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Drs. Natalie Niemi and Andrea Soranno were awarded the DBBS Outstanding Mentor Award on April 5th. This award recognizes a faculty member who has demonstrated exceptional mentorship qualities, providing invaluable guidance, support, and inspiration to graduate students in their academic and professional endeavors.
The mission of the BMB Research Seed Grant Program is to promote BMB researchers at all levels to develop new avenues of research and/or collaborations that extend beyond their lab’s current research. The BMB Research Seed grant program goal is to stimulate new interactions with external scientists outside of the department.
A broad spectrum of proposal topics will be considered including fundamental studies in biochemistry/biophysics as well as more applied or disease-oriented studies that utilize quantitative or mechanistic approaches as a central component of the research.
•2024 ASMS DEIA Mentorship Award
The Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) Mentorship Award recognizes Dr. Garcia who has demonstrated exemplary service in the STEM mentoring and/or recruitment of individuals from groups that are underrepresented in the field of mass spectrometry.
•2024 EAS Mass Spectrometry Award
Each year the Eastern Analytical Symposium honors Analytical Chemists who have distinguished career achievements. Dr. Garcia has been recognized for this award by advancing these fields by superior work in developing theory, techniques or instrumentation.
•President-Elect of the U.S. Human Proteome Organization
US HUPO is an organization that engages in scientific and educational activities to encourage the use of proteomics technologies and to disseminate knowledge pertaining to the human proteome and that of model organisms.
Dan is a fifth-year graduate student in the Computational & Systems Biology (CSB) program. He is completing his Ph.D. in the lab of Dr. Alex Holehouse, Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics, where he develops computational and experimental tools for investigating intrinsically disordered proteins and biomolecular condensates. (more…)
Tessa is a third-year graduate student in the Molecular Cell Biology (MCB) program. She joined DBBS in 2021 and chose to pursue her PhD thesis work in the lab of Dr. Natalie Niemi, where she studies how dysregulated mitochondrial protein phosphorylation influences the form and function of striated muscle. Specifically, Tessa addresses how hyperphosphorylation of mitochondrial proteins contributes to pathophysiology and tissue dysfunction in cardiac and skeletal muscles using cellular and murine models. (more…)
Madison is a second-year graduate student in the Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology (BBSB) program. She joined the BBSB program after receiving her B.A. in Biochemistry and Biophysics and M.Sc. in Biological Chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania. Her previous work focused on developing protein biosensors to be utilized for 129Xe Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy and Imaging in the lab of Dr. Ivan Dmochowski. (more…)
Lianjie “Jerry” Wei is a third-year graduate student in the Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology (BBSB) program. He is currently working in the Laboratory of Dr. Natalie Niemi in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics to complete his Ph.D. studies. His research is focused on understanding how protein post-translational modifications regulate mitochondrial organellar homeostasis. (more…)
Garrett Ginell is a fourth-year graduate student in the Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology (BBSB) program. He is completing his Ph.D. thesis work in the lab of Dr. Alex Holehouse (Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics), where he is applying and developing theoretical and computational methods to understand how chemical features encoded in intrinsically disordered proteins determine their propensity to interact with one another. (more…)
Jasmine is a recent graduate in the Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology (BBSB) program. She defended on April 21st, 2023. She did her PhD thesis work in the lab of Dr. Andrea Soranno, where she studied how sequence composition of intrinsically disordered regions within a protein can affect interactions with both proteins and nucleic acids using single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy.
Jasmine joined the BBSB program after receiving her B.S. from Stockton University in Galloway, New Jersey with a major in biochemistry & molecular biology and a minor in holistic health. Prior to starting her Ph.D. work, Jasmine studied polymer synthesis and how polymer interactions contribute to optimized hydrogel formation. (more…)
Ankita did her MS in Medical Biochemistry at Sardar Patel Medical College in India. She joined DRSCB program through the Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences at Washington University in Saint Louis in 2018 and is pursuing PhD in the lab of Dr. Eric Galburt in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics.
Ankita’s graduate research is focused on characterizing the activation mechanisms of a helicase and DNA repair protein called UvrD1 from Mycobacterium tuberculosis. She is using quantitative assays like analytical ultracentrifugation to determine the oligomeric status and stopped flow kinetics to measure DNA unwinding by UvrD1 in presence and absence of accessory factors.