Work in Progress(WIP)
Tuesdays,9:00am-10:00am, Room C2303 MCN
Where are they Now?....
... Some of them are just around the corner!
Dr. Rachel Bonami completed her doctoral degree and decided to stay on as a post-doctoral fellow in the lab of Dr. Tom Thomas. Here are some words of wisdom from Rachel:
Q: What do you currently do?I’m a postdoctoral fellow at Vanderbilt in the division of Rheumatology and Immunology.
Q: What do you enjoy most about your job? I enjoy having the intellectual freedom to pursue interesting, cutting-edge questions that are vital to finding a cure for type 1 diabetes. I have tremendous respect for all of my colleagues and am honored to share my days working alongside such a gifted and dedicated group of people.
Q: What advice would you give to current students in the department? Establish your long-term career goals as soon as possible. This way you can seek out any specialized training opportunities that could better prepare you for that path. Begin building your network now. Your peers will ultimately end up in interesting positions throughout the country, and you never know who might lead you to your next job opportunity!
Q: What are the pros and cons of being a student and a post-doc at the same department? The pros are that you can hit the ground running—you already know things like what core facilities are at the institution that you can take advantage of and you are better aware of collaboration opportunities. You already know most of the faculty and thus whom to seek certain types of mentoring from. The cons are that it is looked down upon in general. You will have to explain why you stayed and what novel training you are receiving when you apply for fellowships.
Q: What is your favorite memory from your time as an M&I graduate student and later on as a post-doc? My favorite memory as a graduate student is from a conference I attended with my mentor, Tom Thomas, who is well-known and respected in the B cell community. He invited me to lunch with several big hitters in the field, and there I was, elbow to elbow with my science idols. I kept waiting for one of them to look at me and give me the boot from the big kids’ table, but instead, they listened when I joined in the conversation. My favorite memory as a post-doc was learning that one of my papers was receiving a Faculty of 1000 recommendation. Versions of the paper were originally rejected by two other top journals, so don’t take no for an answer! I wound up splitting the work into two manuscripts, both of which I am proud of, so in the long run, I am thankful for the rejections.
Division Announcements
- December 11 - MP 2nd Friday Happy Hour - Sponsored by the labs of: Peggy Kendall, M.D. & Louise Rollins-Smith,Ph.D.- 4:00pm, room A5305 MCN. - December MP Division faculty meeting-No meeting in December. Holidays
- December 16 - Annual Christmas Party - Hosted by the GSA. See below for details.
- Mini-Sabbatical Awards are in for Immunobiology! Congratulations to:
- A total of18 publications featuring commentaries, reviews and primary research have posted on NCBI from faculty in our division since last month's myMP. A publication featuring some of Dr. Eischen's work is featured below. If you would like to contribute an article highlight, from your lab or the lab of a colleague within MP, please feel free to email us!
Our Publications - November
1. Dynamic allostery governs cyclophilin A-HIV capsid interplay. Lu M, Hou G, Zhang H, Suiter CL, Ahn J, Byeon IJ, Perilla JR, Langmead CJ, Hung I, Gor'kov PL, Gan Z, Brey W, Aiken C, Zhang P, Schulten K, Gronenborn AM, Polenova T. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2015 Nov 24;112(47):14617-22. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1516920112. Epub 2015 Nov 9.
9. Polymorphisms of large effect explain the majority of the host genetic contribution to variation of HIV-1 virus load. McLaren PJ, Coulonges C, Bartha I, Lenz TL, Deutsch AJ, Bashirova A, Buchbinder S, Carrington MN, Cossarizza A, Dalmau J, De Luca A, Goedert JJ, Gurdasani D, Haas DW, Herbeck JT, Johnson EO, Kirk GD, Lambotte O, Luo M, Mallal S, van Manen D, Martinez-Picado J, Meyer L, Miro JM, Mullins JI, Obel N, Poli G, Sandhu MS, Schuitemaker H, Shea PR, Theodorou I, Walker BD, Weintrob AC, Winkler CA, Wolinsky SM, Raychaudhuri S, Goldstein DB, Telenti A, de Bakker PI, Zagury JF, Fellay J. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2015 Nov 24;112(47):14658-63. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1514867112. Epub 2015 Nov 9.
"SMARCAL1 maintains telomere integrity during DNA replication."
Poole L.A. et al., PNAS, 2015 Dec 1. Dec 1;112(48):14864-9
DNA replication is challenging in all kingdoms of life and bacteria, archaea and eukarya have developed machineries to deal with challenges associated with DNA replication.
Sources of replication stress include damage in the DNA template that has to be fixed prior to DNA replication; collisions between replication and transcriptional machineries, and difficult-to-replicate DNA sequences.
In eukarya, specialized enzymes that are members of the SNF2 family of DNA-dependent ATPases are among the proteins "tasked" by the cell to resolve some of the challenges encountered by DNA replication. The SNF2 family of proteins act as DNA translocases, binding replication fork structures, hydrolyzing ATP, and performing branch migration reactions.
The SNF2 famliy of enzymes includes SMARCAL1 (SWI/SNF related, matrix-associated, actin-dependent, regulator of chromatin, subfamily A-like 1).
Although seemingly functionally redundant, SMARCAL1 and other proteins of the SNF2 family appear to also have unique characteristics that could be serving a specific function during DNA replication.
Poole et al., determined that SMARCAL1 is necessary for successful replication through telomere sequences.
Significance:These results demonstrate functional differences among seemingly functionally-redundant fork-repair proteins and identify the first (to the authors' knowledge) endogenous source of replication stress that requires SMARCAL1 activity for resolution.
December PSA: Don't let bacteriaruin your holidays! Washyour handsfrequently.
