A banner year for the Shen lab
2023 has been a banner year for the Shen lab. Here are some of our highlights in chronological order:
December (2022): Helen Donelick successfully defended her dissertation, “Fighting Viruses with Helicases: A Study on Invertebrate Dicer Proteins.” She began her new position at Thermo Fisher Scientific as a Cryo-EM Engineer in February 2023.
January: Our lab’s lysate-to-grid protocol was published in Bio-protocol. Check out how we do accelerated IPs to visualize structures of native and scarce protein complexes.
February: Shuxin Wang defended her dissertation, “Structural Visualization of Cellular Machines that Regulate Protein Folding.” She began her new position at Thermo Fisher Scientific, also as a Cryo-EM Engineer, in March 2023. She and Helen get to hang out together! Shuxin was also selected as a recipient of the inaugural Ken Jacobs Memorial Thesis Award.
June: Dakota Greer defended her Master’s thesis, “Biochemical Binding and Activity Study of a p97 Mutant Variant Associated with Multisystem Proteinopathy.” We wish her all the best as she begins her new career as a scientific recruiter!
June: Ian Cooney defended his dissertation, “Mechanism of Protein Unfolding by the Cdc48 AAA+ ATPase.” Ian’s productivity was truly remarkable.
July: Deirdre Mack awarded NIH F31 fellowship. It is wonderful to see her efforts in science and leadership being recognized. Deirdre is also now serving as the President of the University of Utah SACNAS chapter.
November: Shuxin’s paper on visualizing chaperone-mediated protein folding was published in Molecular Cell. This work was done in partnership with the Willardson lab (BYU). The combination of amazing biochemistry and cryo-EM image processing enabled us to visualize the step-by-step process of a beta-propeller protein becoming folded.
November: Anna Gilstrap was selected as one of 25 undergraduate researchers to present to Utah state legislators. Her presentation will be in January 2024. This is a wonderful opportunity to communicate the impact of our work to a non-science audience.
December: ???? More to come!
Rapid fire update! August 2020-2021
Much to catch up on. Each of these bits deserves its own post.
August 2020: Deirdre awarded with Chemical Biology PITCH training grant! The grant is supported by the NIH T32 mechanism. Learn more here: https://www.chembio.utah.edu/pitch
October 2020: R01 awarded to Barry Willardson lab (BYU) to study mechanisms of protein folding by the CCT/TRiC chaperonin complex. Collaboration well underway towards structure determination.
December 2020: Deirdre passes her preliminary exam and matriculates into PhD candidacy!
January 2021: Farewell to Manidip. We will miss you!
February 2021: Helen awarded with “travel” scholarship to present at the Keystone Symposium: Frontiers of Cryo-Electron Microscopy virtual meeting. Congratulations!
May 2021: NIH R25 grant renewed to further develop CryoEM 101 and create CryoET 101. MPIs Shen, Iwasa, and Brasch.
May-June 2021: Welcome Danyang, Aaron, and Caelen! Danyang is a postdoc and brings extensive chemistry experience to the lab; Aaron joins the lab as a PhD student through the Biological Chemistry PhD umbrella program; Caelen is a summer lab aide and will be starting her undergraduate studies at BYU in the fall.
August 2021: Helen selected as an 2021 M&M Student Award winner for her presentation at the annual Microscopy & Microanalysis meeting!
Present: Many irons in the fire. We are recruiting positions at all levels. Please reach out if interested.
Ian awarded with NIH F31 fellowship
July 2020 — Congratulations to Ian Cooney for being awarded the prestigious Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Award from the National Cancer Institute (NIH F31). This award will fund three years of Ian’s thesis studies.
Lab awarded funding for FPLC instrument
June 2020 — Congratulations to the lab for receiving an NIH Administrative Supplement to purchase a new AKTA go FPLC instrument. This equipment will broaden our capabilities to purify proteins used for biochemical assays and structure determination.
Welcome Deirdre!
Congratulations to Deirdre who passed her Capstone Exam with flying colors in May and formally joined the Shen lab on June 1, 2020. It is a challenging time to start thesis research in the middle of the pandemic, but she has the full support of our lab team to get caught up to speed! Welcome, Deirdre!
Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly (male) photographed in Albion, Idaho. Photo by Deirdre Mack.
Lab response to COVID-19
May 2020 — COVID-19 has affected everyone in many ways, but our lab continues to stay optimistic. We hold frequent virtual meetings and maintain daily communications via Slack. Our lab policy is to allow one person per bay at any given time. Masks and physical distancing are required at all times in the building.
Lab awarded NIH R35 MIRA
August 2019 — So happy to announce that the lab was awarded with a 5-year NIH R35 MIRA grant to study how Cdc48 works in different contexts, including its interactions with binding partners and substrates and its role in the Ribosome Quality Control (RQC) pathway! Go team!
Helen and Ian pass their prelims
April 2019 — Congratulations to Helen and Ian for crushing their preliminary exams. They are now formally matriculated into the PhD program!
Welcome Yang, Jonathan, and Manidip
Lab continues to enjoy log phase growth. Yang Xu and Jonathan Valiente joined the group in December 2018, followed by Manidip Shasmal joining in March 2019.
Welcome Helen and Ian
June 1 2018 — Ian Cooney and Helen Donelick join the Shen Lab as graduate students! Welcome, Ian and Helen!
CryoEM101.org funded
May 15 2018 — In collaboration with Janet Iwasa, we were awarded a 3-year grant from the NIH Common Fund to develop a web-based course that caters to cryo-EM newcomers. The site will be hosted at https://CryoEM101.org and signups are open for beta users to provide feedback on course content. Details of the NIH Common Fund cryo-EM initiative are available here.
Krios arrival
Dec. 28 2017 — Today marks the beginning of a new era for the cryo-EM community here at the University of Utah. Our brand new FEI/Thermo Titan Krios TEM was delivered, a late Christmas present but certainly worth the wait! The whole package consisted of 18 pallets by way of the Netherlands to LAX to SLC. Here's to an exciting 2018 for cryo-EM at the U!
Lab opens shop
Oct 2017 — Getting down to business. Lab officially opens, joined by new hires Michael Stewart and Dan Hansen. Also putting S. cerevisiae to work!