News, etc.
Lab winter pot luck social - outstanding food and games!.
Dalia applied for a UNC core facilities voucher to fund the next phase of her project, and it was awarded! Martha also applied, and got outstanding review comments.
Dalia was profiled on the Department website. https://www.med.unc.edu/biochem/news/graduate-student-spotlight-dalia-fleifel/
2023 saw the return of in-person conferences! Brandon and Dalia both attended the Gordon Research Conference and Gordon Research Seminar Cell Growth and Proliferation in Vermont - both were selected for talks at the GRS, and Dalia gave a reprise to the full GRC! Rob attended the Cancer Molecular Therapeutics Conference in upstate New York and was also picked for a talk (we didn't get a photo). Liu and Martha both presented posters at the Salk Cell Cycle Meeting in San Diego.
Brandon's GRC poster was popular!
Dalia's GRS talk- got lots of unsolicited compliments too.
Martha and Liu at their Salk Cell Cycle posters
Liu will receive the 2023 Lineberger Cancer Center Pagano award for her 2022 NAR paper! That paper was also selected by editors and reviewers as a "Breakthrough Article." https://news.unchealthcare.org/2022/01/ground-breaking-study-reveals-dynamics-of-dna-replication-licensing/ - Congratulations!
Liu was also highlighted in this month's Departmental postdoc spotlight. https://www.med.unc.edu/biochem/news/post-doc-research-scholar-spotlight-liu-mei-phd/
Brandon and Dalia both won fellowships!
Brandon's award is from NIH/NCI, and Dalia's award is from the American Heart Association.
Congratulations to Brandon for finishing his first Boston Marathon! (April 2023)
MYTHBUSTED!
For anyone who wanted to blame their local yeast scientists for tissue culture contamination,we peformed the following experiment.
1. Strains PJ69a (two-hybrid screening strain) or DC14 (his1- and otherwise prototrophic strain) were inoculated directly into DMEM. Enough fresh yeast cells were added to make the medium very slightly turbid. Histidine was added to the DC14 cultures in case failure to grow in DMEM could just have been due to the particular auxotrophies in the inoculating strain. Tubes 1 and 3 had no inoculum; tubes 2 and 4 had yeast added.
2. Tubes were shaken at 30 degrees (optimum growth conditions for yeast) for FIVE days. (Yeast cultures normally grow overnight.)
Results: No Growth!
Contaminants in tissue culture medium are more likely Candida albicans
which is also a budding yeast, but is pervasive in the environment and probably likes DMEM a lot better than Saccharomyces cerevisiae lab strains do.
C. albicans info at Wikipedia
