2016 News Archive
Dr. Huang has been awarded the NIH/NIGMS grant
September 20, 2016
Awarded a five-year, $1.5 million R01 grant by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of General Medical Science. The project is titled “Protein N-terminal Methylation Mechanisms and Inhibition”, 09/20/2016 - 07/31/2021.
Congratulations to Akul Mehta, Ph.D. on his postdoctoral fellow appointment at the Harvard Medical School
August 31, 2016
Akul will join Dr. Richard Cummings laboratory at the Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA.
Congratulations to Rami Al-Horani, Ph.D., on his appointment as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Xavier University, New Orleans, LA
August 31, 2016
Xavier's School of Pharmacy is an accredited Institution of higher learning and Rami's appointment at such an established School is a testament to his hard work and persistence.
Dr. Desai visited the Indian Institute of Technology-Roorkee, Roorkee, India
August 29, 2016
He presented a talk, "Exploiting the Biology of Glycoaminoglycans to Discover Low Hanging Fruits", August 2, 2016.
Philip Mosier, Ph.D. and Aurijit Sarkar, Ph.D. led a team of researchers to publish in Glycobiology
August 29, 2016
The study of "Estimating Glycosaminoglycan-protein Interaction Affinity: Water Dominates the Specific Antithrombin-heparin Interaction", http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27496757
Balaji Nagarajan, Ph.D. and Umesh Desai, Ph.D. co-authored a paper in the Journal of Biological Chemistry
August 29, 2016
Paper titled "Molecular Basis of Chemokine CXCL5-glycosaminoglycan Interactions", the link is http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27471273.
Desai's Research group published in Scientific Reports
August 29, 2016
"Allosteric Partial Inhibition of Monomeric Proteases. Sulfated Coumarins Induce Regulation, not just Inhibition of Thrombin", Scientific Reports, Stephen Verespy, Akul Mehta, Danief Afosah, Rame Al-Horani and Umesh Desai, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27471273
Umesh R. Desai contributed his expertise on heparin structure - function relationships to the group led by Alan Mast of the Blood Research Center, Wisconsin
August 29, 2016
A key study on "Blocking Inhibition of Prothrombinase by Tissue Factor Pathway Inhibitor Alpha: A Procoagulant Property of Heparins" was published in the British Journal of Hematology, the link is http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27301751
Stephen Verespy, Ph.D. has completed his graduate program in Chemical Biology
August 15, 2016
Stephen Verespy, Ph.D. will be joining the lab of Dr. Kamil Godula as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Diego, Biochemistry Department.
Yunfei Mao, Ph.D. has completed his graduate program in Medicinal Chemistry
August 15, 2016
Yunfei Mao, Ph.D. will be focusing his efforts toward Industry and Postdoctoral positions.
Congratulations to Brianna Mackie, Graduate Student in the lab of Dr. Rong Huang.
August 12, 2016
Brianna has been awarded a Student Fellowship at Cambridge Healthtech Institute's Discovery on Target 2016, to present her work titled "Photoaffinity Probes for Protein N-terminal Methyltransferase in Boston, September 20-22, 2016.
Dr. Huang has been awarded the American Cancer Society Institutional Research Grant
August 11, 2016
Proposal titled "Protein N-terminal Methyltransferase 1 in Colorectal Cancer", grant period is 07/01/2016 - 06/30/2017.
Dr. Nehru Viji Sankaranarayanan, Postdoctoral Fellow in Dr. Umesh Desai's lab was chosen as a speaker for the 2016 Proteoglycans Gordon Research Seminar.
August 11, 2016
Her research presentation was titled "Computational Identification of Preferred Molecular Targets of Non-Saccharide Glycosaminoglycan Mimetics that Selectively Inhibit Cancer Stem Cell Growth".
Umesh R. Desai, Ph.D., a Visiting Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology - Bombay, Mumbai
July 10, 2016
Dr. Desai presented a talk titled "Glycosaminoglycan - Protein Interactions and Drug Discovery" at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai on August 1, 2016.
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Balaji Nagarajan, Ph.D. Awarded Outstanding Poster at the Gordon Research Conference
July 10, 2016
Balaji Nagarajan, Ph.D. attended the Gordon Research Conference on Proteoglycans, July 9-15, 2016. He received an Outstanding Poster Award for his work titled "Identifying Glycosaminoglycan Binding Hotspots for CXCL5 using NMR and Molecular Dynamics". http://www.jbc.org/content/early/2016/07/28/jbc.M116.745265.abstract
Akul Mehta, Research Assistant, has been congratulated by the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry
May 23, 2016
Akul Mehta, Research Assistant, has been congratulated by the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry on his outstanding contribution.
Feb. 18-19: VCU 3D Summit 2016
February 8, 2016
The Institute for Structural Biology, Drug Discovery and Development presents VCU 3D Summit 2016, 3-6:30 p.m. Feb. 18 in the Larrick Student Center, Jonah L. 900 Turpin St., and 7:30 a.m.- 3 p.m. Feb. 19 at the Molecular Medicine Research Building, Room 1009.
Drs. Peterson and Ellis labs published in Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry
May 18, 2016
“Design, Synthesis, and in vitro evaluation of a fluorescently labeled irreversible inhibitor of the catalytic subunit of cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKACα)”. Coover, R.A., Luzi, N.M., Korwar, S. Casile, M.E., Lyons, C.E. Peterson, D.L., Ellis, K.C., 2016 May 18; 14(20): 4576-81, Org. Biomol. Chem
Dr. Martin Safo published a paper in Br. J. Haem.
October 1, 2016
In collaboration with Dr. O. Abdulmalik of the Division of Hematology, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, and Dr. G.J., Kara from the Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology-Oncology and the Heart, Lung, Blood and Vascular Medicine Institute, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
“New Developments in anti-sickling agents: can drugs directly prevent the polymerization of sickle haemoglobin in vivo?” British Journal Haematology
Paper published in collaboration with Bhaumik Patel
December 20, 2016
This paper was published in collaboration with Bhaumik Patel, MD and his research group from the Hunter Holmes McGuire Hospital and VCU Massey Cancer Center
"Heparan Sulfate hexasaccharide selectively inhibits cancer stem cells self-renewal by activating p38 MAP kinase". Patel, N.J., Sharon, C., Baranwal, S., Boothello, R.S., Desai, U.R., Patel, B.B., 2016 December 20; 7(51): 84608-84622, Oncotarget
Desai's lab published in Scientific Reports, "Broad Spectrum Anti-Influenza Agents by Inhibiting Self-Association of Matrix Protein 1"
October 7, 2016
Results were published in collaboration with the Xie laboratory of the US Food and Drug Administration on assessing the potential for targeting a novel protein M1 of influenza virus A for a new line of anti-viral agents. Institute members that contributed effort were Philip Mosier, Bashayer Althufairi, Faik Musayev, Martin Safo and Umesh Desai. The link to the publication is here.
Desai's lab published work in the American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology
October 7, 2016
In collaboration with the Voynow laboratory at the VCU, School of Medicine, the work titled, "2-0, 3-0 Desulfated Heparin Blocks HMGB1 Release by Inhibition of p300 Acetyltransferase Activity" was published. The contributing members from Desai's laboratory were Daniel Afosah, Rio Boothello and Nehru Viji Sankaranarayanan.
New Graduate Student Heather Pendergrass
November 2, 2016
Heather Pendergrass completed her Bachelor's degree at Virginia Tech, with a double major in biochemistry and chemistry; her background is in antimicrobials and autoimmune disorder therapies, and she is working to receive her Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry with the May Lab.
New Graduate Student Claudio Catalano
November 2, 2016
Claudio Catalano received his BS/MS in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology (he is also a pharmacist) from the University of Messina in Italy and was a rotation/exchange student from Messina at VCU in 2013. Claudio's Ph.D. project in Medicinal Chemistry will be jointly mentored by Glen Kellogg and Youzhong Guo and will involve crystallography and modeling of membrane-bound proteins.
Founding Director Visits Institute
November 2, 2016
Dr. Donald J. Abraham visited ISB3D for 2 days and met with former colleagues and presented an inspiring seminar, titled "Drug Discovery in Academia". He was also presented with an award acknowledging him as the founder of the Institute for Structural Biology and Drug Discovery.