You are here: Home / Archives for biochemistry

Dynamics of GreB-RNA polymerase interaction

February 7, 2017 By

Larry Tetone, Larry Friedman, and Melissa Osborne, and collaborators from the Gelles lab (Brandeis University) and the Landick lab (University of Wisconsin-Madison) used multi-wavelength single-molecule fluorescence methods to for the first time directly observe the dynamic binding and dissociation of an accessory protein with an RNAP during active transcript elongation.

Their findings are detailed in the recent paper “Dynamics of GreB-RNA polymerase interaction.” (PNAS, published online 1/30/2017).

Read more at The Little Engine Shop blog

Filed Under: Biochemistry, labs Tagged With: , , ,

Division of Science Hosts the 2016 Undergraduate Science Symposium

September 21, 2016 By

Written by Jena Pitman-Leung.

uss-img1

The Division of Science Graduate Affairs group hosted the 2nd annual Brandeis University Undergraduate Science Symposium on Saturday 17th, 2016. More than 60 students representing institutions from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire attended the event, which was held in the Shapiro Science Center. The morning session included research talks from faculty in the Life Sciences (Don Katz, Liz Hedstrom) and the Physical Sciences (Matt Headrick, Christine Thomas), followed by panel discussions with faculty in the Life Sciences (Liz Hedstrom, Bruce Goode, and Maria Miara) and Physical Sciences (Gabriella Sciolla, Isaac Krauss, Jordan Pollack) on how to apply to graduate school. The students then came together for a networking lunch with Brandeis students, postdocs, and faculty. Lunch was followed by a well attended poster session, where 38 students had the opportunity to present their independent research. The day ended by awarding prizes for the best posters in five disciplines. The winners were:

Biology: Rahim Hirani, Hampshire College, “The regulatory role of Beta-Arrestin 1 in prostate cancer cell proliferation”
Neuroscience: Paige Miranda, Wellesley College, “Metabolic Processes Driving Hippocampal Long Term Potentiatio”
Biochemistry: Myfanwy Adams, Wellesley College, “Expression of a Cardiac ATP-sensitive Potassium Channel in a Heterologous Cell Line”
Chemistry: Natsuko Yamagata, Brandeis University, “Exploring the Unexplored: Supramolecular Hydrogels of Retro-Inverso Peptides for 3D Cell Culture”
Physics: Jameson O’Reilly, Northeastern University, “A capillary-mimicking optical tissue phantom for diffuse correlation spectroscopy”

The Division of Science is committed to supporting local undergraduate research, and is excited about the possibility of these bright young scientist choosing Brandeis for their graduate study. We look forward to hosting similar events in the future!

Filed Under: events, labs, Physics, Undergrads Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Four Brandeis Science Grads Receive 2016 NSF Graduate Fellowships

April 3, 2016 By

GRFP_logoA science education at Brandeis University can be a springboard to future science achievements. We would like to congratulate four of our science graduates who have received the prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships for 2016.

Noam Saper

Noam was an outstanding student graduating summa cum laude with highest honors in Chemistry in 2015. At Brandeis, Noam worked in the labs of Prof. Barry Snider and Prof. Christine Thomas. He co-authored 3 publications with Snider and Thomas.

Noam received multiple awards including the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship (2014); the Elihu A. Silver Prize (2014); and the Doris Brewer Cohen Endowment Award (2015).

Following graduation and enthralled by the mysteries of the west coast, he decided to attend the University of California, Berkeley. Noam is working on mechanistic studies of Ni-catalyzed diaryl ether hydrogenolysis in Professor John Hartwig’s laboratory.

Alexandra Sun

Another outstanding Chemistry student, Alexandra Sun graduated magna cum laude with highest honors in 2015. Alexandra also worked in Christine Thomas’ lab where she carried out research on Transition Metal Complexes Featuring a Redox-Active Bidentate Amido-Phosphido Ligand. Alexandra received the Melvin M. Snider Prize in Chemistry in 2015.

She is currently a first-year student in the Chemistry Department at the University of Michigan working with Professor Corey Stephenson on developing new methods in photoredox catalysis.

Abigail Zadina

Abigail received her BS/MS in Neuroscience in 2013. Working in Michael Rosbash’s lab, she was a co-author on 2 publications and received numerous awards including the Doris Brewer Cohen award and the Elihu Silver Prize. In 2013, Abigail discussed her science experience in the Brandeis publication Imprint.

Following graduation, Abigail worked at Columbia in Richard Axel’s lab. She is currently a PhD student in Neurobiology and Behavior at Columbia University.

Joseph Jacobowitz

Joseph Jacobowitz received his BS/MS in 2014, graduating summa cum laude with Highest Honors in Biochemistry. While a Brandeis undergraduate, Joseph co-authored a publication with his faculty mentor, Doug Theobald. In 2013, Joseph received the Division of Science Prize for Outstanding Research Accomplishment and the William P. Jencks  Award in Biochemistry in 2014.

Joseph is in the Biology PhD program at MIT, working for Jing-Ke Weng on the origins of chemodiversity in plants.

Summer Research at Brandeis

All four science graduates had the opportunity to jump start their careers by doing summer research at Brandeis. Noam, Alexandra and Joseph were Division of Science Summer Undergraduate Research Fellows (SURF). Abigail received a Computational Neuroscience Traineeship.

These undergraduate research programs enable students to spend their summers at Brandeis engaged in intensive undergraduate training and summer research. Both programs provide a stipend, faculty mentoring and full-time lab research. The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellows work culminates in a poster presentation summarizing their work. The SURF program is funded by generous donations from alumni. The Computational Neuroscience Traineeship program begins in the summer and runs through the following academic year. It is funded through a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. 

Filed Under: awards, Biochemistry, chemistry, labs, Neuroscience, Undergrads Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

SPROUT Continues Growing Support for Brandeisian Innovators

February 19, 2016 By

Lil_Sprout_smallProgram Will Bestow Up to $100,000 to Promising Research Proposals

Could your research impact the world or do you have an idea that could create positive change? Need funding? SPROUT can help with that.

The popular SPROUT program, now in its sixth year, has announced increased funding for the 2016 round of proposals. SPROUT is funded by the Office of the Provost and run by Office of Technology Licensing. This year the Hassenfeld Family Innovation Center, recently created to support entrepreneurial and innovative collaborations happening across campus, contributed an additional $50,000 to be disbursed among the most promising requests.

Historically, the program has supported a diverse scope of lab-based innovations 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 ranging from treatments for diseases to lab tools.  Brandeis lab scientists have pitched their projects, including HIV vaccines (Sebastian Temme, Krauss lab),  neuroslicers (Yasmin Escobedo Lozoya, Nelson lab) and the use of carrot fiber as an anti-diabetic  (Michelle Landstrom, Hayes lab) to a panel of distinguished, outside judges. A SPROUT award can jumpstart your innovation and lead to continued opportunities. SPROUT awardees researching the use of carrot fiber as an anti-diabetic food agent were just awarded additional funding by the Massachusetts Innovation Commercialization Seed Fund program.

Other successful projects include “Enzymatic Reaction Recruits Chiral Nanoparticles to Inhibit Cancer Cells” led by Xuewen Du from the Xu lab, “Semaphorin4D: a disease‐modifying therapy for epilepsy” led by Daniel Acker of the Paradis lab, “X‐ray transparent Microfluidics for Protein Crystallization” led by Achini  Opathalage from the Fraden lab and “New and Rational Catalyst Development for Green Chemistry”  from the Thomas lab.  Those interested in learning more about past SPROUT winners are invited to read this recent Brandeis NOW article. A list of additional winners, along with their executive summaries, is available on the Brandeis OTL website.

Teams seeking support for scientific projects which require bench research, lab space, and/or lab equipment are encouraged to submit an abstract prior to the March 7 deadline. The competition is open to the entire Brandeis community including faculty, staff, and students. The Office of Technology Licensing will conduct information sessions on Thursday, February 25th 11:30 a.m.‐12:30 p.m. in Volen 201 and on Monday, February 29th 1:00 p.m.‐2:00 p.m. at the Shapiro Science Center, 1st Floor Library. Staff will address the application process as well as specific questions and interested applicants are highly encouraged to attend.

More details regarding the SPROUT awards, process and online application may be found at bit.ly/SPROUT16.

Filed Under: Biochemistry, Biology, chemistry, Computer Science, grants, labs, Neuroscience, Physics Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

DUB inhibitors _or_ why you should you eat your broccoli

November 11, 2015 By

Eat your broccoli!

We’re constantly bombarded by advice on which foods to eat or not eat, but skeptics among us often find compelling evidence for a convincing mechanism of how the foods promote health hard to come by – food has many components, and there are many different cells and metabolic pathways in those cells with which those components interact.

phenethyl isothiocyanate (a component of cruciferous vegetables)

phenethyl isothiocyanate (PEITC, a component of cruciferous vegetables)

Consider broccoli. It is well established that cruciferous vegetables have wide-ranging health benefits, apparently reducing cancer risks and lowering inflammation.  One set of phytochemicals responsible for the potent anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory properties are called isothiocyanates or ‘ITCs’.  It is now four decades since the discovery of ITCs, yet a molecular understanding of what ITCs do in a cell has proven elusive.

In a paper published this month in Cancer Research, Brandeis research scientist Ann Lawson, working in Liz Hedstrom’s laboratory, together with graduate students Marcus Long (Biochem) and Rory Coffey (Mol Cell Biol) and scientists from UbiQ and from Boston College, has shown that ITCs block the action of deubiquitinating enzymes (DUBs),  including the tumorigenesis-associated enzymes USP9x and UCH37, at physiologically relevant concentrations and time scales.

DUB inhibition provides a simple, unifying explanation that can account for many of the diverse health effects of ITCs. Understanding of how ITCs work at the molecular level may, one day, lead to new drug therapies for illnesses such as cancer, chronic inflammation, and neurodegenerative diseases.

Are you ready for your broccoli now? Me, I think I’ll have some kale sprouts.

Lawson AP, Long MJ, Coffey RT, Qian Y, Weerapana E, El Oualid F, Hedstrom L. Naturally occurring isothiocyanates exert anticancer effects by inhibiting deubiquitinating enzymes. Cancer Res. 2015

Filed Under: Biochemistry, Biology, grad students, labs Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

2 New Faculty Members Join Biochemistry

June 9, 2015 By

Tijana Ivanovic and Maria-Eirini Pandelia have joined the Biochemistry department. Both of the new faculty members will begin at Brandeis in January 2016.

tijana_photoTijana Ivanovic, is currently a postdoc at Harvard Medical School.  Stephen C. Harrison is her advisor. She received her PhD in Virology from HMS and her BS in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics from UCLA.

Her research focuses on uncovering fundamental molecular mechanisms of virus translocation across biological membranes, in the distinct contexts of enveloped-virus membrane fusion and nonenveloped-virus membrane penetration.  She applies and develops advanced biophysical and biochemical approaches and combines them with those of virology, molecular biology and cell biology.

Dr. Ivanovic received a grant from the L’Oréal USA For Women in Science fellowship program in 2011.

pandeliaMaria-Eirini Pandelia‘s ‘scientific journey’ started from Greece, where she received her undergraduate degree in Physics from the University of Patras and master of sciences degree in applied Mathematics and Physics from the National Technical University of Athens. She carried out her graduate studies in Germany at the Max-Planck Institute (MPI) of Chemical Energy Conversion (formerly known as MPI for Bioinorganic Chemistry) and received her doctoral degree from the Technical University of Berlin. This was followed by 3 years as a postdoc at PennState University in the Bollinger/Krebs laboratory.

Her research lies in the interface of Chemistry, Biology and Physics with particular focus on the study of metalloenzymes. Her work encompasses the combination of spectroscopic and biophysical techniques together with structural biology and phylogenetics to address the modus operandi of metalloproteins and bioinorganic complexes. Her main expertise is in Mössbauer and EPR spectroscopies coupled to time-resolved kinetics (optical, FTIR) and redox potentiometry. She is interested in understanding how diverse enzymes carry out their bio-transformations and how reaction selectivity in homologous proteins is achieved.

Maria-Eirini’s work at Brandeis will be centered on delineating the mechanisms according to which metalloproteins involved in processes essential for life perform the activation of small (or larger) molecules, how the specific identity of the metals in the active sites allows their chemical diversion and selectivity and what the functional role of iron-sulfur clusters in proteins involved in DNA synthesis and repair is.

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Biochemistry, labs Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Protected by Akismet
Blog with WordPress

Welcome Guest | Login (Brandeis Members Only)