Congratulations Dr Oi Wei Mak and Nabangshu Sharma for our new paper in Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters! In this work, Oi Wei applied virtual screening to identify novel inhibitors that disrupt the binding interactions between Hsp90 C-terminal domain and its co-chaperones. This was confirmed experimentally by Oi Wei and Nabangshu. Thanks also to our collaborator Dr Jóhannes Reynisson of Keele University (and formerly University of Auckland) for your help.
Congratulation to Brooke that her paper on the covalent inhibition of Mycobacterium tuberculosis isocitrate lyase is being featured in the latest edition of the RSC Medicinal Chemistry!
Well done Nabangshu, Eva, Vicky and Brooke for your virtual poster presentation at today’s Lorne Proteins 2021 conference. Due to COVID-19 we are unable to attend in person this year but hopefully we will back back next year in 2022!
Ivan relocated to the School of Chemistry and the Bio21 Institute at the University of Melbourne today.
At the moment, the core of the Leung Group (Nabangshu, Mike, Brooke, Vicky, Eva, Praveen and Ryan) is still based at the University of Auckland. Thank you for your understanding and I will make sure there will be minimal disruptions to your research. I would also like to thank everyone in the Leung group past and present, as well as my colleagues and friends at the University of Auckland for your help and support in the last 6.5 years.
Ivan will remain at the University of Auckland as an honorary academic until all PhD students graduate from the University.
Congratulations Dr Naasson Mbenza for submitting his hard bound PhD theses to the University library today! Naasson is now working as a postdoc with Dr Davide Comoletti at the Victoria University of Wellington on a COVID-19 vaccine project. Well done Naasson! We really appreciate your hard work & enthusiasm in science. All the best for your future career!
Congratulations Nnabangshu for submitting his PhD thesis today.
Nabangshu joined us in July 2017. He did an excellent PhD during his time in our group, working on a diverse range of projects. Of particular highlights are (1) developing a new MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry assay to study PC-PLC, (2) studied protein-protein interactions for a number of proteins including Hsp90 and human ribosomal proteins, and (3) pioneered the use of immobilised laccases for bioremediation. In addition to doing good science, Nabangshu is also a very keen science communicator. He has won multiple prizes at our School of Chemical Sciences Annual Research Showcase (as judged by external academic judges) and made a very engaging Green Magic YouTube video last year. He also help recorded a series of instruction videos for a new Chemistry course (CHEM 351) this year. Nabangshu also has a good publication record, with two co-authored papers (in Eur. J. Med. Chem. and Chem. Commun.) and a first author paper in Anal. Methods. At least a couple more papers are currently under preparation so watch this space!
Well done Nabangshu!
Celebrating with Nabangshu after his thesis submission
The Group went to our annual barbecue today. This year we went to Okoromai Bay at Shakespear Regional Park. I hope everyone day a good time (apart from getting lost in the park). Let’s get ready for a productive year ahead!
PS: Thanks everyone for the card and the presents.
Congratulations Nnabangshu and team for our new paper published in the RSC journal Analytical Methods.
In this paper, Nabangshu developed and optimised a MALDI-TOF assay to study the enzyme PC-PLC. The new MALDI assay is superior existing enzyme-coupled assays that may suffer from false positives. This is Nabangshu’s first ‘first author’ paper – Very well done and congratulations! Thanks to our collaborators at SCS and the FMHS as well!
We attended the School of Chemical Sciences Innovation Showcase 2020 today, which aims to connect the research that we do at the School with industry partners, government representatives and other external stakeholders. Eva presented her work on the mitigation of rumen methane production via a poster presentation, and Nabangshu gave a 2-min talk on his work developing novel laccase biocatalysts to degrade environmental pollutants.
Nabangshu giving his 2-minute talk on laccase biocatalysts.
Eva giving her poster presentation on methane mitigation.
