Talia Hatkevich, a PhD student in Jeff Sekelsky’s lab, gave a platform presentation at the EMBO Conference on Meiosis held the last week of August in Hvar, Croatia. Her talk was entitled “A novel function for centromere-specific SMC1 in Drosophila prophase I.” Talia was one of only two graduate students (and a similar number of postdoctoral fellows) to give an oral presentation.
Congratulations to Allen Hurlbert on receiving an NSF Macrosystems Biology grant titled “Causes, consequences, and cross-scale linkages of climate-driven phenological mismatch across three trophic levels.” This work will examine how climate change is impacting the seasonal timing of spring leaf-out, insect emergence, and migratory bird arrival and breeding. In addition to using the millions of observations of birds and butterflies contributed by “citizen scientists” from across the continent, Hurlbert is also expanding a new citizen science project called “Caterpillars Count!” which aims to monitor seasonal variation in abundance of caterpillars and other insects critical as a food source for birds.
Congratulations to Paul Maddox, who was awarded an NSF CAREER award for his work on DNA condensation. Chromosomes compact several orders of magnitude upon entry into mitosis via an as yet unknown mechanism. In addition, condensation occurs to varying degrees based on the size of the cell into which the DNA must fit. The Maddox lab will use innovative, quantitative microscopy to discover how these processes occur. This 5-year NSF grant also supports Paul and his lab in participating in several community outreach activities, to educate a broader segment of the population about his research.
Congratulations to Alain Laederach’s lab for renewing their NIH grant titled “Structural and functional consequences of disease SNP’s on the transcriptome.” The lab will continue to study riboSNitches and will also be able to delve deeper into RNA structure/function relationships in translationally regulated 5’UTRs. In addition, the lab has secured two additional collaborative proposals, one with Christine Heitsch (Math Department, Georgia Tech) titled “Multimodal RNA structural motifs in Alphavirus genomes:Discovery and Validations,” and another with Nils Walter (Chemistry Department, University of Michigan) titled “Timing and coordination of the conformational rearrangements mediating splicing.” In both of these collaborative projects the lab will actively participate in both the experimental and computational aims. In fact for the Georgia Tech project, which is funded through the Math Directorate joint NSF/NIH program, the Laederach lab’s role is primarily experimental. Neighboring labs in GSB need not worry, however, as Alain’s role remains completely “dry.”
Congratulations to Chanin Tolson and Lela Lackey (Alain Laederach’s lab) whose paper was recently published in the Biophysical Journal. Their paper, titled “Comparative Visualization of the RNA Suboptimal Conformational Ensemble In Vivo,” describes a novel approach for visualization of RNA structure using multi-dimensional scaling techniques to better normalize the Boltzmann suboptimal ensemble of RNA structures. In practice this approach is far more robust and allows accurate interpretation of the structural consequences of the cellular environment on RNA folding.
Congratulations to Kerry Bloom’s lab, whose paper has been published in Molecular Biology of the Cell. The paper is titled “Microtubule dynamics drive enhanced chromatin motion and mobilize telomeres in response to DNA damage,” and is featured as the cover article. Authors on the article include six undergrads from the lab: Timothy Barry, Raymond Barry, Brandon Friedman, Kristin Akiales, Diana Cook, and Alyssa York.
Congratulations to the Kerry Bloom lab, whose publication in Nucleic Acids Research features three undergrads working there: Diana Cook, Maggie Bennett, and Alyssa York. The paper is titled “Enrichment of dynamic chromosomal crosslinks drive phase separation of the nucleolus”. The journal publishes the results of leading edge research into physical, chemical, biochemical and biological aspects of nucleic acids and proteins involved in nucleic acid metabolism and/or interactions.
Congratulations to Kerry Bloom and Ted Salmon, whose review paper appears in BioEssays. The paper is titled “Tension sensors reveal how the kinetochore shares its load” and is featured on the journal cover.
Kelsey Gray (Greg Matera’s lab), a graduate student in Genetics and Molecular Biology, received an outstanding poster award for her poster titled “SCFSlmb mediates degradation of Survival Motor Neuron (SMN) protein” at the Department of Genetics Scientific Retreat.
Congratulations to Emilie Richards (Chris Martin’s lab) for her publication in PLOS Genetics titled “Adaptive introgression from distant Caribbean islands contributed to the diversification of a microendemic adaptive radiation of trophic specialist pupfishes.” Emilie demonstrates that rare introgression of adaptive alleles linked to novel craniofacial phenotypes may be necessary for adaptive radiation in addition to the traditional paradigm of ecological opportunity. Intriguingly, narrowly endemic species are assembled from different pots of genetic variation over a very large range.