Structural and Mechanistic Enzymology
Congratulations to Dona, who submitted her BScH dissertation this afternoon. Dona had a very successful year working on the structural and inhibition studies of a plant enzyme that is involved in ethylene biosynthesis. She managed to produce a dissertation of over 120 pages long with four ‘results chapters’, which is no mean feat for essentially two semesters’ work. Well done, and we look forward for her to start her PhD research soon.
Two summer research projects are available for summer 2016/17. Detailed project descriptions can be found here.
Prospective students are encouraged to contact Ivan by email before applying.
Information about how to apply can be found on the University of Auckland Summer Research Scholarships Website (Project codes: SC1061 and SC1062).
Please note that the application deadline is 29th July 2016.
We attended the 8th Annual School of Chemical Sciences Research Showcase at the University of Auckland Business School on Wednesday 8th June. Danilo and Praveen each gave a 2-minute presentation about their research in their first year, Yu gave a poster presentation on her work on polyphenol oxidase, and Mike gave a presentation on his work on HSP90, which he carried on from Nasri’s BScH project.
Well done Dona for delivering her BSc(Hons) presentation this afternoon on her work in the development of ethylene biosynthesis inhibitors.
It was an entertaining afternoon of talks featuring eight BSc(Hons) students with projects ranging from geochemistry to inorganic chemistry, photochemistry to total synthesis.
We are delighted that Ivan has been awarded an Emerging Researcher First Grant by the Health Research Council of New Zealand. The project will investigate the links between translation dysregulation and Parkinson’s disease. We thank the reviewers and the HRC Science Assessing Committee for their work and decision.
The School of Chemical Sciences have launched its official Facebook page!
The URL is http://www.facebook.com/SCS.at.UoA.
You can find out updates of School events and the latest news from the School on the Facebook page.
Visit and ‘Like’ the page today!
Time flies and Paris will be returning to Wellington to continue with her studies on Wednesday. She spent eight very successful weeks in our lab, and she contributed to the expression and purification of two enzymes. Well done and good luck!
Ivan gave a Talk on the applications of ligand-based NMR spectroscopy in inhibitor discovery on the 15th of December at the Pacifichem 2015 conference (Symposia: Fragment-based Lead Discovery; Subject Area: Bench to Bedside: Chemistry of Health Care).
Pacifichem is one of the largest chemistry conferences, and this year it is attended by over 15,000 delegates. It is hosted at five different locations (hotels and convention center) in Waikiki, Honolulu, Hawaii between the 15th and 20th of December, 2015. The conference is organised by the American Chemical Society in collaboration with chemical societies in the Pacific Basin region, including the New Zealand Institute of Chemistry.
Ivan would like to acknowledge the School of Chemical Sciences and the Biochemical Society General Travel Grant for funding.
Yu and Ivan attended the ANZMAG 2015 conference that was held in Paihia, New Zealand.
Ivan was an invited speaker to the conference. He gave a Talk on Monday afternoon on the mechanistic studies of glutathione-dependent formaldehyde activating enzyme (GFA), a piece of work that Ivan has started working on during his post-doc years at Oxford (in collaboration with and led by Dr Richard Hopkinson). The project was only just completed a couple of months ago and a paper is currently under review.
On Tuesday afternoon, Yu presented her poster on an NMR-based assay that she developed to study the activity and inhibition of polyphenol oxidase, a piece of work that was done in collaboration with Professor Paul Kilmartin. Yu is currently trying to finish off some remaining experiments and then she will start writing the work up for publication.
On Wednesday afternoon, we had a free afternoon and we had an excursion to the Waitangi Treaty Grounds to learn about the history of New Zealand.
Following the Annual General Meeting today, Ivan is excited to be able to serve as Treasurer of the NZIC Auckland branch for a year.
Number of posts found: 183