The Group went to Cornwall Park today for a barbecue. This is also an opportunity to say goodbye to Oi Wei.
Oi Wei joined us three years ago in January 2017 as a University of Auckland Doctoral Scholarship student. She was supervised by Dr Jóhannes Reynisson (formerly the University of Auckland) and Ivan. She worked on several projects that are related to drug discovery during her PhD, mastering both experimental and computational techniques. In addition, Oi Wei also spent time in the laboratory of Dr Alex Wolf at Helmholtz Zentrum München to learn about cell biology work.
Oi Wei worked on several proteins that are related to human health and disease. She studied the palmitoylation and depalmitoylation enzymes that are involved in infantile Batten disease, heat shock proteins, and 2-oxoglutarate and Fe(II)-dependent enzymes that are linked to cancers. To date, Oi Wei has published one paper as first author at IJMS, which has an impact factor of 4.183. Oi Wei has a couple of manuscripts that are currently under preparation/review. We are aiming to write up more of Oi Wei’s work for more publications later this year.
Congratulations to Oi Wei, who submitted her PhD thesis for examination today. Oi Wei joined the group in January 2017 as a University of Auckland Doctoral Scholar. She did several projects that are related to different aspects of drug discovery during her PhD. Oi Wei has successfully developed and mastered a very wide range of skills, from virtual high-throughput screening to solid phase peptide synthesis, gene knockdown by RNAi to protein refolding, during her PhD studies. Oi Wei was co-supervised by Dr Jóhannes Reynisson (formerly the University of Auckland). She has also spent time in the laboratory of Dr Alexander Wolf at Helmholtz Zentrum München. Oi Wei has published one paper so far. Several more are currently under review or under preparation. Well done and very best of luck for your oral examination later this year!
Congratulations to Dr Yu Li for her new co-authored paper that was published in the journal Foods today (impact factor: 3.011). Dr Yu Li contributed to this work by performing NMR analyses to quantify active components in Manuka honey yogurts. This work was led by Anand Mohan and his supervisor Associate Professor Siew-Young Quek and in collaboration with the company Bioactives Research New Zealand Limited. Dr Yu Li was supported by a Callaghan Innovation R&D Career Grant, which she obtained after receiving her PhD in 2018.
We are very excited that Danilo’s paper in IUBMB Life – “Effect of consecutive rare codons on the recombinant production of human proteins in Escherichia coli” – has been selected by the Editors to feature as a short highlight at the front of the latest issue. Danilo has also very recently started his postdoc in Italy – so many congratulations and well done!
Simran graduated with a First Class MSc degree in absentia at the University of Auckland Spring Graduation earlier in September. She just sent us this photo of herself with the certificate. Simran is currently pursuing her PhD degree at the laboratory of Dr Wei Shen Aik at the Hong Kong Baptist University. Well done and good luck with your research!
Thank you Professor Konstantin P. Volcho and his colleagues at the N.N. Vorozhtsov Novosibirsk Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences for including us in this very productive project on TDP1. Congratulations to Jinal and Raina for their contributions towards this new co-authored paper in IJMS. Hopefully we will be able to progress some of these compounds further and towards the clinic in the future.
You can read the paper by following the link here.
We are delighted for the support of a project grant-in-aid from the Maurice and Phyllis Paykel Trust to help our effort in developing novel molecules to tackle the global antibiotic resistance crisis. This is a joint project with colleagues at the University of Auckland (A/Prof. Chris Squire and Dr Viji Sarojini) and Auckland University of Technology (Dr Jack Chen). We are also grateful with the continued support of our overseas collaborators for the wider project.
Congratulations to Nabangshu. His co-authored paper on PC-PLC was published today in the European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry (impact factor: 4.816). This work was led by Dr Jóhannes Reynisson of Keele University (and formerly at the University of Auckland), and in close collaboration with Associate Professor David Barker at the School of Chemical Sciences and Dr Euphemia Leung of the Auckland Cancer Society Research Centre. You can read the paper by following the URL below.
Ivan attended the 12th Australian and New Zealand Society for Magnetic Resonance conference (ANZMAG 2019), which was held in Bunker Bay in Western Australia. Ivan was part of the scientific committee and co-chaired the Drug Development session (with Dr Lorna Wilkinson-White of the University of Sydney). It was an excellent NMR conference that is organised and chaired by Dr Ann Kwan of the University of Sydney.
ANZMAG 2019 was held at the Pullman Bunker Bay ResortBunker Bay BeachBunker Bay BeachBunker Bay is a short 3-hour drive away from Perth, capital of Western Australia
