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Zijia Cheng and Helen Huang Present at the UW Undergraduate Poster Symposium

Zijia Cheng and Helen Huang, both Biochemistry undergraduates in the lab, presented their work on investigating the conformational dynamics of mitofusin2. Zijia and Helen have been working with Sophie Hurwitz, a graduate student in the lab, to build a mitofusin2 construct for tmFRET experiments.

Zijia and Helen have diligently worked to design and troubleshoot their experiments. Helen says she finds “it interesting to find out what’s causing problems,” and once solved, she finds it “satisfying to see how everything finally works out.”

While working on this project, Zijia has also found she enjoys taking care of E. coli and yeast cultures. She says, “They feel like these cute, living little systems I get to take care of.”

Currently, both Zijia and Helen are continuing to their work on this project this summer while also exploring other projects and techniques in the lab.

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Engage Seminar Speaker Series: Amy Bounds and Sophie Hurwitz

This month Amy Bounds and Sophie Hurwitz completed the Engage Science Communication course by each giving a 20-minute talk at the Vermillion Art Gallery in Capital Hill. The talks were about their scientific research but instead of your typical jargon filled talk this one was targeted to a public audience.

Amy’s talk was titled “The case of the missing protein” where she talked about her journey as a scientist to uncover the role of MSTO1 in the cell. Her goal was to educate the audience on how the loss of a single protein can disrupt a cell and cause disease. Amy modeled her scientific journey as a mystery to highlight how just like in detective stories, scientific research rarely takes a linear path. Instead you must follow the clues in your data. More often than not this leads you to red herrings before you find the answer to the mystery.

Sophie’s talk was titled “Dancing through life: mitochondria in motion” where they talked about how everything in life needs to move – even the smallest protein machines in our cells. They connected their own love of dancing to how the mitofusins dance when undergoing mitochondrial fusion. Sophie elegantly described the FRET system they built to measure conformational changes in the mitofusins and how this system can be used to measure extremely small changes in proteins.

Want to know more about this program check out the Engage Website here!

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Sophie and Amy present as American Society of Cell Biology Conference in San Diego

Last month Sophie Hurwitz and Amy Bounds both presented their work at the ASCB conference in San Diego. This annual conference brings together the best and brightest scientists in cell biology.

Sophie presented a poster and gave a microsymposium talk on day 2 of the conference. Sophie’s poster and microsymposium talk was titled “Quantifying the Conformational Dynamics of Mfn1 Throughout GTP Hydrolysis“. They spoke how their research utilizes a novel transition metal fluorescence energy transfer system (FRET) to measure the conformational changes of the proteins (the mitofusins) responsible for driving mitochondrial membrane fusion. Sophie’s favorite part was “being surrounded by new and exciting science and getting to share the work [they’ve] been doing.”

 

Amy also presented a poster on day 2 of the conference titled, “Uncovering the function of MSTO1“. She shared new data from her thesis work which focuses on uncovering the function of an unknown protein which has been linked to mitochondrial fusion dysfunction, MSTO1. 

Amy enjoyed “making connections with graduate students in her field.” She also took the opportunity to explore career opportunities including sessions on scientific writing and communication. 

 

 

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Sophie and Amy Present at Pitch Night

 

This month, Sophie Hurwitz and Amy Bounds presented their research pitch to a general audience at the Burke Gillman Brewery. They were two of 14 graduate students who presented 3 minute stories about their research and why it matters. The Pitch Night event was hosted through the Engage Course, which is a class focused on science communication to a general audience at UW. 

Sophie told a story about how their work on capturing the protein dynamics of the mitofusins will allow us to take rapid fire pictures so we can see how they dance to keep the mitochondria healthy. While Amy spoke about how uncovering the function of an unknown protein that causes disease is like trying to understand how the loss of a single screw caused a bike to crash. 

In the new year, Amy and Sophie will be presenting their work in a longer 20 minute talk. So stayed tuned for this!

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Chloe Higuchi Presents Poster at UW Undergraduate Poster Symposium

Chloe Higuchi is a senior Biochemistry major who has been working in the lab on a unbiased genetic yeast screen to identify new pathways and regulators of mitochondrial fusion and mtDNA maintenance. Chloe has been working in the lab for over a year and presented her work at the UW Undergraduate Research Symposium. After graduation Chloe will be working in the lab to continue her project during her gap year while she applies to PhD programs! Congrats Chloe on your amazing research and graduation!

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Undergraduate presents at Gonzaga Summer Closing Reception

This summer we have had a wonderful time hosting a Gonzaga Undergraduate student, Claire, in our lab. She worked closely with Sophie on microscopy techniques, cloning, and protein purification. As the summer came to a close, Claire presented her work at the Gonzaga Summer Program Closing Reception on understanding the structure of the Mfn1 transmembrane domain. We wish Claire good luck on her future studies at Gonzaga!