Congratulations to Dr Danilo Correddu for being awarded the 2019 L. H. Briggs Memorial Prize. The prize was awarded annually for the most distinguished researcher who has submitted a PhD thesis in Chemistry, Food Science or Forensic Science in the year of the award. The selection panel commented that “Danilo took on something very tough, and cracked it!”. Danilo is now working as a postdoctoral researcher in the group of Professor Gianfranco Gilardi at the Università di Torino, one of the top five universities in Italy. Congratulations Danilo!
Congratulations to Naasson who has submitted his PhD thesis for examination today. Naasson’s PhD project was focused on the use of different chemical approaches to modulate the activity of HIF prolyl hydroxylase. Naasson is a very independent young scientist, and he has made some very interesting discoveries during his PhD. He has also started some fruitful collaborations with Professor Christian Hartinger and Dr Muhammad Hanif. Naasson’s PhD journey was not easy but he did well to overcome the different obstacles. He has already two publications with us, including a first author review and a co-authored paper. A couple more first author papers are currently under preparation and they will hopefully be submitted before the end of this year.
Thank you Naasson for all your hard work in the last few years. Congratulations and good luck with the examination.
Congratulations to Danilo for his first author paper that was published in ChemComm today. Thanks also to Nabangshu and Simran, who helped conduct additional experiments during revisions, and Naasson and Kyriakos (from Dr Viji Sarojini’s group), who helped with peptide purification and characterisation. The paper describes our work investigating the effect of S15 phosphorylation (by using a phosphomimetic mutation) to its intermolecular interactions. This work was funded by the Neurological Foundation of New Zealand, Health Research Council of New Zealand, Biochemical Society and the University of Auckland. You can read the paper by following the link here.
Congratulations to Dr Praveen George Vadakkedath for successfully defended his PhD Thesis today. Praveen was supervised by Associate Professor Duncan McGillivray, and co-supervised by Ivan & Professor Penny Brothers. Praveen worked on two main projects during his PhD – He studied the conformational change of an oxygen sensing enzyme called PHD2 using SAXS, and he also made and characterised some pH-responsive nanomaterials. In addition to his main projects, Praveen also contributed to the group by helping out with CD experiments and protein refolding. Praveen has published two papers with us so far – one review on PHD2, and he also co-authored a paper on protein production and characterisation. One more paper is currently under preparation and hopefully it will be ready for submission soon. Well done Praveen and many congratulations!
Congratulations to Mark-Anthony McLarin – His new review article on PPO substrate specificity was published in the journal “Critical Reviews in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology” today. Mark wrote a detailed review examining the various factors that govern whether PPO may accept monophenols and/or diphenols as substrates. The review was largely based on Mark’s introduction chapter in his BScH dissertation, which translated to a 35 pages long journal article with 27 figures. It is an impressive achievement as the article was almost entirely written and edited by Mark (with minimal edits needed). Well done!
Congratulations to Jinal who has submitted her PhD thesis for examination today. Jinal joined us 3.5 years ago and her PhD work has focussed on the studies of a DNA-repair enzyme called TDP1. Jinal’s project is central to a very successful collaboration with Professor Konstantin Volcho (N.N. Vorozhtsov Novosibirsk Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences), Dr Jóhannes Reynisson (Keele University and formerly the University of Auckland), Dr Euphemia Leung (ACSRC), and Professor David Barker (SCS).
Thank you Jinal for all your hard work in the last 3.5 years – often need to screen hundreds of compounds and to measure KDs with short notice. Thanks also for help looking after the lab and especially collecting store orders. Congratulations and good luck with the examination.
An interactive e-card to celebrate Jinal’s PhD Thesis submissionZoom celebrations for Jinal
Congratulations to Dr Oi Wei Mak for successfully defended her thesis in her PhD oral examination this afternoon.
The oral examination was conducted online via Zoom due to the coronavirus outbreak. Despite the unusual and difficult circumstances, Oi Wei performed well in her oral examination. I think the examiners appreciated the diversity of Oi Wei’s PhD work, which ranged from computational chemistry to enzymology to cell biology. I think her PhD is well-deserved :)
Zoom celebrations with the new Dr Mak after her oral examinationZoom celebrations with the new Dr Mak after her oral examinationZoom celebrations with the new Dr Mak after her oral examination
It was a privilege to give the weekly SCS seminar (and on Zoom for the first time) this morning. Many thanks to the amazing students of our Group – spending long hours in the lab collecting and analysing data. Thanks also to our collaborators and to our support staff. Finally, thanks to the audience for spending your Friday morning sitting in front of your computer listening. I hope it went OK because it was very strange for me to just speak to the screen!
Congratulations to Dona, who submitted her PhD Thesis for examination today. Dona spent 4.5 years in the group, initially as a BScH student and later on as a PhD. Dona is very enthusiastic about her science, and she did an excellent job investigating the ethylene-forming enzyme from both structural and mechanistic perspectives. Thank you very much Dona for your hard work, and also for all your help looking after the lab, and for guiding junior members of the laboratory.
We celebrated Dona’s submission virtually on Zoom today (thanks Nabangshu and Ryan for sorting out the e-card). Hopefully we can have a proper celebration later this year when the coronavirus crisis is all over. Finally, we wish you all the best in your upcoming postdoctoral adventure on the other side of the world.
A few papers from Dona will follow later this year so watch this space!
Oi Wei is attending the 45th Lorne Conference on Protein Structure and Function, which is currently being held in Lorne, Australia. She also managed to catch up with one of our former members, Dr Ram Bhusal, at the conference. Hope you are enjoying the conference with good science and networking!
