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Pre-Applications to Sprout Program Due 4/17

April 4, 2023 By

Sprout logoThe Sprout Program is back!

Funded by the Provost’s Office and the Office of Technology Licensing (OTL), Sprout is designed to encourage and support translational research activity within the Brandeis community for faculty, postdocs, and student researchers (graduate and undergraduate) in the Division of Science. The awards (up to $25,000 – no overhead!) are intended to help to advance early-stage technologies to industry adoption thereby bringing your research and entrepreneurial ambitions to life.

Successful pre-applicants will be invited to submit a final application due in late May and to pitch to a panel of industry judges in early June. Pre-apply by April 17.

Filed Under: Biochemistry, chemistry, Computer Science, division of science, division of science, General, grad students, labs, Mathematics, Neuroscience, Physics, Quantitative BIology Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

2019 Sprout Awards Competition Announced

February 8, 2019 By

SPROUT logoThe Office of Technology Licensing (OTL) is excited to announce this year’s SPROUT awards competition!  SPROUT was created to help you bring your scientific research and entrepreneurial ambitions to life by providing seed funding and training to make your innovation a reality.

“It’s not just about the funding. It’s about all the opportunities that arise from participating in SPROUT” – Michael Rosbash, 2018 SPROUT PI

OTL, with support from the Office of the Provost & the Hassenfeld Family Innovation Center, will award up to a total of $100,000 divided among the most promising proposals seeking funding for lab-based innovations that require bench research, lab space and/or lab equipment.   All members of the Brandeis science community, including faculty, staff and students, are invited to submit an abstract for the 2019 round of funding. The preliminary application for abstract submission is now online.  These pre-applications must be received prior to 11pm on March 8th, 2019. 

In the past, successful SPROUT applications have come from all departments in the sciences including Biology, Biochemistry, Physics, and Chemistry.  Past candidates have proposed projects ranging from early-stage research and development to patent-ready projects.  Many undergraduates, graduates, staff and faculty have all pitched various projects from Vaccines Targeting HIV Sugars (Krauss Lab) to an Assay Kit for RNA-binding Protein Target (Rosbash Lab).

Have questions?  OTL is offering 20 minute appointment slots the week of February 28 at our office in Bernstein-Marcus, room 140.  Sign up here.

Filed Under: awards, Biochemistry, Biology, chemistry, Computer Science, labs, Mathematics, Neuroscience, Physics, Quantitative BIology Tagged With: ,

Jeff Gelles to Receive 2019 BPS Kazuhito Kinosita Award in Single-Molecule Biophysics

August 3, 2018 By

Congratulations to Jeff Gelles, Aron and Imre Tauber Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology. He will receive the 2019 Kazuhito Kinosita Award in Single-Molecule Biophysics from the Biophysical Society (BPS). He will be honored at the Society’s 63rd Annual Meeting at the Baltimore Convention Center on March 5, 2019, during the annual Awards Symposium.

The award, named for Professor Kazuhiko Kinosita, seeks to advance cross-disciplinary research and cultivate an appreciation of single-molecule studies. BPS President Angela Gronenborn, University of Pittsburgh, said “Jeff has conducted single-molecule studies at the highest level and continues to spark interests in engaging others in single-molecule studies.” (BPS Press Release)

Filed Under: awards, Biochemistry, Quantitative BIology Tagged With: , , ,

Searches for Tenure-Track Faculty in the Sciences, 2017

September 21, 2017 By

Brandeis has six open searches for tenure-track faculty in the Division of Science this fall, with the intent to strengthen cross-disciplinary studies across the sciences. We are looking forward to a busy season of intriguing seminars from candidates this winter.

  1. Assistant Professor of Biochemistry. Biochemistry is looking for a creative scientist to establish an independent research program addressing fundamental questions of biological, biochemical, or biophysical mechanism, and who will maintain a strong interest in teaching Biochemistry.
  2. Assistant Professor of Chemistry. Chemistry seeks a creative individual at the assistant professor level for a tenure-track faculty position in physical (especially theoretical/computational) chemistry, materials chemistry, or chemical biology.
  3. Assistant Professor of Computer Science. Computer Science invites applications for a full-time, tenure-track assistant professor, beginning Fall 2018, in the broad area of Machine Learning and Data Science, including but not limited to deep learning, statistical learning, large scale and cloud-based systems for data science, biologically inspired learning systems, and applications of analytics to real-world problems.
  4. Assistant Professor in Soft Matter or Biological Physics. Physics invites applications for the position of tenure-track Assistant Professor beginning in the fall of 2018 in the interdisciplinary areas of biophysics, soft condensed matter physics and biologically inspired material science.
  5. Assistant Professor or Associate Professor in Psychology. Psychology invites applications for a tenure track appointment at the rank of Assistant or Associate Professor, with a specialization in Aging, to start August 2018. They seek an individual with an active human research program in any aspect of aging, including cognitive, social, clinical and health psychology.
  6. Tenure Track Assistant Professor in Applied Mathematics. Mathematics invites applications for a tenure-track position in applied mathematics at the rank of assistant professor beginning fall 2018. An ideal candidate will be expected to help to build an applied mathematics program within the department, and to interact with other science faculty at Brandeis. Candidates from all areas of applied mathematics will be considered.

Brandeis University is an equal opportunity employer, committed to building a culturally diverse intellectual community, and strongly encourages applications from women and minorities.  Diversity in its student body, staff and faculty is important to Brandeis’ primary mission of providing a quality education.  The search committees are therefore particularly interested in candidates who, through their creative endeavors, teaching and/or service experiences, will increase Brandeis’ reputation for academic excellence and better prepare its students for a pluralistic society.

Filed Under: Biochemistry, chemistry, Computer Science, jobs, Mathematics, Physics, Psychology, Quantitative BIology Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

SPROUT grant opportunity for 2015 announced

February 14, 2015 By

From the Brandeis Office of Technology Licensing:

The Brandeis Virtual Incubator invites members of the Brandeis Community (faculty, staff and students) to submit an application for the SPROUT Program. These Awards are intended to stimulate entrepreneurship on campus and help researchers launch their ideas and inventions from the lab to the marketplace.The SPROUT Program will provide pilot funding for innovative scientific projects within the Division of Science that require bench research, lab space, and/or lab equipment.

We will be awarding $50,000 to be shared among the most promising proposals.
Come get your questions answered at one of our upcoming information sessions.
Info Sessions: 
Thursday, February 26,  11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. (Volen, room 201)
Monday, March 2,  2:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m.   (Shapiro Science Center, 1st Floor Library, room 1-03)
 
Deadlines: Preliminary Proposals are due by Friday, March 6th
Please note, the introduction of the new SPARK Program geared towards innovative non-bench projects that have impact. An additional email will be sent detailing this program.
For more information on each program go to our website or contact the OTL program leaders,  Melissa Blackman for SPROUT and  Anu Ahuja  for SPARK.
Filed Under: Computer Science, Genetic Counseling, grants, Quantitative BIology Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Making a gold studded protein ring

February 20, 2014 By

PLEASE NOTE: the paper by Anthony et al. in Structure was subsequently retracted due to the discovery of research misconduct by its first author, see http://www.cell.com/structure/abstract/S0969-2126(14)00016-1.

In economically turbulent times gold is acquired and held onto as a stable, secure commodity – it’s the “gold standard”. Gold of course has been a source of wealth as a precious metal and source of beauty. Importantly, gold is an incredibly dense and malleable transition metal that maintains its beauty and strength over long time periods, existing as a stable pure solid. Gold has also been an important subject of study and use in life science applications as well as in the physical sciences and in the clinical realm – not only as a source for fillings or a bridge after the dentist deals with your teeth issues!

Kelsey Anthony, a doctoral student in the Brandeis Biochemistry program as well at the Quantitative Biology program, has been working with gold in the Pomeranz Krummel lab to study biopolymer structure. The properties of gold most important in these applications are that it is a pure and stable solid, forms monodisperse spheroidal aggregates, is electron dense, and has the property of anomalously scattering x-rays at specific wavelengths. All these properties combined make gold an optimal metal to be “visualized”. In her most recent application of gold, in press in the journal Structure, Kelsey collaborated with a group at the University of Osnabruek in Germany in the synthesis of a reagent conjugated with monodisperse gold clusters or nanoparticles (called AuNPtris-NTA, see figure) and employed this reagent to localize protein(s) of interest in large multi-protein assemblies.

gold-tag

The experiment most visually striking to demonstrate the utility of this new “gold reagent” involved attaching it to a protein that interacts with itself to form a ring shaped structure. When visualized using the electron microscope, the gold clusters or nanoparticles site-specifically attached to the protein appear as extremely dense black spots due to their significant scattering of electrons as a consequence of the gold’s electron dense structure.

In essence, Kelsey has created a stunning golden microscopic studded ring. Next up, employing this gold conjugated reagent in other new ways.

See: Anthony et al., High-Affinity Gold Nanoparticle Pin to Label and Localize Histidine-Tagged Protein in Macromolecular Assemblies, Structure (2014)

Filed Under: Biochemistry, grad students, Quantitative BIology Tagged With: ,

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