Author: pvdwel
Great Lakes NMR Symposium
On Friday Sept. 11th, Case Western Reserve University is organizing the Great Lakes Regional NMR Symposium. Congratulations to Abhishek Mandal for being selected to present a seminar on his work on membrane protein structural and functional studies! We hope to see you there!
Congrats to Jennifer!
Congratulations to Jennifer, who successfully completed her candidacy exam for the MBSB PhD program! Well done!
Summer Science Nation visitors!
Today (July 15, 2015) we had a great visit to our department from participants in Carlow University’s Summer Science Nation workshop aimed at high school girls interested in science. Group members, students and other scientists from the Department of Structural Biology and the Molecular Biophysics and Structural Biology graduate program participated in facility tours and seminars, telling the visitors about some of the exciting fundamental biomedical research ongoing in the department and in Pittsburgh.
New spectrometer update (revised July ’15).
Our new wide-bore 750MHz solid-state NMR spectrometer (funded by the NIH High-End Instrumentation Award program) is scheduled to be installed during the summer (July 2015) in the fall of 2015. This will bring exciting new solid-state NMR capabilities, including lower temperature operation and ultra-fast MAS, among other things. Stay tuned for further updates!
Biophysical Society Meeting 2015 in Baltimore
Members of the Van der Wel lab will be at the upcoming 59th Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society in Baltimore, MD. Come and see us (and our work) there!
Conference website: BPS 2015
Polyglutamine research funded by NIH
Starting January 2015, the NIH NIGMS has awarded our R01 proposal on the molecular characterization of the misfolding and aggregation of expanded polyglutamine proteins. Polyglutamine expansion underlies various related diseaseas, including Huntington’s Disease and several other ataxias. The nature of the misfolding mechanism and the structures of the misfolded species remain poorly understood. The R01 will support our ongoing studies using magic-angle-spinning NMR (and other tools) to provide the need structural insights.
Congratulations to Dr Cody Hoop!
Congratulations to Cody, for defending her PhD thesis entitled “Site-specific structure and dynamics of polyglutamine-containing amyloid fibrils and the caveolin scaffolding domain by magic angle spinning solid-state NMR.”!
Publication – Hoop et al (2014) “Polyglutamine amyloid core boundaries and flanking domain dynamics in huntingtin fragment fibrils determined by solid-state NMR.”
New publication on the structure and dynamics in fibrils formed from mutant huntingtin fragments, including a 44-Q exon-1. In the journal Biochemistry: Polyglutamine amyloid core boundaries and flanking domain dynamics in huntingtin fragment fibrils determined by solid-state NMR. DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/bi501010q
Publication – D-polyglutamine amyloid recruits L-polyglutamine monomers and kills cells.
New publication on the surprising features of D-polyQ, in the Journal of Molecular Biology: D-polyglutamine amyloid recruits L-polyglutamine monomers and kills cells. DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmb.2013.11.019
Eastern Analytical Symposium Award – Nov 2013
EAS New Faculty Award in NMR Spectroscopy !
Nov. 19 at the Eastern Analytical Symposium 2013, in Somerset, NJ.