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December 18, 2019: Efficient Protein Synthesis

Erica Thomas (Zaher lab) is a co-author

Verma et al. (Nature Commun 10, 5774) reveal how early ribosomal elongation events control protein synthesis.


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December 9, 2019: Activating Ribosome Quality Control

Leo Yan (Zaher lab) is first author on a Nature Communications paper

Chemically damaged mRNA trigger cellular quality control systems centered on the ribosome (Yan et al., 2019 Nature Commun 10, 5611)


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November 22, 2019: 2020 Howard A. Schneiderman Fellows

Vivian Kitainda (Jez lab) and Phillippa Tanford (EEPB, Penczykowski lab) receive Howard A. Schneiderman Graduate Fellowships.


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October 22, 2019: Repairing Photosystem II

Ginger Johnson (Pakrasi lab) is a co-author on Weisz et al. (PNAS 116, 21907) discover a new protein complex in the repair cycle of PSII.


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October 15, 2019: Center for Engineering Mechanobiology Grant to Natasha Bilkey

Natasha Bilkey (Dixit lab) receives a $10,000 grant to collaborate with UPenn postdoc Kalpana Mandal to study how directional growth of plant roots influences mechano-sensation.


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October 14, 2019: PMB Retreat 2019

Elizabeth Shank, UNC-Chapel Hill is the Invited Speaker. Click here for details about the 2019 PMB Retreat Program.


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September 27, 2019: New PhD!

Congratulations to Dr. Anne Phillips (Bart lab)!  Anne starts at New Leaf Symbiotics as a scientist this fall.


August 27, 2019: Welcome to the incoming 2019 PMB class! Jessica Bullock, Michelle Cho, Jenna Eschbach, Chris Harper, Anastasiia Onyshchenko, and Ryan Valdez – start their first week of classes at the program welcome dinner.

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August 23, 2019: New PhD!

Congratulations to Dr. Tayte Campbell (Dantas lab)!  He starts a postdoc in the Bailey lab at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.


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August 21, 2019: Venture Cafe 3-Minute Thesis

Rachel Jouni (Meyers lab) won 2nd place in the Venture Cafe at 39North 3-MT competition.  She talked about her work on the plant Argonautes.


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August 14, 2019: Molecular Cell paper on How Sticky Proteins Control Auxin Responses

PMB alum Sam Powers & David Korasick are authors

Powers et al. show how changes in Auxin Response Factor protein assemblies limit auxin responses.


July 30, 2019: New PhD!

Congratulations to Dr. Erica Thomas (Zaher lab)!  Erica will start as a consulting associate for Charles Rivers Associates in New York City.


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July 19, 2019: Two Gordon Research Conference Poster Prizes

Dinesh Gupta (Bose lab) wins the Trends in Microbiology and FEMS Microbiology Ecology Best Poster Prizes at the Applied & Environmental Microbiology Gordon Research Conference.


July 18, 2019: Strader Lab Developmental Cell article

Past PMB Students Tara Enders, Sam Powers, & Libby Frick are co-authors

Michniewicz et al. show that TOB1 (Transporter of IBA1) integrates cytokinin response and auxin homeostasis to regulate plant root architecture.


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July 3, 2019: CarD and Gene Expression in Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Dennis Zhu (Stallings lab) is first author on a PNAS paper

Zhu et al. (2019) suggest that the RNA polymerase binding protein CarD regulates diverse transcriptional outcomes in this pathogen.


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June 28, 2019: Congratulations to the 2019 William H. Danforth Plant Science Fellow

Wen-Hsi Kuo (EEPB, Olsen lab) is the 2019 fellow.


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June 26, 2019: Farewell Stacia – Hello Danielle

PMB bids farewell to Stacia as she takes a new position in DBBS and welcomes Danielle Gross as our new coordinator.


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June 20, 2019: PMB Faculty Member Tim Wencewicz receives a Camille Dreyfus Teacher Scholar Award


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June 7, 2019: Bob Blankenship’s Retirement Symposium. Biology, Lab Alum, & Friends Say Farewell

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May 15, 2019: Congratulations to All of Biology’s New PhDs

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May 14, 2019: American Society for Microbiology – Small Things Considered

PMB student Kevin Blake (Dantas lab) writes about extracellular electron transport on ASM’s blog.


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May 7, 2019: Reversing Isoniazid Resistance in Mycobacterium

Dennis Zhu (Stallings lab) is a co-author on Flentie et al. (PNAS 116, 8603-8) identified a small molecule that disarms antibiotic resistance in Mycobacterium.


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May 3, 2019: New PhD!

Congratulations to Dr. Samantha Powers (Strader & Jez labs)!  Sam starts as a scientist at Benson Hill Biosystems this June.


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May 2, 2019: New PhD!

Congratulations to Dr. Ben Wolf (Blankenship lab)!  Ben will be trying his hand as an entrepreneur with a start-up that he and colleagues are launching this summer.


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April 23, 2019: Association of Women Faculty Graduate Student Award

Jenny Shoots (Haswell lab) will receive the 2019 AWF Graduate Student Award, which recognizes efforts and contributions to the advancement of women on campus, in the community, and in academia.


April 15, 2019: Annual Varner Lecture

Peter Quail (UC Berkeley) presents “Dissecting Phytochrome Photosensory Signaling and Transcriptional Networks.”


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April 9, 2019: NSF Graduate Fellowship

Congratulations to PMB student Kiona Elliott (Bart lab) on her NSF-GRF!  Also, Kate Harline, a former undergrad in the Jez lab (now a plant biology grad student at Cornell) received an NSF fellowship.


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April 4, 2019: PCH1 and Phytochrome Phytobodies

Maria Sorkin (Nusinow lab) is a co-author on Huang H et al. (2019) PCH1 regulates light, temperature, and circadian signaling as a structural component of phytochrome B photobodies in Arabidopsis.  Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 116, 8603-8


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March 21, 2019: ASPB Stephen Hales Prize

Rick Vierstra is the 2019 APSB Hales Prize awardee.


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March 19, 2019: Tidying Up Cells

A new Cell paper from the Vierstra lab – Marshall et al. (2019) ATG8-binding UIM proteins define a new class of autophagy adaptors and receptors.  Cell 177, 766-81


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March 6, 2019: Prof. Josh Blodgett Receives an NSF CAREER Award

Josh’s CAREER award is to explore the genetic and biosynthethic diversity of actinomyctes, the microbes that produce a wide array of antiobiotics and other pharmaceuticals.


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February 1, 2019: Connecting Plant Lipid Signals and the Clock

Maria Sorkin (Nusinow lab) is a co-author on Kim et al. (2019) Interaction and regulation between lipid mediator phosphatidic acid and circadian clock regulators in Arabidopsis.  Plant Cell 31, 399-416


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January 28, 2019: American Academy of Microbiology Fellows

PMB faculty members Petra Levin and Bob Kranz were elected as Fellows in the American Academy of Microbiology, which is part of the American Society for Microbiology.