NEWS

Pamela J. Fraker elected to National Academy of Sciences


Pamela J. Fraker 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


Preiss elected as fellow to American Association for the Advancement of Science


Jack Preiss was recently elected as an American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow (AAAS). He received this honor for distinguished contributions to biochemistry, particularly for his work on the synthesis of glycogen in bacteria and of starch in plants, with special emphasis on the structure-function relationships of the enzymes involved.

"I feel the award is a great honor and I am very happy to be acknowledged for such an award," he said. "It is also a tribute to the people who have studied in my laboratory. The 25 graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, undergraduate students, and visiting scientists; all who contributed to the research in my laboratory," Preiss said. He leads the Starch Biochemistry and Design Research Group and is co-director of the Center for Structural Biology.

Each year the AAAS Council elects members whose efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications are scientifically or socially distinguished.


Patents and Grants Received by BMB PIs July 1 - Sept 30, 2007

PATENTS
Christoph Benning and Wayne Riekhof; Compositions and Methods for the Production of Betaine Lipids.
Rawle Hollingsworth; Process for the Preparation of 3,4-Dihydroxybutanoic Acid and Derivatives Thereof From   Substituted Pentose Sugars.
Doo Hyun Park and J. Greg Zeikus; Compositions and Configurations for Electrochemical Bioreactor Systems.

GRANTS
Zachary Burton; $278,895; Mechanism and Regulation of RNA Polymerase II Elongation: NIH/PHS.
Shelagh Ferguson-Miller; $359,667; Energy Transduction in Cytochrome Oxidase: NIH/PHS.
Pamela Fraker; $329,135; Dietary Zinc: Its Effects on the Immune Response; NIH/PHS.
Kathleen Gallo; $194,242; Molecular Regulation and Cellular Signaling of LRRK2 in Parkinson's Disease; NIH/PHS
Andrew Mason, Robert Worden, and Mike Garavito; $200,069; IDBR:Temperature Controlled Array   Microsystem for Functional Proteomics; NSF
Gregg Howe; $252,320; Regulation of Defense Signaling in Tomato; NIH/PHS
Lee Kroos; $297,377; Mechanisms Governing Bacillus Mother Cell Gene Expression; NIH/PHS
John LaPres; $320,875; Hypoxia and an Epigenetic Mechanism for Toxicity; NIH/PHS
Thomas J. Pinnavaia, Jetze Tepe, and John LaPres; $226,805; New Methods in Phosphoproteomics; NIH/PHS
Robert Last, Dan Jones, Gregg Howe, Curtis Wilkerson, and Kenneth Nadler; $1,258,001; GEPR: Building and   Operating a Chemical Factory; Glandular Trichomes of Solanum Species; NSF
Robert Last, Katherine Osteryoung, John Ohlrogge, Yair Shachar-Hill, Christoph Benning, Dean DellaPenna, Bill Wedemeyer; $1,043,191; Arabidopsis 2010: Understanding Chloroplast Function; NSF
Marcus Pauly; $19,742; Unrestricted Research; Bayer Cropscience
Denis Proshlyakov and John McCracken; $206,121; Radicals in O2 Reduction by Cytochrome Oxidase; NIH/PHS
Gavin Reid; $25,000; Cross-linking Reagents and Multistage Tandem Mass Spectrometry for the Analysis of   Protein-Protein Interactions; American Society for Mass Spectrometry
Kevin D. Walker; $150,000; Dissecting the Biosynthetic Pathway Organization of Bioactive Neo-Clerodanes in   Plants; NSF
Jack T. Watson; $13,500; General Research; Dow Chemical Co
Tim Zacharewski, Chia-Cheng Chang, Christina Chan, and Jack Harkema; $357,938; Human Stem Cells for Toxicity Screening;   NIH/PHS
Tim Zacharewski and Jack Harkema; $543,226; Metabolomic Assessment of Estrogenic Endocrine Disruptors;   NIH/PHS
Patricia Ganey, (Pharmacology & Toxicology) and Tim Zacharewski; $357,938; Gene Expression in   Drug-Inflammation Models as Predictive of Idiosyncratic ADRS: NIH/PHS

Last Gives Keynote at 2007 Plant Molecular Biology Consortium Retreat


Rob Last gave the keynote lecture at the 2007 Plant Molecular Biology Consortium Annual Retreat, sponsored by the North Carolina Biotechnology Institute in Wrightsville Beach NC on Friday 28th September. This is the 21st year of the retreat, which included 130 scientists from Universities and Plant Biotech Companies around North Carolina. The title of his talk was "So many genes, so little time: using phenotype to infer function".


DellaPenna Gives Plenary Lecture at Solanaceae 2007 Meeting


Dean DellaPenna was the invited plenary lecturer at the Solanaceae 2007 meeting, Sept 9 -13, on Jeju Island, South Korea. This is the annual meeting of an international community working on the genomics of tomatoes and related species. DellaPenna's lecture was titled, "Translational genomics on a global scale: working at the plant-human interface."


RECENT PUBLICATIONS BY BMB FACULTY

(within last 4 weeks)

JM Froelich, GE Reid: Mechanisms for the proton mobility-dependent gas-phase fragmentation reactions of S-alkyl cysteine sulfoxide-containing peptide ions J. Am. Soc. Mass Spectrom. ( SEP 2007) 18 1690-1705. PDF

L Tian, D DellaPenna, RA Dixon: The pds2 mutation is a lesion in the Arabidopsis homogentisate solanesyltransferase gene involved in plastoquinone biosynthesis PLANTA ( SEP 2007) 226 1067-1073. PDF

B Jayaprakasam, Alexander-RL Lindo, DL DeWitt, MG Nair: Terpenoids from Stinking toe (Hymneae courbaril) fruits with cyclooxygenase and lipid peroxidation inhibitory activities FOOD CHEMISTRY ( 2007) 105 485-490. PDF

VR Singh, M Kopka, Y Chen, WJ Wedemeyer, LJ Lapidus: Dynamic similarity of the unfolded states of proteins L and G Biochemistry ( SEP 4 2007) 46 10046-10054. PDF

PK Kandoth, S Ranf, SS Pancholi, S Jayanty, MD Walla, W Miller, GA Howe, DE Lincoln, JW Stratmann: Tomato MAPKs LeMPK1, LeMPK2, and LeMPK3 function in the systemi n-mediated defense response against herbivorous insects P. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA ( JUL 17 2007) 104 12205-12210. PDF

T Ventriglia, MA Ballicora, P Crevillen, J Preiss, JM Romero: Regulatory properties of potato-Arabidopsis hybrid ADP-glucose pyrophosphorylase PLANT AND CELL PHYSIOLOGY ( JUN 2007) 48 875-880. PDF

W Mutatu, KL Klettke, C Foster, KD Walker: Unusual mechanism for an aminomutase rearrangement: Retention of configuration at the migration termini Biochemistry ( AUG 28 2007) 46 9785-9794. PDF

MA Ballicora, ED Erben, T Yazaki, AL Bertolo, AM Demonte, JR Schmidt, M Aleanzi, CM Bejar, CM Figueroa, CM Fusari, AA Iglesias, J Preiss: Identification of regions critically affecting kinetics and allosteric regulation of the Escherichia coli ADP-glucose pyrophosphorylase by modeling and pentapeptide-scanning mutagenesis J. Bacteriol. ( JUL 2007) 189 5325-5333. PDF

C Turich, KH Freeman, MA Bruns, M Conte, AD Jones, SG Wakeham: Lipids of marine Archaea: Patterns and provenance in the water-column and sediments GEOCHIMICA ET COSMOCHIMICA ACTA ( JUL 1 2007) 71 3272-3291. PDF

J Rosti, CJ Barton, S Albrecht, P Dupree, M Pauly, K Findlay, K Roberts, GJ Seifert: UDP-glucose 4-epimerase isoforms UGE2 and UGE4 cooperate in providing UDP-galactose for cell wall biosynthesis and growth of Arabidopsis thaliana Plant Cell ( MAY 2007) 19 1565-1579. PDF

C Benning: Questions remaining in sulfolipid biosynthesis: a historical perspective PHOTOSYNTHESIS RESEARCH ( MAY 2007) 92 199-203. PDF


Archive (since August 2006)