Structural and Mechanistic Enzymology
On behalf of the NZIC Auckland branch, we hosted Dr Tobias Gruber of the University of Lincoln, UK for a seminar today. Dr Gruber gave an excellent talk on calixarenes and lactams. Dr Gruber is a good friend and collaborator and we hope to continue our fruitful collaboration in the years to come.
You can read the paper that we published with the Gruber Group by following the link here.
We farewell Esmée & Misha today. Esmée & Misha joined the Leung Group five months ago from Avans Hogeschool (Avans University of Applied Sciences) as intern students. They did very well and successfully produced several new proteins during their time in Auckland. We hope that you have enjoyed your experience (work and travelling) in New Zealand, and we wish you the very best of luck in your future studies!!
Today is Dr Aimee Son’s last day at the Leung Group. Thanks for your hard work in the last two years. Good luck for your next adventure at Harvard!
The Group went to Long Bay today for a barbecue. This is also an opportunity to say goodbye to Aimee.
Aimee joined two years ago as an FRDF-funded postdoc to work with A/Prof. Chris Squire and Ivan. She worked on an ambitious (and very competitive) project to tackle antibiotic resistance. Aimee’s work has focussed on the use of protein crystallography and biophysical techniques to understand enzymes that cause bacterial antibiotic resistance. She managed to publish a review article as first and co-corresponding author. We are aiming to write up Aimee’s work for publication(s) later this year.
Aimee will be joining the group of Dr Justin Kim at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute of Harvard Medical School. Good luck for your new adventure Aimee!
Congratulations Jinal for her third paper this year – “Novel Inhibitors of DNA Repair Enzyme TDP1 Combining Monoterpenoid and Adamantane Fragments”
This work is led by collaborators from Novosibirsk, Russia, and in collaboration with Dr Jóhannes Reynisson & his group at the School of Chemical Sciences in Auckland.
Members of the Leung Group showcased their work at two different conferences.
Aimee, Oi Wei and Nabangshu presented their work as posters at the AsCA 2018/CRYSTAL 32 Conference that was held in Auckland between the 2nd and 5th of December.
Jinal and her co-supervisor Dr Jóhannes Reynisson went to San Francisco to attend a conference on drug discovery. Jinal presented her work in the development of TDP1 inhibitors as a poster.
Following the Annual General Meeting of the New Zealand Institute of Chemistry (Auckland branch), Ivan will serve as the Chair of the branch for one year. Ivan hope this role will enable him to continue to promote chemistry to students, academics and the general public in the Auckland region.
We are grateful for the Royal Society Te Apārangi Marsden Fund for supporting our Fast-Start proposal to study the structural & molecular basis of enzymes that are involved in plant ethylene biosynthesis. We are very excited about the opportunity!
We would also like to take this opportunity to thank Associate Professor Chris Squire of the School of Biological Sciences for his mentoring and help with this application.
Congratulations to Jinal for her second paper in two months. This paper, which was published today in the European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry (2017 impact factor: 4.816), describes a new class of TDP1 inhibitors that shows synergy with topotecan, a clinically-used topoisomerase inhibitor. This work was conducted in collaboration with Dr Jóhannes Reynisson and his group, Dr Euphemia Leung of the Auckland Cancer Society Research Centre, and was led by our colleagues and collaborators from Novosibirsk.
You can read the paper by following the link here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejmech.2018.10.055
Congratulations to Jinal for her new paper that was published in Molecules earlier today. In this work, we used a combination of organic syntheses, biophysical measurements and molecular modellings to develop new TDP1 inhibitors. This work was conducted in collaboration with Professor Konstantin Volcho and his colleagues at the N. N. Vorozhtsov Novosibirsk Institute of Organic Chemistry, and Dr Jóhannes Reynisson and his group at the University of Auckland.
You can read the paper by following the link here.
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