News
2024
Congrats to Thalya Sylos for receiving a Summer Fellowship from Division of Sciences!
Congrats to Qianyi Yang for receiving a Summer Fellowship from Division of Sciences!
2023
Congrats to Trent Quist, Henry Thanh Nguyehn, and Alex MacNiel for receiving funding from the SPROUT funding mechanism!
Congrats to Natalie Chin for receiving the Kaplan Prize for Outstanding Research and for Defending their honors thesis project with highest honors!
Congrats to Emma Xu for receiving the Dr. Joseph Garrison Parker Prize and for Defending their honors thesis project with highest honors!
Congrats to Ken Takeoka for receiving a Summer Fellowship from Division of Sciences!
Congrats to Grace Schwartz for receiving a Summer Fellowship from Division of Sciences!
Congrats to Henry Thanh Nguyen for receiving the Fori and Robert Kay Undergraduate Research and Creative Collaborations Fellowship!
2022
Congrats to Emma Xu for receiving a Summer Fellowship from Division of Sciences
Congrats to Isaac Paddy for receiving the Molly W. and Charles K. Schiff Award in Science!
Congrats to Michelle Langton for defending her PhD thesis with the title: "Characterization of Two Iron Containing Proteins: the Fe-S Cluster Protein, Hepatitis B Protein X and the Diiron HD-domain Oxygenase, PhoF"!!!
Congrats to Sining Sun for defending her PhD thesis with the title: 'Functional and Evolutional Diversification of Metal-dependent HD-domain Phosphodiesterases'!!!
Congrats to Chie Ueda for defending her PhD thesis with the title: 'The Biophysical and Spectroscopic Characterization of Redox-active Metallocofactors in a Viral Fe-S Protein and a Diiron HD-domain Phosphohydrolase'!!!
2021
Congrats to Isaac Paddy for receiving a Summer Fellowship from Division of Sciences
Congrats to Natalie Chin and Felicia Deng for receiving a Summer Fellowship from the Provost Fund!
2020
Congrats to Isaac Paddy and Paul Jiang for receiving Summer Fellowships from the Div. Sci and the Provost Fund!
2019
Josephine visited the LAB!
Congratulations to Jiahua Chen for receiving the Division of Science Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship for the summer 2019!!
2018
Having fun setting up the new glovebox!!
07.12.2018
Chie Ueda, Michelle Langton and Amy Milne got awarded $10,000 for their project with the title: 'Boosting the rational drug design of Hepatitis B by large scale production of the X antigen'.
Congrats!!
Matt Appell received for the Summer of 2018 the Helaine B. Allen Summer Fellowship! Congrats!
Yaotian Zhang received the Provost Summer Fellowship for 2018. Congrats!
2017
04.27.2017
Jeremy G. Koob received his BS-MS degree in Biochemistry with Highest Honors (Christine Thomas/ Maria-Eirini Pandelia).
He is the recipient of the Nathan O. Kaplan Award! Congrats!
Hepatitis B virus protein has unusual iron-sulfur cluster
C&EN Global Enterprise , 2017, Vol.95(15), p.11-11
In a step toward understanding how the hepatitis B virus (HBV) replicates and causes infection, a research team has determined that one of the virus’s four proteins may incorporate a unique iron-sulfur cluster. Team leader Maria-Eirini Pandelia reported this discovery at the ACS meeting. The protein, known simply as X, is only 154 amino acids long and is the least understood of the HBV proteins. HBV infects the liver and can cause short-term and chronic illness. Biochemists know that X interacts with a number of proteins in host cells and that it plays a role in virus infectivity, replication, and ultimately cancer formation. However, the protein’s structure and mechanism have remained elusive. Pandelia’s team started investigating X last year, after work by another group indicated that the protein incorporates iron. Elemental and spectroscopic analysis by Pandelia and colleagues shows that the protein contains a [2Fe2S] cluster when isolated in the presence of oxygen. When reduced, the cluster converts to [4Fe4S]. Exactly how the conversion occurs is unclear. Research keeps revealing more about the diversity and importance of iron-sulfur clusters in biological chemistry, commented metalloprotein spectroscopist Joshua Telser of Roosevelt University. “It’s never-ending.”
Xingchen Liu received for the Summer of 2017 the Helaine B. Allen Summer Fellowship! Congrats!