Dr Koharudin's latest paper "The Phox Domain of Sorting Nexin 5..." published in the Journal of Biol. Chem., Vol. 284, Issue 35, 99942, August 28, 2009. has been selected as Paper of the week. You can find his author profile here Dr. Koharudin is a postdoc in Angela Gronenborn's lab.

Nayra Cardenes, a Postdoc in Peijun Zhang's lab, has been awarded two years fellowship (04/01/2009 to 03/31/2011) from Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. More information forthcoming...

MBSB Student, Wazo Mint has been chosen as a Pittsburgh Schweitzer Fellows Program (PSFP) Fellow for 2009-2010. Information about the PSFP program can be found on their website here. With a full list of this years honorees here.

Two department faculty have been recognized as 2009 Chancellor's Distinguished Research Award winners:

Judith Klein-Seetharaman was honored in the Junior Scholar category, which goes to a faculty member who has an outstanding and continuing record of research and scholarly activity, for her theoretical and experimental work in NMR studies of membrane proteins and rhodopsin research.

Angela M. Gronenborn was honored in the Senior Scholar category, for her pioneering and continuing work in the application of NMR spectroscopy in the study of protein structure.

Both will be recognized at the 2009 Honors Convocation with other outstanding faculty members and students, and will be congratulated personally by the Chancellor.

More information on the awards and other recipients here

In cooperation with the Pittsburgh Diffraction Society, we will be holding a one day workshop on crystallography on October 29th, the day before the 66th Annual Pittsburgh Diffraction Conference. http://www.pittdifsoc.org/PDC_2008/index.htm

Crystallography Made Easy Through Automation
Bringing structure determination to the general biology community

Description:
Recent advances in experimental automation have brought macromolecular structure determination closer to the non-experts in the field. This workshop will introduce the participants to what structural information crystallography can provide, the basics of crystallographic techniques (protein crystallization, x-ray diffraction data collection, and data analysis) and then demonstrate how these steps may be simplified by taking advantage of the automated facilities available at Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) and the Hauptman Woodward Medical Research Institute (HWI). In particular, HWI offers services for high-throughput crystallization condition screening and optimization and automated facilities at SSRL enable experimenters to remotely collect x-ray diffraction data for crystal quality analysis and structure determination using an internet connection at their home laboratory. SSRL also provides remote access to software and computing resources necessary for complete structure determination. Participants will get hands-on experience with some of the automation techniques used at SSRL and learn how to prepare crystalline samples for remote data collection.

Everyone in the general biology community who is interested in learning about how to make use of the technique of macromolecular crystallography enabled by automated technology developments is invited to attend (registration required).

A similar workshop was held last year at the University of Melbourne Australia. A description of the proceedings along with comments from participants is available at this website: http://mmsn.net.au/assets/images/events/SSRL_Feb_2007/SSRL07_ws_Oz_repor...

Registration:
To register please visit the workshop website:
http://www-conf.slac.stanford.edu/crystallography

There will be a $50 workshop registration fee payable after being accepted into the workshop.

Organizers:
Guillermo Calero (Department of Structural Biology, University of Pittsburgh)
Joanne Yeh (Department of Structural Biology, University of Pittsburgh)
Edward Snell (Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute)
Irimpan Mathews (Structural Molecular Biology, SSRL)
Aina Cohen (Structural Molecular Biology, SSRL)

The Department of Structural Biology at University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine will host an NMR Symposium to celebrate the inauguration of our NMR facility in the Biomedical Science Tower 3 (BST3). The symposium venue will be the Frick Fine Arts Building on the University of Pittsburgh campus. Sessions will begin on the afternoon of Tuesday April 29th with a keynote opening lecture by Ad Bax followed by the first scientific session. The evening will conclude with a reception and poster session and dinner in the Cloister of the Frick. The meeting will continue on April 30th with lectures in the Frick Auditorium. A tour of the Department’s NMR facility in BST3 is scheduled for midday with lunch hosted by Bruker Biospin. The meeting will conclude with a closing lecture by Bob Griffin.

For more information visit the Symposium website.

The Molecular Biophysics and Structural Biology Graduate Program will participate in the summer undergraduate research program (SURP) in Interdisciplinary Biomedical Graduate Program (IBGP) from summer 2008 onwards. We seek to provide a 10-week research experience of Molecular Biophysics and Structural Bioloy to undergraduate students. More info and on-line application here

NIH awards $16 Million for structure determination of HIV-cellular protein interactions. Read more.

Pitt Chronical coverage here

Pittsburgh Post Gazette coverage here

Pittsburgh Tribune Review coverage here and here

Professor of pharmacology Angela M. Gronenborn is among 72 members elected May 1 to the National Academy of Sciences. Gronenborn, an expert in nuclear magnetic resonance, is the UPMC Rosalind Franklin Professor and chair of the Department of Structural Biology.

Find out more information Here and
Pittsburgh Post Gazette coverage Here
Pitt Chronicle coverage Here