NEWS

Pamela J. Fraker elected to National Academy of Sciences

Pamela J. Fraker, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and of food science and human nutrition, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Election to the academy is one of the highest honors accorded a U.S. scientist or engineer.

Fraker is the first female faculty member from Michigan State University faculty to achieve this honor. Fraker is among 72 new members and 18 foreign associates from 12 countries who were elected to the academy in recognition for their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

To learn more about Fraker's work, see http://www.bch.msu.edu/faculty/fraker.htm
For more information about the National Academy of Sciences new members, see http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=05012007

New State-of-the-Art Facilities for Structural Biology

Sector 21 at the APS Synchrotron of Argonne National Laboratory is completing the development of a dual-beamline facility with 4 experimental stations that will serve researchers from MSU who need to determine x-ray structures at the highest level of resolution available by any crystallographic technique. Access to the synchrotron by MSU researchers has already increased with the opening of the 21ID-D station in December 2006. After the Dedication and Ribbon Cutting Ceremony on May, 11, 2007, the 21ID-F and 21ID-F stations will become operational. The new facility is expected to operate at full capacity by the end of 2007 when the 21ID-E station comes on line.

The LS-CAT experimental stations will be equipped with the new MarMosaic series of detectors, which use 3 x 3 or 4 x 4 arrays of tiled fiber optic taper elements to make a very large active area for detection.




The images produced have no inactive strips between each of the fiber optic tapers. LS-CAT will install MarMosaic 300 detectors in the 21ID-D and 21ID-E stations and MarMosaic 225 detectors in the 21ID-F and 21ID-G stations. Theses CCD detectors will be paired with MD2 microdiffractometers from EMBL/ESRF to allow precise data collection of small macromolecular crystals.

Ferguson-Miller Presents Keynote Address at Notre Dame Biochemistry Conference

Shelagh Ferguson-Miller presented the keynote address "Cytochrome c Oxidase: a clean, oxygen-reducing, energy transducing machine" at the 12th Annual Biochemistry Retreat of Notre Dame University on May 3, 2007.

Hoogstraten Speaks to Towar Guard

Charles Hoogstraten, assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, was an invited speaker at the induction ceremony for Tower Guard, MSU's sophomore honor society, on April 20th. The ceremony, a longstanding tradition at MSU known as May Morning Sing, was held at 7 a.m. (!) at Beaumont Tower followed by breakfast at the Union.

Tower Guard, was founded in 1934 by May Shaw, the wife of former MSU president Robert Shaw, to meet the needs of visually impaired students at MSU. Each year, the top sophomores are chosen to carry on the tradition based on their academic excellence, leadership, outstanding character, and commitment to service.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS BY BMB FACULTY

(within last 4 weeks)

J Sierakowski, M Amunugama, KD Roberts, GE Reid: Substituent effects on the gas-phase fragmentation reactions of sulfonium ion containing peptides RAPID COMMUNICATIONS IN MASS SPECTROMETRY ( 2007) 21 1230-1238. PDF

MA Mansfield, DD Archibald, AD Jones, GA Kuldau: Relationship of sphinganine analog mycotoxin contamination in maize silage to seasonal weather conditions and to agronomic and ensiling practices PHYTOPATHOLOGY ( APR 2007) 97 504-511. PDF

JB McKinlay, Shachar-Y Hill, JG Zeikus, C Vieille: Determining Actinobacillus succinogenes metabolic pathways and fluxes by NMR and GC-MS analyses of C-13-labeled metabolic product isotopomers METABOLIC ENGINEERING ( MAR 2007) 9 177-192. PDF

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