Elizabeth D’Lauro Receives 2024 Dean’s Travel Award

Congratulations to Elizabeth D’Lauro, recipient of the Dean’s Travel Award for the spring 2024 award cycle. D’Lauro is a PhD candidate in the Biochemistry of Health and Disease program. The Dean’s Travel Award is meant to partially defray the cost of attending a scientific meeting at which a graduate student is making a presentation, that is related to the student’s graduate study. In this cycle, each award was offered at the maximum of $750.00 per awardee.

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Giang Le Minh (mentor: Mauricio Reginato, PhD) won the Bondi Fellowship 2024.

Photis Rotsides (mentor: Patrick Loll, PhD) won the Jane Clifford Best PHD Thesis Award 2024.

Ana Dumetriscu (mentor: Shae Padrick) won the Jane Clifford Best MS Thesis Award 2024.

Photis Rotsides, PhD candidate in the Biochemistry of Health and Disease program, gave an invited talk titled “Elucidating the antibiotic sensing mechanism of VanB vancomycin-resistant Enterococci” at Experimental Biology 2022, the annual meeting of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Photis Rotsides (mentor: Patrick Loll, PhD) was awarded 3rd Place Outstanding Senior Graduate Student Poster at Discovery Day 2021.

Lina Maciunas, a Biochemistry graduate student, was one of five platform presenters to be highlighted in a news article about the College of Medicine's annual day of research, Discovery Day. Read the article.

Megan Meuser won the Bondi Fellowship 2020.

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Giang Le Minh (mentor: Mauricio Reginato, PhD) won the Dean’s Fellowship 2022.

Megan Meuser won the Bondi Fellowship 2020.

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Photis Rotsides, PhD (2024)
Mentor: Patrick Loll, PhD
Doctoral Dissertation: The Antibiotic Sensing Mechanism of VanS from Type-B Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococci

Giang Le Minh, PhD (2023)
Mentor: Mauricio Reginato, PhD
Doctoral Dissertation: Understanding mechanisms of OGT/O-GlcNAc regulation of breast cancer stem cells

Meagan Tomasso, PhD (2023)
Mentor: Shae Padrick, PhD
Doctoral Dissertation: Cdc42EP3-bound septin filaments promote actin filament assembly

Megan Meuser, PhD (2021)
Doctoral Dissertation: Pharmacological and biological inhibition of HIV-1 entry

Kristie D. Cox, PhD (2020)
Mentor: Marilyn Jorns, PhD
Doctoral Dissertation: Investigating SQOR-catalyzed H2S Metabolism and its Therapeutic Potential in Heart Failure

Lina Maciunas, PhD (2020)
Mentor: Patrick Loll, PhD
Doctoral Dissertation: Activation of VanR/VanS, the Two-Component System that Regulates Vancomycin Resistance

Jennifer Koch, PhD (2020)
Mentor: Patrick Osei-Owusu, PhD
Doctoral Dissertation: Influence of Physiologic and Environmental Factors on the Role of Regulator of G Protein Signaling 2 (RGS2) in Vascular Remodeling During Pregnancy

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Ana Dumitrescu, MS (2024)
Mentor: Shae Padrick, PhD
Thesis: Development of novel fungal Arp2/3 complex inhibitors

Eric Brinckman, MS (2023)
Mentor: Shae Padrick, PhD
Thesis: Septin Filament Assembly Conditions and Fluorescent Assay Development

Ryan Sharp, MS (2022)
Advisor: Mauricio Reginato, PhD
Thesis: Regulation of NuRD complex proteins by O-GlcNAc transferase in breast cancer cells

Bridget Ryan, MS (2022)
Advisor: Karen Berkowitz, MD
Thesis: The role of CHTF18 in male meiotic cohesion

Thuraya Saleh H Alruiwaili, MS (2021)
Advisor: Srinivas Somarowthu, PhD
Review (non-thesis MS): Long non-coding RNAs in aging

Prajakta Dilipkumar Mehetre, MS (2020)
Advisor: Shae Padrick, PhD
Thesis: Identification of the BORG2 Actin Binding Element

Eric Rossi, MS (2020)
Thesis: Structure, Function and Interactions of the HIV-1 capsid protein

Rebecca A. Rhodes, MS (2020)
Advisor: Shae Padrick, PhD
Thesis: SEPT9 Binds Actin Through a Novel Binding Motif

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Megan Meuser, PhD '21, is a postdoctoral associate at Yale University.

Kristie D. Cox, PhD '20, is a postdoctoral associate at Medical University of South Carolina. Kristie did her thesis research work under the guidance of Dr. Marilyn Jorns.

Lina Maciunas, PhD '20, is a bench scientist l3 at Glaxo Smith Kline. Lina did her thesis research work under the guidance of Dr. Patrick Loll.

Prajakta Mehetre, MS '20, is a research associate II at Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Prajakta did her thesis research work under the guidance of Dr. Shae Padrick.

Rebecca Rhodes, MS '20, is a protein scientist at the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies. Rebecca did her thesis research work under the guidance of Dr. Shae Padrick.

Courtney Fesko, MS '18, is a characterization scientist at Eurofins Lancaster Laboratories. Courtney did her thesis research work under the guidance of Dr. Joris Beld.

Kristie Cox, PhD '20, is a postdoctoral scholar at Medical University of South Carolina. Kristie did her dissertation work under the guidance of Dr. Marilyn Jorns.

Jennifer Koch, PhD '20, is a postdoctoral fellow at Temple University. Jennifer did her dissertation work under the guidance of Dr. Patrick Osei-Owusu.

Neha Manjari Akella, PhD '19, is a postdoctoral fellow at BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute. Neha did her dissertation work under the guidance of Dr. Mauricio Reginato.

Nadish Goyal, PhD '17 is a postdoctoral researcher at Drexel University College of Medicine.

Peining Jimmy Xu, PhD '17, is a postdoctoral researcher at Drexel University.

Elizabeth Upton, PhD, has accepted the position of assistant medical director at MedEdNow, a health care communications company in New York City. Elizabeth did her dissertation work under the guidance of Dr. Pat Loll.

Kate Beishline, PhD, has accepted the position of assistant professor of biology at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. Kate did her dissertation work under the guidance of Dr. Jane Azizkhan-Clifford.

Scott Melideo, PhD '15, is an instructor of chemistry at Bucks County Community College.

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"O-GlcNAc Transferase Regulates Cancer Stem-like Potential of Breast Cancer Cells"
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"Fueling the fire: emerging role of the hexosamine biosynthetic pathway in cancer"
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"Biophysical characterization of full-length human phenylalanine hydroxylase provides a deeper understanding of its quaternary structure equilibrium"
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"First structure of full-length mammalian phenylalanine hydroxylase reveals the architecture of an autoinhibited tetramer"
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"Use of Tissue Metabolite Analysis and Enzyme Kinetics To Discriminate between Alternate Pathways for Hydrogen Sulfide Metabolism"
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"Disulfide Sensitivity in the Env Protein Underlies Lytic Inactivation of HIV-1 by Peptide Triazole Thiols"
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"Interplay between the cell cycle and double-strand break response in mammalian cells"
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"Sp1 facilitates DNA double-strand break repair through a nontranscriptional mechanism"
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"Analysis of the activities of RAD54, a SWI2/SNF2 protein, using a specific small-molecule inhibitor"
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J Biol Chem. 2013 Nov 1;288(44):31567-80

"The Tumor-Selective Cytotoxic Agent β-Lapachone is a Potent Inhibitor of IDO1"
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"Composition and Orientation of the Core Region of Novel HIV-1 Entry Inhibitors Influences Metabolic Stability"
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"Progress toward overcoming hypoxia-induced resistance to solid tumor therapy"
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"Hypoxia/HIF1α induces lapatinib resistance in ERBB2-positive breast cancer cells via regulation of DUSP2"
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"A Pak1/Erk signaling module acts through Gata6 to regulate cardiovascular development in zebrafish"
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Getting smart about p21-activated kinases
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"Regulator of G Protein Signaling 2 Facilitates Uterine Artery Adaptation During Pregnancy in Mice"
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“On a sugar high: Role of O-GlcNAcylation in cancer”
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J Biol Chem. 2023

“Kruppel-like factor 8 regulates triple negative breast cancer stem cell-like activity”
Le Minh G, Esquea EM, Dhameliya TT, Merzy J, Lee MH, Ball LE, Reginato MJ
Front Oncol. 2023

“Role of O-GlcNAcylation on cancer stem cells: Connecting nutrient sensing to cell plasticity”
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Adv Cancer Res. 2023

"Biosynthesis of a central intermediate in hydrogen sulfide metabolism by a novel human sulfurtransferase and its yeast ortholog"
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Biochemistry. 2014 Jul 22;53(28):4739-53

"Rapid Optimization of the Metabolic Stability of a Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type-1 Capsid Inhibitor Using a Multistep Computational Workflow"
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"Field-Based Affinity Optimization of a Novel Azabicyclohexane Scaffold HIV-1 Entry Inhibitor"
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Molecules. 2019 Apr 22;24(8). pii: E1581. doi: 10.3390/molecules24081581.

"Kinetic Characterization of Novel HIV-1 Entry Inhibitors: Discovery of a Relationship between Off-Rate and Potency"
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Molecules 2018 Aug 3;23(8)

"The spliceosomal proteins PPIH and PRPF4 exhibit bi-partite binding"
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“Diazirine Photoprobes for the Identification of Vancomycin-Binding Proteins”
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"An RNA interference lethality screen of the human druggable genome to identify molecular vulnerabilities in epithelial ovarian cancer"
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"O-linked β-N-acetylglucosamine (O-GlcNAc) site thr-87 regulates synapsin I localization to synapses and size of the reserve pool of synaptic vesicles"
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“BORG family proteins in physiology and human disease”
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"Vancomycin does not affect the enzymatic activities of purified VanSA"
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"Identification of a small molecule HIV-1 inhibitor that targets the capsid hexamer"
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