Monthly Newsletter AUGUST 2023
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August Content
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· From the Outreach Office
· August Events
· New Hires
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· BMB News
· New science alert
· Feature of the Month
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· Blog posts + social media
· Wellness
· Job Openings
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From the Outreach Office
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As we are all preparing for new graduate students to start up this month, please keep your eyes peeled for a workshop on how to manage your own lab website that we’ll be putting on! This will be aimed at faculty, or lab designee, who are interested in making changes to their own lab websites. We want to help you make your lab page as accurate and attractive as possible to draw in rotation students!
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August Events
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· No RIPS for the Summer
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· August 1st, 3pm – Ice Cream courtesy of the BMB Diversity Action Committee
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· 2023 Summer Undergraduate Research Program Poster Session will be held on Thursday, August 3rd from 1-4pm in the New Medical School Lobby
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· August 14th - New first-year graduate students are on campus!!!
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· August 15th – BMB goes to a Woo Sox Game!!!
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BMB Seminar Series
THIS IS YOUR CHANCE – invite your friends, your heroes, or your frenemies to be speakers in next year’s BMB Seminar Series! Thank you to Josué and Sy for organizing!
Reminder that you can invite anyone from any career stage to cover any topic (including things that aren’t strictly science).
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BMB faculty candidates – Keep in mind the following dates: August 14-15
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FREE (ish) Events in Worcester:
Every Tuesday – Half-Priced Pizza at The Mercantile
Every Thursday 6-8pm – Free Summer Concert Series
Every Tuesday – Grounding and Balancing Meditation
August 3rd, 6:300-7:30pm – Food is Medicine
August 5th, 12-6pm – 2023 Worcester African Festival
August 10th-13th – The Original Italian Festival
August 13th – Bluegrass Jam at Acoustic Java
August 17th, 11am-2pm – Out to Lunch Festival & Farmer’s Market
August 19th, 11am-9pm – 31st Latin American Festival
August 26th – UMass Memorial Health Community Healthlink Block Party
August 26th – 2nd Annual Polish Fest
August 28th – Caribbean American Carnival
Women’s World Cup Games:
August 1st, 3am – USA vs. Portugal
August 15th, 4am – Semifinal Game #1
August 16th, 6am – Semifinal Game #2
August 20th, 6am – FINAL GAME!
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New Hires
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Samer El-Khatib
New Role: Research Associate I. Somasundaran lab
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New Summer Interns
Bryan Escobar (Han lab.)
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BMB News
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Dr. Nick Rhind is joining the ASBMB’s Women in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Committee (WIBMB) to advocate for women in biochemistry and molecular biology. Congrats to Nick and thank you for your dedicated service through the ASBMB!
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Dr. Mary Munson has been elected president of the ASCB! She will officially be in charge in 2025, after a year of serving as president-elect. This honor is reflective of her years of service to the ASCB, including her time as co-chair of the Women in Cell Biology committee and a co-investigator of the AMP MOSAIC program.
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Work from the Kelch Lab graced the pages of ASBMB Today, spreading the magic of the “Rapunzel” virus far and wide.
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Many department members attended the 37th Annual Symposium of The Protein Society in Boston in Mid-July. The meeting was chaired by none other than Dr. Mary Munson and featured talks from Dr. Celia Schiffer and her trainee Vincent Azzolino. Helen Magana, Melonnie Furgason and Jill Zitzewitz were also in attendance and presented posters. Also present were Michelle Mosqueda, James Munro, Krishna Anand, Rakeyah Ahsan, Natasha Buwa, Brian Kelch, Narendar Kolimi, and Kristyn Norris.
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UMass Chan Celebrates Employee Milestones
UMass Chan Medical School was proud to recognize the university's long-serving employees at a recent ceremony. Congratulations to all our honorees!
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Dr. Elizabeth Shank’s work, as part of the Institute for Drug Resistance, was featured in Nature Medicine
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#Newscience alert!
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· Regulation of the Wnt signaling pathway during myogenesis by the mammalian SWI/SNF ATPase BRG1 (Imbalzano Lab) Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology
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· Donald Brown: Pioneer of embryo development and advocate for early career funding (Pederson Lab) PNAS
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· Sperm chromatin structure and reproductive fitness are altered by substitution of a single amino acid in mouse protamine 1 (Redding Lab) Nature Structural & Molecular Biology
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· An additive destabilizing effect of compound T60I and V122I substitutions in ATTRv amyloidosis (Scott Shaffer – Mass Spec core) Amyloid
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· Structure of the Schizosaccharomyces pombe Gtr-Lam complex reveals evolutionary divergence of mTORC1-dependent amino acid sensing (Song & Xu – Cryo-EM Core) Structure
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· RNA polymerase II dynamics shape enhancer-promoter interactions (Rando Lab) Nature Genetics
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· Systematic analyses of the resistance potential of drugs targeting SARS-CoV-2 main protease (Bolon, Schiffer, Kurt Yilmaz Labs)
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· Differential Contributions of mSWI/SNF Chromatin Remodeler Sub-Families to Myoblast Differentiation (Imbalzano Lab) Int J Mol Sci.
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· Cryo-EM structure of a RAS/RAF recruitment complex. (Song –Cryo-EM core) Nat Communications
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#Preprint alert!
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· FruitFire: a luciferase based on a fruit fly metabolic enzyme (Miller & Schiffer) BioRxIV
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Feature of the Month
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Each month the BMB Department features a department member's unique story.
This month, Haley chatted with MD/PhD student Webb Camille from Dr. Zuoshang Xu's lab. Please take the time to read about what he brings to our department (including his "extracurricular activity" of running a nonprofit!).
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Blog Post & social media
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How to Have a Successful Career in Biotech
by Haley Barlow, PhD
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Follow the BMB on social media
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Twitter
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LinkedIn
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Instagram
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Blog post
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Wellness
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This one’s for the caretakers of children out there: here are some tips to support the mental health of the youth in your life as they return to school.
Establish the school-day routine BEFORE they go back to school e.g. call the school and find out when their lunch time will be, and start transitioning them to eating lunch at that time.
Take a look at how you’ve been coping with stress recently and consider incorporating healthier coping mechanisms – youth learn how to cope with stress by watching the adults in their lives!
Talk about and acknowledge mixed emotions.
Find ways to help them become familiar with their new environment – meet the teacher, spend time on the playground, see the classroom, etc.
Monitor their behavior – many symptoms of a rapidly changing life of a young person (irritability, changing friend groups or activities, disruptive behavior, change of sleep habits, etc) look a lot like serious symptoms of mental health in young people. If you’re concerned about a kid in your life, try talking to them about your concerns or getting them screened for mental health disorders.
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Sources:
Back to school mental health
Kids’ minds matter
MHA national
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Emergency numbers:
EAP: 1-800-322-5327 or eap@umassmed.edu
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988
MA Behavioral Health Help Line (can also text this number!): 833-773-2445
SAMHSA National Helpline (in English and Spanish!): 1-800-662-4357
Worcester Community HealthLink: 1-866-549-2142
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Job Openings – share with your network
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Postdoc in the Kobertz Lab
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Postdoc in the Thompson Lab
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Academic Administrator for the BMB
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Postdoc in the Thyme Lab
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Research Associate II in the Schiffer Lab
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Research Associate III in the Schiffer Lab
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Research Associate I in the Bolon Lab
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Other links
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Do you have any suggestions?
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Share your news with us!
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Do you have a job opening? Let us know
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Social media feature request
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Miss a previous newsletter? They’re all on the BMB website!
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