Edgardo (Ed) De Leon, one our group's incoming PhD students in fall 2026, has received the prestigious 2026/2027 Saint Louis University Diversity Fellowship Award for his impressive accomplishments, research proposal, and goals. This fellowship was awarded to only three newly-accepted graduate students university-wide, and includes a full tuition scholarship and monthly graduate assistant stipend for the next four years! Congrats Ed! We are so proud of you!
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Kendall Welge presented her research poster on building a model of a modified glycolytic pathway in cancer cells at the annual School of Science of Engineering Undergraduate Showcase. So proud of all of Kendall's accomplishments as she prepares for graduation!
September 2025: Chris presented his work on at the 4th Annual Institute for Drug and Biotherapeutic Innovation Research Symposium.
May 2-25 : End-of-semester ceebration lunch at Salsa de Rosa restaurant !!
Our research paper on predicting the interactions between glycolytic enzymes within a human cancer cell environment is now published in PNAS! The paper highlights the successful application of the first atomic-scale model of a human cell segment to study life-sustaining processes hidden within cells. Functional interactions of enzymes are often influenced by the crowded and complex cell environment surrounding them. Using classical molecular dynamics methods to simulate a segment of the cell cytoplasm environment, we predicted the mechanisms of these enzyme interactions at high spatiotemporal resolutions (beyond current experimental capabilities). The three enzymes (PGK, GAPDH, PGM) we examined were seen communicating via specific sticky patches on their surfaces, with the patches often occurring in the region of enzyme active sites. Force-field benchmarking further highlighted the important role of water in facilitating these enzyme-enzyme interactions.
Using the sticky patches, the enzymes were seen organizing into structures resembling “metabolons”- dynamic metabolic enzyme complexes. Such complexes are known to occur experimentally and facilitate metabolic pathways’ efficacy. Glycolytic metabolons have been associated with cancer cells by other experimental groups.
A recent publication in the Electronic Journal of Combinatorics presents both a refinement of and a companion to a partition identity that is about 110 years old! Research done by Matthew C. Russell, the mathematician in our household.
Premila's recent research collaboration work during her time at UIUC got featured in The Scientist magazine. Check out the link below on listening to protein folding!
Listen to a podcast Premila got invited to be on about computational modeling of in-cell protein dynamics during her time at UIUC:
The Premila Research Group at Saint Louis University is officially live beginning July 1, 2024!
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