dr. Berl Oakley (full professor) gave an invited talk entitled “An unexpected role for gamma-tubulin in cell cycle regulation” at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, on October 8.

Maged Zeineldin (graduate student, Neufeld lab) gave a selected attendee talk and poster presentation entitled “Regulation of tumor suppressor protein APC by heat shock response” at the Colon Cancer in Murine Models and Humans III meeting in Bar Harbor, Maine, on October 20.

September

Dr. Berl Oakley (full professor) gave an invited talk entitled "An unexpected role for γ-tubulin in cell cycle regulation" at the Ninth International Mycology Congress in Edinburgh, UK on August 7. Dr. Oakley was also co-author on the paper "Genomic mining of secondary metabolites from Aspergillus species" presented as an invited talk by Dr. Clay Wang at the same meeting. 

Dr. Mark Richter (full professor) gave a lecture entitled "Torque generation by the ATP synthase rotary motor" at the Inner Mongolia Medical College in Huh Hot City, China on August 22nd.

Dr. Mark Richter (full professor) gave a lecture entitled "Structure and function of the chloroplast ATP synthase" at the Structural Biology Center of the Chinese National Academy of Sciences in Beijing, China on August 27th.

Yi Xiong (graduate student, Oakley lab) gave a poster talk entitled "Investigation of a nuclear matrix in Aspergillus nidulans revealed by studying γ-tubulin mutants" at the Ninth International Mycology Congress in Edinburgh, UK on August 5.

October

Dr. Berl Oakley (full professor) gave an invited talk entitled "An unexpected role for γ-tubulin in cell cycle regulation" at the Department of Bacteriology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, September 9, 2010.

July

Dr. Scott Hefty (assistant professor) gave an invited talk at the Twelfth International Symposium on Human Chlamydial Infections in Salzburg, Austria on June 25. The title of the talk was “Mechanisms and Proposed Role for ChxR: An Atypical Response Regulator.”

John Hickey (graduate student, Hefty lab) gave an oral presentation entitled “ChxR binds to a direct repeat of nucleotide sequences and interacts with the carboxyl terminus of RNA Polymerase alpha subunit” at the at the Twelfth International Symposium on Human Chlamydial Infections in Salzburg, Austria on June 25.

August

Dr. Erik Lundquist (associate professor) gave an invited platform lecture entitled "Cytoskeletal regulation of growth cone lamellipodia and filopodia in axon pathfinding" at the "Neuronal Development, Synaptic Function & Behavior C. elegans Meeting" that occurred June 28–30 at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Rafael Demarco (graduate student, Lundquist lab) gave an oral presentation entitled "An Axon's Journey to Find Its Path - How TIAM-1, a GEF for Rac GTPases, Controls Axon Pathfinding Downstream of CDC-42" at the "Neuronal Development, Synaptic Function & Behavior C. elegans Meeting" that occurred June 28–30 at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Adam Norris (graduate student, Lundquist lab) gave an oral presentation entitled "Watching Neurons Grow: UNC-6/Netrin, UNC-40/DCC and UNC-5 Affect in vivo Growth Cone Morphology and Dynamics of Circumferential Neurons" at the "Neuronal Development, Synaptic Function & Behavior C. elegans Meeting" that occurred June 28–30 at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

June

Jingping Lu (graduate student, Ye and Richter mentors) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled "Catalysis and inhibition of Mycobacterium tuberculosis methionine aminopeptidase" on May 24th.

Several seniors made research presentations at the University of Kansas Biology Honors Research Symposium May 8. Students graduating with Biology Honors for completion of written theses and oral presentations include:

  • Stephen Sai Folmsbee (M. Azuma lab), “Ewing's sarcoma protein EWS/FLI1 causes mitotic defects and the mislocalization of chromosomal passenger complex components”;
  • Patrick McGurk (Lundquist lab), “Protein kinase C is a candidate factor for RACK-1-based axon guidance in C. elegans “
  • Bethany Lucas (Ward lab), “Cloning and characterization of macroglobulin complement-related, a gene involved in tracheal morphogenesis and septate junction function”
  • Robert Wiggin (Lamb lab), “The salicylate-adenylase PchD from Pseudomonas aeruginosa is suitable for crystallization and possible structural analysis by X-ray crystallography”

At the 13th annual Undergraduate Research Symposium at the University of Kansas, Marc T. Roth, (Neufeld lab) was awarded First Place for his presentation “Mouse studies to examine the effect of Hsp90 inhibitor KU-32 on Adenomatous Polyposis Coli (APC) levels and cell proliferation”.
Read KU News Release.

May

Dr. Berl Oakley (full professor) gave his inaugural lecture as the Irving S. Johnson Distinguished Professor of Molecular Biology entitled "Understanding the mitotic apparatus, a remarkable biological machine" on April 22.

Jamie Dyer (graduate student, Lundquist lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled "Characterization of the roles of the Nck Interacting kinase MIG-15 and the Rac GTPases in neuronal migration in Caenorhabditis elegans" on April 23rd.

Xiaochen Wang (graduate student, Ward lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled "Forward and reverse genetic approaches to identify genes involved in leg morphogenesis in Drosophila" on April 21st.

At the 2010 K-INBRE Symposium in Kansas City, two students won prizes for their presentations:

Raymond Caylor (graduate student, Ackley Lab) — Honorable Mention for his oral presentation entitled "Characterization of calcium binding kinase interacting protein F30A10.1".

Sai Folmsbee (undergraduate student, M. Azuma lab) — First Place for his oral presentation entitled "Ewing's sarcoma protein EWS/FLI1 leads to mitotic defects by misregulating the localization of Aurora B and survivin"

At the American Society for Microbiology - Missouri Valley Regional Meeting at Kansas State University, April 9-10, four students won prizes for their presentations:

John Hickey (graduate student, Hefty lab) — Second Place in Molecular and Cellular Biology for his oral presentation entitled "The OmpR subfamily response regulator ChxR from Chlamydia trachomatis recognizes a conserved cis-acting element present in type III secretion operon promoters"

Zane Jaafar (undergraduate student, Hefty lab) — First Place in General Biology for his oral presentation entitled "A structural genomics approach to facilitate functional predictions of hypothetical proteins encoded by Chlamydia trachomatis"

Kyle Kemege (graduate student, Hefty lab) — First Place in Medical and Molecular Microbiology for his oral presentation entitled "Localization studies of the proposed chlamydial type three secretion tip protein, CT584"

Vinidhra Sridharan (graduate student, Hefty lab) — First Place in Molecular and Cellular Biology for her oral presentation entitled "An atypical OmpR response regulator from Chlamydia trachomatis is associated with expression of proteins important to the formation of infectious forms of Chlamydia"

March/April

Dr. John Karanicolas (assistant professor) gave an invited talk at the Cambridge Healthtech Institute's Ninth Annual PEPTALK in San Diego, CA on January 13. The title of the talk was "Computational Redesign of Receptor-Specific Ligands."

Dr. John Karanicolas (assistant professor) gave an invited talk at the PepCon "Protein and Peptide Conference" in Beijing, China on March 22. The title of the talk was "Structure-based Design of a D-amino Acid Peptide Inhibitor of Tau Fibrillation."

Erick Spears (graduate student, Neufeld lab) was one of 13 students from KU to present their research at the Capitol Graduate Research Summit in Topeka on March 25. Read KU News Release.

Jeff Skredenske (graduate student, Egan lab) will give an oral presentation entitled "Purification of a Solubility Enhancement Tag Fused with the DNA-Binding Domain of the Escherichia coli RhaS Protein, an AraC/XylS Family Transcriptional Activator" at the American Society for Microbiology Missouri Valley Branch Meeting. Kansas State University on April 10.

Natasha DeVore (graduate student, Scott lab) will present the James R. Gillette Drug Metabolism Best Paper of 2009 talk "Key residues controling binding of diverse ligands to human cytochrome P450 2A enzymes" at Experimental Biology 2010, Anaheim, CA on April 26.

2011 Research Presentations

December

Berl Oakley (professor) gave a presentation entitled "Illuminating the Aspergillus secondary metaolome" to the New Zealand Microbiological Society, Palmerston North, New Zealand on November 24, 2011.

Stuart Macdonald (assistant professor) gave a presentation entitled "Genetic dissection of complex traits using the Drosophila Synthetic Population Resource" at the 9th Annual Ecological Genomics Symposium in Kansas City onNovember  4.

John Karanicolas (assistant professor) gave a presentation entitled “Modulating protein function with small molecules” in the Department of Genetics at Washington University in Saint Louis on November 8.

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled "Mouse model reveals roles for nuclear Apc in regulation of Wnt signaling, proliferation, & tumor suppression" for the Online conference, Mouse Models of Cancer on November 17. http://isymposia.com/mmc-agenda/

Fusao Takusagawa (professor) gave a presentation entitled “Structure and Function of Prostaglandin E2 synthase (PGES)” at Wichita State University

November

Brian Ackley (assistant professor) gave two presentations entitled “Heads or Tails? Flamingo orients anterior-posterior axon outgrowth and synaptogenesis in C. elegans”, one at the University of New Mexico on October 6th and one at Kansas State on October 25th.

John Karanicolas (assistant professor) gave two presentations: "Identifying Inhibitors of Protein Interactions using Pocket Optimization", at the International Chemical Biology Society meeting, Kansas City and “Small molecule modulation of protein function using computational design”, at the Department of Chemistry, Wichita State University.

Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) gave a presentation entitled “Tumor Suppressor APC and Musashi1: Double-Negative Feedback, Wnt Signaling and Colon Cancer” at Kansas State University on October 12th.

October

Yoshi Azuma (associate professor) gave four research presentations, each entitled “The regulation and function of PIASy-mediated SUMOylation on vertebrate mitosis”. Lecture dates and locales were August 8, NICHD/NIH; August 9, Bloomberg School of Public Health/Johns Hopkins University; September 26, Department of Biological Sciences/Wayne State University; and September 27, Life Sciences Institute/University of Michigan.

Katelyn Deckert (graduate student, Karanicolas lab) gave an oral presentation entitled “Designing allosteric control into enzymes by chemical rescue of structure” at the University of Kansas NIH Graduate Training Program in Dynamic Aspects of Chemical Biology 17th Annual Symposium on September 28.

September

John Karanicolas (assistant professor) gave an oral presentation entitled "Designing allosteric control into enzymes" at the RosettaCon 2011 meeting in Leavenworth,Washington, August 4-7.

Dr.  Liang Xu (associate professor) gave an oral presentation entitled “Molecular cancer therapy targeting cancer and cancer stem cells” at the 1st Annual World Congress of Molecular & Cell Biology (CMCB-2011), Beijing, China, August 6-8, 2011.  Dr. Xu was also in the organizing committee, served as co-chair of a session, and gave an oral presentation entitled “Molecular cancer therapy via modulating autophagy”, at the International conference of cancer science and therapy, Las Vegas, Nevada, August 15-17.

David Johnson (graduate student, Karanicolas lab) gave an oral presentation "Transient small-molecule binding pockets at protein-protein interfaces" at the RosettaCon 2011 meeting in Leavenworth, Washington, August 4-7.

August

Heba Mostafa (graduate student, Davido lab) gave an oral presentation entitled "N-terminal HSV-1 ICP0 phosphorylation site mutations are impaired for the dissociation of ND10 constituents and viral replication" at the 30th Annual American Society for Virology Meeting in Minneapolis, MN, July 16-20.

Mirna Perusina Lanfranca (graduate student, Davido lab) gave an oral presentation entitled "HSV-1 ICP0 truncation mutants promote the dissociation and degradation of the antiviral protein, PML, from ND10" at the 30th Annual American Society for Virology Meeting in Minneapolis, MN, July 16-20.

Erick Spears (graduate student, Neufeld lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled 'Tumor Suppressor APC and Musashi1: Double-Negative Feedback, Wnt Signaling and Colon Cancer" on July 14.

July

Dr. John Karanicolas (assistant professor) presented a seminar entitled "Small-molecule modulation of protein function using computational design" at the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, University of California San Francisco, June. He presented a second talk entitled "Designing Tumor-Specific GITRL Inhibitors to Combat Immunosubversion" at the Next Generation Protein Therapeutics Summit (IBC, San Francisco CA), also in June.

Rafael Demarco (graduate student, Lundquist lab) gave an oral presentation entitled "An axon's journey to find its path:  The Rac GEF TIAM-1 acts downstream of CDC-42 in the UNC-6/Netrin attractive pathway" at the 18th International C. elegans meeting at UCLA, June 22-25.

Andrew Ouellette (Lamb lab) successfully defended his masters thesis entitled "Structure-function study of PchB, an isochorismate-pyruvate lyase from Pseudomonas aeruginosa" on June 6

Bryce Nordhues (De Guzman lab) successfully defended his masters thesis entitled "NMR Structural Studies of Type III Secretion System Tip Proteins" on June 8.

June

Berl Oakley (professor) gave two invited lectures entitled "An unexpected role for gamma-tubulin in cell cycle regulation" at the Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, Kansas, on May 2 and at the Falkenthal Colloquium, Department of Molecular Genetics, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, on May 14.

John Karanicolas (assistant professor) gave an invited lecture entitled "Building biomolecular switches by chemical rescue" at the IDeA Central Regional Meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, on May 24.

Several seniors made research presentations at the University of Kansas Biology Honors Research Symposium on May 14. Students graduating with Biology Honors for completion of written theses and oral presentations include:

Wen Yih Aw (Timmons lab) Phenotypic and molecular analyses of an RNAi-defective mutant: ne309.

Avijeet Chopra (Dentler lab) Ciliary growth and maintenance in Tetrahymena thermophila.

Kalin Holthaus (Benedict lab) Human naïve T cell differentiation: unexpected contribution by a growth factor receptor.

Chantz Thomas (Benedict lab) Chemokine signaling after primary and secondary stimuli alters the phenotypes produced during differentiation of naïve CD4+ T cells.

Mahlet Yeshitla (Neufeld lab) Analysis of tumor number and size in the intestines of Apc mutant mice: insight into the effect of genetic modifiers on the mutant phenotype.

Tiffany Lau (Karanicolas lab) Testing for structure based chemical rescue in a Bcl-2 family protein

Kayla Nelson (A. Mizuki lab) Ewing sarcoma EWS/FLI1 protein interacts with Cdc20 and leads to mitotic defects

Meg Razak (Lundquist lab) Mutant screen identifying novel regulators of neuronal migration in Caenorhabditis elegans

Derek Setter (Buechner lab) EXC-9 is required for the recycling of apical membrane in the C. elegans excretory canal.

Jeff Hills (Hefty lab) Development and validation of an automated, image-based method for quantifying chlamydial infection

Yvonne Kamau (Tang lab) Phosphorylation alters the oligomerization state of two-component response regulator YycF

May

Susan Egan (professor) presented three invited lectures entitled “Mechanisms of AraC Family Regulation of Virulence and Carbon Metabolism” at the Department of Biological Sciences, Wichita State University (March 7), at the Missouri Valley Branch Meeting, American Society for Microbiology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln (April 1), and at the Department of Diagnostic Medicine and Pathobiology, Kansas State University (April 14).

John Karanicolas (assistant professor) gave a lecture entitled “Small-molecule binding pockets at protein interaction sites” at the Drug Discovery Chemistry: Protein-Protein Interactions as Drug Targets Conference in San Diego on April 14.

Berl Oakley (professor) gave the University of Kansas Biology Alumni Advisory Board Distinguished Lecture entitled “Ad astra per Aspergillus” on April 7.

Liang Xu (professor) gave a talk in the inaugural KU Cancer Biology Interest Group Monthly Meeting, entitled “Molecular targeted therapy of cancer stem cells” on April 22.

The following students successfully defended their doctoral dissertations:

Adam Norris (graduate student, Lundquist lab) “Watching neurons grow: guidance receptors, signal transduction machinery and cytoskeletal regulators affect growth cone morphology and dynamics in C. elegans” on March 30.

Rafael Demarco (graduate student, Lundquist lab) “An Axon's Journey to Find Its Path: In Vivo Characterization of the Modulators and Effectors of the Rac GTPase Signaling Pathway Involved in Axon Guidance” on April 6.

John Hickey (graduate student, Hefty lab) “Structural and functional studies of an atypical OmR/PhoB transcriptional regulator, ChxR, from Chlamydia trachomatis” on April 8.

Kellen Voss (graduate student, Gamblin lab) “Modulation of Tau Dysfunction In Vitro” on April 13.

Natasha DeVore (graduate student, Scott lab) “Structure and function of human cytochrome P450 enzymes: Xenobiotic metabolism by CYP2A and steroid biosynthesis by CYP17A1” on April 18.

Fernando Estrada (graduate student, De Guzman lab) “NMR Studies of the Bunyaviridae Glycoprotein Cytoplasmic Tails” on April 20.

Brendan Mattingly (graduate student, Buechner lab) “EXC-5 Controls Intracellular Trafficking in the C. elegans Excretory Canal” on April 21.

At the Missouri Valley Branch Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln on March 31, oral presentations were given by:

Jeff Skredenske (graduate student, Egan lab) “Amino Acids in Allosteric Site 1 of Escherichia coli RhaS are Involved in Interdomain Effector Signaling”

Bria Wilkins (graduate student, Egan lab) “Understanding the Mechanism of Interdomain Effector Signaling in the AraC Family Protein RhaR”

John Hickey (graduate student, Hefty lab) gave an oral presentation entitled “Structural and Functional Studies of an Atypical OmpR/PhoB Response Regulator, ChxR” at the Fifth Biennial Meeting of the Chlamydia Basic Research Society at Redondo Beach, California on March 18.

April

Dr. Liang Xu (associate professor) gave an invited lecture entitled "Molecular Therapy Targeting Cancer and Cancer Stem Cells" at the Liver Center at KU Medical Center on March 24th.

Dr. Liang Xu (associate professor) gave an invited lecture entitled "microRNAs: Native Regulators and Potential Therapeutics for Cancer Stem Cells" at the Seventh Annual Conference on microRNA in Human Disease and Development, March 28-30 2011 in Boston, MA.

March

Four graduate students were chosen as finalists for the Newmark Award and gave presentations in the departmental seminar series on February 14 as part of the competition:

Rafael Demarco (Lundquist lab): “An Axon's Journey to Find Its Path: The Rac GEF TIAM- 1 Acts Downstream of CDC-42 and UNC-6/Netrin in C. elegans”

John Hickey (Hefty lab): “Structure and Functional Analysis of ChxR: An Atypical OmpR Response Regulator”

Erick Spears (Neufeld lab): “A Novel Double-negative Feedback Loop Between APC and MSI1: Mechanisms and Implications for Colorectal Cancer”

Kellen Voss (Gamblin lab): “HSP70 differentially affects different tau isoforms directly”

February

Dr. Roberto De Guzman (assistant professor) presented a seminar entitled "Structure and Assembly of Bacterial Needles" at the 2011 Keystone Symposium on Frontiers of NMR in Biology, January 8-11, 2011, Big Sky, Montana.

Jiang Xu (graduate student, Cohen lab) successfully defended his doctoral dissertation entitled "Multiple Distinct Roles for the Rab11 GTPase in the Somatic Cells of the Drosophila Egg Chamber" on January 20.

Kayla Nelson (undergraduate student, M. Azuma lab) received second place for her Platform oral presentation entitled "Ewing sarcoma EWS/FLI1 protein interacts with Cdc20 and leads to mitotic defects" at the 9th Annual K-INBRE Symposium, Kansas City, MO on January 15. Her poster presentation of the same title also received an award of excellence.

December 2010 / January 2011

Dr. Roberto De Guzman (assistant professor) presented two seminars entitled "Bacterial nanoinjectors and hantaviral zinc fingers" at the Center for Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics, University of Montana, Missoula, on October 14 and at the Deptartment of Microbiology, Montana State University, Bozeman, on October 15.

Dr. John Karanicolas (assistant professor) presented a seminar entitled "Small-molecule modulation of protein function using computational design" at the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of North Carolina, on November 9.

Dr. Audrey Lamb (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled "Catalysis of Enzymatic Pericyclic Reactions: Structural and Functional Analyses of the Isochorismate-Pyruvate Lyase from Pseudomonas aeruginosa" at the Physical Chemistry Colloquium at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, on November 10.

Dr. Liang Xu (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled "Molecular cancer Therapy: Autophagy versus Apoptosis" at the 2010 Cancer Research Symposium at the University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, Kansas, on November 4.

Fernando Estrada (graduate student, De Guzmann lab) gave a student talk entitled "NMR Structure of the Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever Virus Gn Tail Provides Insight into Virus Assembly" at the Fourth Great Plains Regional Annual Symposium on Protein and Biomolecular NMR, held in Lawrence, KS on October 29.

Lan Lan (graduate student, Cohen lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled "The specification and patterning of Drosophila egg chamber" on November 30.

Hyunju Ryu (graduate student, Y. Azuma lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled "The disclosure of mitotic SUMOylation" on November 17.

Laticia Rivera (graduate student, Timmons lab) successfully defended her masters thesis entitled "Genetic interactions with the ABC transporter, haf-6" on November 22.

2010 Research Presentations

November

Dr. Erik Lundquist (associate professor) gave an invited talk entitled "Cytoskeletal signaling and axon pathfinding" at the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, on October 27.

Dr. Stuart Macdonald (assistant professor) gave an invited talk entitled "Approaches for the dissection of complex traits in model systems" at the Department of Biochemistry, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, on September 22.

Dr. Kristi Neufeld (associate professor) gave a selected attendee talk and poster presentation entitled “A Knock-in mouse model reveals roles for APC NLS in c-Myc regulation lymphocyte homeostasis and tumor suppression” at the Colon Cancer in Murine Models and Humans III meeting in Bar Harbor, Maine, on October 20. 

Dr. Berl Oakley (full professor) gave an invited talk entitled “An unexpected role for gamma-tubulin in cell cycle regulation” at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, on October 8.

Maged Zeineldin (graduate student, Neufeld lab) gave a selected attendee talk and poster presentation entitled “Regulation of tumor suppressor protein APC by heat shock response” at the Colon Cancer in Murine Models and Humans III meeting in Bar Harbor, Maine, on October 20.

September

Dr. Berl Oakley (full professor) gave an invited talk entitled "An unexpected role for γ-tubulin in cell cycle regulation" at the Ninth International Mycology Congress in Edinburgh, UK on August 7. Dr. Oakley was also co-author on the paper "Genomic mining of secondary metabolites from Aspergillus species" presented as an invited talk by Dr. Clay Wang at the same meeting. 

Dr. Mark Richter (full professor) gave a lecture entitled "Torque generation by the ATP synthase rotary motor" at the Inner Mongolia Medical College in Huh Hot City, China on August 22nd.

Dr. Mark Richter (full professor) gave a lecture entitled "Structure and function of the chloroplast ATP synthase" at the Structural Biology Center of the Chinese National Academy of Sciences in Beijing, China on August 27th.

Yi Xiong (graduate student, Oakley lab) gave a poster talk entitled "Investigation of a nuclear matrix in Aspergillus nidulans revealed by studying γ-tubulin mutants" at the Ninth International Mycology Congress in Edinburgh, UK on August 5.

October

Dr. Berl Oakley (full professor) gave an invited talk entitled "An unexpected role for γ-tubulin in cell cycle regulation" at the Department of Bacteriology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, September 9, 2010.

July

Dr. Scott Hefty (assistant professor) gave an invited talk at the Twelfth International Symposium on Human Chlamydial Infections in Salzburg, Austria on June 25. The title of the talk was “Mechanisms and Proposed Role for ChxR: An Atypical Response Regulator.”

John Hickey (graduate student, Hefty lab) gave an oral presentation entitled “ChxR binds to a direct repeat of nucleotide sequences and interacts with the carboxyl terminus of RNA Polymerase alpha subunit” at the at the Twelfth International Symposium on Human Chlamydial Infections in Salzburg, Austria on June 25.

August

Dr. Erik Lundquist (associate professor) gave an invited platform lecture entitled "Cytoskeletal regulation of growth cone lamellipodia and filopodia in axon pathfinding" at the "Neuronal Development, Synaptic Function & Behavior C. elegans Meeting" that occurred June 28–30 at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Rafael Demarco (graduate student, Lundquist lab) gave an oral presentation entitled "An Axon's Journey to Find Its Path - How TIAM-1, a GEF for Rac GTPases, Controls Axon Pathfinding Downstream of CDC-42" at the "Neuronal Development, Synaptic Function & Behavior C. elegans Meeting" that occurred June 28–30 at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Adam Norris (graduate student, Lundquist lab) gave an oral presentation entitled "Watching Neurons Grow: UNC-6/Netrin, UNC-40/DCC and UNC-5 Affect in vivo Growth Cone Morphology and Dynamics of Circumferential Neurons" at the "Neuronal Development, Synaptic Function & Behavior C. elegans Meeting" that occurred June 28–30 at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

June

Jingping Lu (graduate student, Ye and Richter mentors) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled "Catalysis and inhibition of Mycobacterium tuberculosis methionine aminopeptidase" on May 24th.

Several seniors made research presentations at the University of Kansas Biology Honors Research Symposium May 8. Students graduating with Biology Honors for completion of written theses and oral presentations include:

  • Stephen Sai Folmsbee (M. Azuma lab), “Ewing's sarcoma protein EWS/FLI1 causes mitotic defects and the mislocalization of chromosomal passenger complex components”;
  • Patrick McGurk (Lundquist lab), “Protein kinase C is a candidate factor for RACK-1-based axon guidance in C. elegans “
  • Bethany Lucas (Ward lab), “Cloning and characterization of macroglobulin complement-related, a gene involved in tracheal morphogenesis and septate junction function”
  • Robert Wiggin (Lamb lab), “The salicylate-adenylase PchD from Pseudomonas aeruginosa is suitable for crystallization and possible structural analysis by X-ray crystallography”

At the 13th annual Undergraduate Research Symposium at the University of Kansas, Marc T. Roth, (Neufeld lab) was awarded First Place for his presentation “Mouse studies to examine the effect of Hsp90 inhibitor KU-32 on Adenomatous Polyposis Coli (APC) levels and cell proliferation”.
Read KU News Release.

May

Dr. Berl Oakley (full professor) gave his inaugural lecture as the Irving S. Johnson Distinguished Professor of Molecular Biology entitled "Understanding the mitotic apparatus, a remarkable biological machine" on April 22.

Jamie Dyer (graduate student, Lundquist lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled "Characterization of the roles of the Nck Interacting kinase MIG-15 and the Rac GTPases in neuronal migration in Caenorhabditis elegans" on April 23rd.

Xiaochen Wang (graduate student, Ward lab) successfully defended her doctoral dissertation entitled "Forward and reverse genetic approaches to identify genes involved in leg morphogenesis in Drosophila" on April 21st.

At the 2010 K-INBRE Symposium in Kansas City, two students won prizes for their presentations:

Raymond Caylor (graduate student, Ackley Lab) — Honorable Mention for his oral presentation entitled "Characterization of calcium binding kinase interacting protein F30A10.1".

Sai Folmsbee (undergraduate student, M. Azuma lab) — First Place for his oral presentation entitled "Ewing's sarcoma protein EWS/FLI1 leads to mitotic defects by misregulating the localization of Aurora B and survivin"

At the American Society for Microbiology - Missouri Valley Regional Meeting at Kansas State University, April 9-10, four students won prizes for their presentations:

John Hickey (graduate student, Hefty lab) — Second Place in Molecular and Cellular Biology for his oral presentation entitled "The OmpR subfamily response regulator ChxR from Chlamydia trachomatis recognizes a conserved cis-acting element present in type III secretion operon promoters"

Zane Jaafar (undergraduate student, Hefty lab) — First Place in General Biology for his oral presentation entitled "A structural genomics approach to facilitate functional predictions of hypothetical proteins encoded by Chlamydia trachomatis"

Kyle Kemege (graduate student, Hefty lab) — First Place in Medical and Molecular Microbiology for his oral presentation entitled "Localization studies of the proposed chlamydial type three secretion tip protein, CT584"

Vinidhra Sridharan (graduate student, Hefty lab) — First Place in Molecular and Cellular Biology for her oral presentation entitled "An atypical OmpR response regulator from Chlamydia trachomatis is associated with expression of proteins important to the formation of infectious forms of Chlamydia"

March/April

Dr. John Karanicolas (assistant professor) gave an invited talk at the Cambridge Healthtech Institute's Ninth Annual PEPTALK in San Diego, CA on January 13. The title of the talk was "Computational Redesign of Receptor-Specific Ligands."

Dr. John Karanicolas (assistant professor) gave an invited talk at the PepCon "Protein and Peptide Conference" in Beijing, China on March 22. The title of the talk was "Structure-based Design of a D-amino Acid Peptide Inhibitor of Tau Fibrillation."

Erick Spears (graduate student, Neufeld lab) was one of 13 students from KU to present their research at the Capitol Graduate Research Summit in Topeka on March 25. Read KU News Release.

Jeff Skredenske (graduate student, Egan lab) will give an oral presentation entitled "Purification of a Solubility Enhancement Tag Fused with the DNA-Binding Domain of the Escherichia coli RhaS Protein, an AraC/XylS Family Transcriptional Activator" at the American Society for Microbiology Missouri Valley Branch Meeting. Kansas State University on April 10.

Natasha DeVore (graduate student, Scott lab) will present the James R. Gillette Drug Metabolism Best Paper of 2009 talk "Key residues controling binding of diverse ligands to human cytochrome P450 2A enzymes" at Experimental Biology 2010, Anaheim, CA on April 26.