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WALII Researchers Attended the Allied Genetics Conference (TAGC) 2024 in Washington D.C.

4/17/2024

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Two WALII researchers, Alejandra Arroyo (undergraduate student) and Sheila Ferer (research assistant) from the Tapia Lab at CSUCI, recently presented their work at The Allied Genetics Conference (TAGC) 2024 in Washington D.C.  

​Alejandra’s talk, “Drying Without Dying: Small Metabolites Counteract Proteotoxicity During Desiccation,” was a presentation on how trehalose can help organisms survive desiccation and the role trehalose may play in mitigating desiccation induced protein aggregation.  

Sheila presented a new method for studying how yeast cells modulate protein expression levels and localization throughout dehydration and rehydration in her talk called “Global proteome rewiring in times of desiccation and rehydration.” Sheila also discussed her plans for utilizing automated-microscopy and custom machine-learning algorithms in high-throughput experiments the Tapia lab plans to conduct to further characterize proteins/proteins families that change localization under desiccation conditions.  
 
In addition to their presentations at TAGC, Alejandra and Sheila were recently featured in a CSUCI News Release. 
​
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WALII Scientists Received Student Research Achievement Awards at the 2024 Biophysical Society Meeting

4/2/2024

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Two graduate students from WALII labs, Kara Hunter (Sukenik Lab – UC Merced) and Jeff Lotthammer (Holehouse Lab – Washington University in St. Louis) have been awarded Student Research Achievement Awards (SRAA) for their poster presentations at the 2024 Biophysical Society meeting.
Kara Hunter received the award for her poster titled 'Designing Disordered Proteins for Desiccation Protection.' In this project, Kara and her collaborators developed a method to parse how the sequence of desiccation-related IDPs dictate function. They used a naturally derived and synthetic library created by GOOSE, a python package, expressed in yeast. Using Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS), they can see what sequences are most abundant post desiccation and confer greater protection.​
Headshot of Kara Hunter
Kara Hunter (Sukenik Lab – UC Merced)
Beyond advancing our understanding of IDP functionality, their research may uncover novel targets and mechanisms to bolster desiccation resilience in yeast and other organisms.  ​
Headshot of Jeff Lotthammer
Jeff Lotthammer (Holehouse Lab – Washington University in St. Louis)
Jeffrey (Jeff) Lotthammer received the award for presenting a poster on his work combining rational sequence design, large-scale molecular simulations, and deep learning to develop ALBATROSS. ALBATROSS is a deep learning model for predicting ensemble dimensions of IDRs – including the radius of gyration, end-to-end distance, polymer scaling exponent, and ensemble asphericity – directly from sequence. ​
ALBATROSS enables the instantaneous prediction of ensemble average properties at proteome-wide scale. ALBATROSS is lightweight, easy-to-use, and accessible as both a locally installable software package and a point-and-click style interface in the cloud. Jeff and his collaborators recently published a paper about ALBATROSS in Nature Methods.  ​
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MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
“WALII operates in part out of
Michigan State University. We acknowledge that Michigan State University occupies the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary Lands of the Anishinaabeg – the Three Fires Confederacy of Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi peoples. We affirm Indigenous sovereignty and hold Michigan State University accountable to the needs of American Indian and Indigenous peoples.”
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WALII is funded by NSF DBI grant #2213983
  • Home
  • About
    • Mission, Vision, Values
    • Institute Themes & Structure
    • Team
    • Code of Conduct
    • Scientific Advisory Board
    • Researcher Spotlight
    • Contact Us
  • Research
    • Overview
    • Surviving the Solid State
    • Rehydration & Recovery
    • Molecular Engineering
    • Evolutionary Dynamics
    • Integration of Themes
  • Training
    • Overview
    • Summer Internship Program
  • Careers
  • Events
  • Outreach
    • Overview
    • Seed Germination Necklace
    • Seed Longevity Experiments
    • Tardigrade Hunting
  • Publications
  • Resources
    • Training