Congratulations to Dr. Gustavo Macintosh for being selected for the prestigious "Liberal Arts & Sciences Dean’s Professorship”, funded from the Transforming Liberal Arts and Sciences endowment. Named faculty positions are the highest recognition for scholarly excellence at U.S. research universities, they are rare and prestigious.This award expresses appreciation for Dr. Macintosh's outstanding research on gene expression and metabolic changes during plant defense responses to pests. This professorship will support Dr. Macintosh's leadership role as the elected president of the American Society of Plant Biologists. As part of the professorship, Dr. Macintosh will receive $50,000 in research support per year, beginning January 1, 2022, and ending December 31, 2024, with an option of renewal for an additional three years.

Dr. Gustavo Macintosh was elected as President-Elect for the American Society of Plant Biologists. Being elected President-Elect of a major national society such as ASPB is a strong testament to Gustavo’s national standing in the field and recognition of his leadership qualities. Gustavo will serve one year as President-Elect, one year as President, and then one year as Past-President. His term will begin on October 1, 2021. Congratulations Gustavo, well done!

A new publication from the Yang lab was published in Science. The study details the structure of the SARS-CoV-2 ExoN complex bound to its substrate, revealing an important target for antiviral therapeutics. Second year Biochemistry Ph.D. student Scott Becker is also an author on the paper. Congratulations to the Yang lab!

Read more about the study here.

BBMB associate professor Dipali Sashital was featured in the Change Agent series, a series of articles telling the personal stories of Iowa State University faculty and scientists whose work is changing the world for the better. The article details Dipa's career path and her lab's work on CRISPR technology and cryo-EM.

Read the article here.

Congratulations to Reuben Peters for being named Distinguished Professor in Liberal Arts & Sciences!  This is an outstanding accomplishment, and very well deserved.  The title of Distinguished Professor, first awarded in 1956, is Iowa State's highest academic honor. It recognizes a faculty member whose accomplishments in research or creative activities have had a significant impact on his or her discipline nationally or internationally and who has demonstrated outstanding performance in at least one other area of faculty responsibility. Nominees must hold the rank of professor and have served at least five years on the Iowa State faculty. The awardee retains the title for the remainder of his or her career at the university.  Well done, Reuben!

Benjamin Litterer, junior in data science from Manchester, plans to pursue a Ph.D in statistics with an emphasis in bioinformatics.

Paiton McDonald, junior in agricultural biochemistry from Fletcher, North Carolina, plans to pursue a Ph.D in Immunology and infectious diseases.

Lauren Kueffer, Ph.D. candidate in Biochemistry in Professor Amy Andreotti's Lab, has been awarded the 2021-2022 Brown Graduate Fellowship. The Fellowship, which includes $10,000 in institutional funding, is awarded annually by the Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) and is used to support strategic university research.

BBMB is privileged to have Lauren in its Biochemistry graduate program and honored that she has been recognized by the OVPR for this award.   She is a first-rate contributor to this institution as a top-notch scientific investigator,  as a recruiter of prospective graduate students, as a mentor of new graduate students, and as a teacher of undergraduate students.

Dr. Stone Chen received the CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation.  The award will provide Dr. Chen 5-year support for not only his research focused on understanding the regulation of the actin cytoskeleton in endosome trafficking, but also his multiple teaching and outreach activities, such as the development of novel virtual lab software for teaching biochemistry lab courses.

The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) recently highlighted the BBMB Graduate Certificate (CRT) in Biochemistry program as an option for individuals who wish to broaden their expertise, but do not have the time to dedicate to graduate school. Read more

Warren Rouse, a Biochemistry Ph.D. student in Professor Walter Moss’ research group has been awarded a five-year Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral Individual National Research Service Award (F31).  This award is to enable promising predoctoral students with potential to develop into a productive, independent research scientist while conducting graduate research.  When congratulating Warren, Dr. Kristen Johansen, Professor and BBMB Department Chair, said to her knowledge, “this is the first F31 awarded in the department, and a very prestigious and competitive accomplishment.”

Earlier this week, 52 individuals and teams at ISU learned they received one of 12 COVID-19 Exceptional Effort Awards, announced in October to recognize the extraordinary and innovative ways Iowa Staters strived to overcome the challenges of the pandemic. Ryan Andrews, a Ph.D. candidate in Biochemistry in the lab of Professor Walter Moss, was among four exceptional graduate students to receive a Graduate Student Research Impact Award “for important discoveries in the functional annotation of the SARS-CoV-2 genome”.

Six Iowa State researchers named AAAS Fellows for advancing science

Posted Nov 24, 2020 8:59 am

AMES, Iowa – The American Association for the Advancement of Science is honoring six Iowa State University researchers for work in engineering, math, and biological sciences.

The six Iowa State researchers have been named to this year’s class of 489 AAAS Fellows “because of their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications,” the association announced today.

The six Iowa State researchers and their award citations are:

A mission against malaria

There are individuals in this world who emphatically boast and bluster about their accomplishments. Then there are others, like Madeline Farringer (’21 biochemistry), who quietly, modestly initiate positive change with little to no fanfare.

BBMB Assistant Professor Walter Moss has received an Eli Lilly Research Award to fund a collaborative research project with Iowa State University scientists researching innovative methods for finding previously overlooked targets for drug therapies in RNA. The $123,000 award supports the work of assistant professor Moss and his team with Lilly scientists.

By: Tayler Reynolds

Katherine Johnson
Hometown: Mendota Heights, Minnesota
Job title and company: Research Technologist at Mayo Clinic

Katherine Johnson (’17 agricultural biochemistry), research technologist at Mayo Clinic, offers an update on her current research, how her position has been affected by the global pandemic and offers advice for undergrads.

Johnson’s passion for biochemistry lead her to form meaningful relationships with her undergraduate adviser Distinguished Professor of Agriculture Donald Beitz and other professors

“Ms. Johnson seemed to really enjoy the research environment – I can remember several career planning sessions that culminated in her earning a research technologist position at the Mayo Clinic,” says Beitz.

Dr. Puneet Juneja will start at ISU on July 1, 2020, and will oversee the new Cryo-EM Facility that will be located in the renovated lab space of 0112-0114 Molecular Biology Building.  

The Roy J. Carver Trust grant will help advance the second phase of the Iowa State University (ISU) Roy J. Carver Department of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology’s Initiative in Biomolecular Structure and enable the purchase of a state-of-the-art cryo-transmission electron microscope equipped with a direct electron detector.