And so 2021 reaches a close…..

We were happy to be able to continue the annual Structural Biology Potluck Holiday meal – which was rudely interrupted last year by Covid.
Happy Holidays from Structural Biology @OU!

A final lab lunch to celebrate making it through another crazy semester.  We have so much to celebrate – and I appreciate the efforts of these people so much!!

(L) Jeff, Lydia, Shengfeng, Kevin
(R) Dr B, Michelle, Melissa

Kevin’s first author paper is out!  
This story hides a lot of perseverance – and many, many drafts…..
Congratulations!!

Pleased that CoVid held off long enough to allow an in person regional conference!

Dr B and  graduate students – Kevin, Michelle, Shengfeng, and Jeff – drove to Columbia MS to participate in the Great Plains Infectious Disease Conference.

Shengfeng delivered his first in-person oral presentation – and it went great!!

 

We also had a great time interacting with our collaborators from the Lutter lab (OSU) – mixing old and new friends!  🙂

 

Big shoutout to Lydia Burger for receiving an Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) award. 
Thank you OU Graduate College for providing support to our fantastic undergraduate researcher(s)!!

 

We were pleased to host two rotation students this Fall – good luck Saadi Rostami and Joel Langford as you progress through your doctoral degrees!

Spring 2021
Congratulations to Shengfeng, Michelle, and Jeff on passing their General Exam – welcome to PhD candidacy!!

Also congratulations to our Bachelors graduates – Jake, Amy, and Kaitlyn – we will miss you but are so excited for your bright futures!!

We were pleased with some beautiful weather for an outdoors celebration, allowing us to snap a group picture without masks!

Left to right: Kevin, Dr. B, Jake, Michelle, Felipe, Jeff, Shengfeng, and Lydia.  Missing Kaitlyn and Amy….

 

Kaitlyn Terrell, B.S.                                     Jacob Davis, B.S.

                                                          Amy Tan, B.S.

 

 

If you are a weather watcher you might have noticed a pretty massive hail storm through Norman in April – no worries, everyone and everything is OK (and/or insured).  This storm did provide a lovely rainbow – a sign of recovery for 2021!

 

Welcome rotation student Amit Singh – we are happy to have him join us for 6 weeks.  He is making strong progress with fellow grad student Jeff on our OCRID-sponsored pilot project looking at Covid M-N interactions!

Amit finished his rotation and we wish him luck as he continues his research in other labs!

 

 

 

We are welcoming back to the lab undergraduate Felipe – he was flug afar by Covid, and now allowed to return to OU from his home country of Brazil – WELCOME BACK!!
(pic pending)

 

So happy to see this work in press – this was a hard-won publication, but so worth it!  This is the culmination of three super talented
undergrads in the lab –
Julia is now living the life in research at biotech(s) in Texas (her home state, so no offense taken by this Okie), Tamiko is rocking her MD program at Baylor Medical Center, and Jessica is a super star in a PhD program in the UK (current at Bristol in the Physics dept., of all places!).  Missing you ladies like crazy, but so VERY proud of you!!

 

We started off 2021 hot with a Preview by Dr B in the journal Structure, highlighting a fantastic piece of work from the Brodersen lab on VapXD structure.