News & Fun

Welcome to new rotation student, Nikita Kupko!

Welcome to our new research associate, Isabella Ruiz!

February 2024 was an epic month for lab birthdays on Valentine's Day (Mike), Presidents' Day (Sage), and Leap Day (Muskaan, who officially turned 6)!

Welcome to new rotation student, Alexios Staikos!

Check out João and Matt's paper in collaboration with the Taunton lab showing a cool molecular glue mechanism used by the eRF1 degrader SRI-41315!

Sage is also happy to report she made it back from a cabin in the woods, and we kicked off the year celebrating Dawa's and Michael's birthdays together with a post-holidays gift exchange!

We may be consistently down a few members due to illness these months, but that won't stop celebrations of random donuts, our pumpkin carving win, Yingshi's next steps, the holidays, and Dawa's postdoctoral fellowship!

Celebrating João's belated birthday and accepted-in-principle paper!

Another Cell Bio retreat in the books!

It's been a fully packed summer (that's sadly almost over), so time for a massive photo dump from birthday celebrations, a big lab cleaning (in which we found unexpected lab treasures), and this year's lab retreat at The Cape!

Welcome to Dawa, a new postdoc!

3 lab members at 2 international conferences happening simultaneously near each other = successful mini-lab meeting in Croatia!

Also congratulations to Jingjing on her selection as a Reed Memorial Fellow!

Today is Shuhui's last day in the lab after wrapping up his project with the Liao lab - sending him off with a feast and obligatory caffeine detour, and wishing him the best for his next position at Yale!

More parties with the Harper lab, stocking up on LB Amp plates courtesy of rotation student Justin, and some Colorado friends after a great RNA symposium!

Welcome to BBS rotation student, Justin Brueggeman!

Happy birthdays, etc.!

Welcome to BBS rotation student, Della Syau!

It's a good week for a Logan visit to lab and our holiday party with the Harper lab!

It's Matt's last week in the lab! He's obviously made a huge impact. Wishing him the best as he heads off to a well-deserved break - after being stuck in the US for ~3 years due to the pandemic/visa constraints - before moving on to a postdoc!

Also, we celebrated another birthday (this time João's), and we're excited to share our paper describing how corrective protein quality control by ATP13A1 prevents wasteful ERAD of mislocalized and misoriented proteins that are still capable of folding properly!

Photo dump from Matt's birthday celebration, departmental retreat (and associated prep), and obligatory lab pictures with new swag!

Also check out this paper analyzing eEF1A inhibitors - amazing work combining structural, single molecule, and additional functional assays led by the Taunton and Blanchard labs!

We welcomed two new postdocs this week! Fun fact: both Yingshi and Michael did their PhD studies at Princeton (in nearby bays but in different labs). 

Also caught on camera a Galleria dinner run during long purifications and some celebratory mimosas during a lab meeting. Finally, check out the review Mike worked on summarizing how the ER interfaces with mechanisms governing nascent protein localization!

Second successful thesis defense from the lab in the books - congratulations to Matt on a great seminar, expertly fielding questions, and an extremely productive PhD! Matt's hard work, formidable intellect, and characteristic food/beverage choices have been integral to the first era of the lab. It's been a huge privilege to be a part of his scientific journey, and we can't wait to see the amazing things he'll do next...after taking advantage of his presence for a few more weeks :)

The theme of the week has been lab bonding! Last Thursday, we went to the lab's first Red Sox game at Fenway to wish Rodrigo farewell (Red Sox won!). This week, we had our lab retreat in the White Mountains, featuring productive brainstorming, varied scenic walks, taking the cog railway up Mt. Washington, and great food (and weather - an unexpected bonus)!

It's a memorable RNA day coinciding with the publication of Matt and Sam's work showing how the hybrid E2/E3 enzyme UBE2O selects its clients, such as unassembled ribosomal proteins, for degradation!

Also check out our recent paper with the Kranzusch lab reporting the structure of an active bacterial TIR-STING filament complex and collaborative preprint taking a closer look at inhibitors that trap eEF1A on elongating ribosomes.

Finally, conference season calls for an updated lab photo (carefully coordinated around busy social schedules and immediately sent to France) to show off our new lab members, new experiences such as trying out cocktails at a brewery (thumbs up), and documenting Sage reunions.

Welcome to our new research associate, Muskaan Vasandani!

Welcome to SHURP student Rodrigo Berber-Pulido from UCLA! Rodrigo will spend the next ~9 weeks working with Sam on QC adaptor proteins!

We're excited to have Shuhui Wang from Maofu Liao's lab joining us to finish his project and help on new ones! Today is also Sam's birthday and the date Susan is officially promoted to Associate Professor, thanks to the lab's hard and amazing work over the past years (during which Sage has perfected her boss pose and assembled her golden posse during boarding stints)! Looking forward to more exciting things to come!