Events
FRONTIERS IN BIOCHEMISTRY SEMINARS
12:00 – 1:00 PM in Light Hall
2024
August 16, 202 Light Hall, Gabriel Lander, The Scripps Research Institute San Diego, “CryoEM brings new mechanistic insights into double-stranded DNA break repair”
September 13, 202 Light Hall, Squire Booker, Penn State University, “A Radical Solution for C(sp3)–C(sp3) Bond Formation during the Biosynthesis of Macrocyclic Membrane Lipids”
Thursday, September 26, 208 Light Hall, 4:00 PM, Discovery Lecture, Venki Ramakrishnan, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, “Initiation of Translation by the Ribosome”
September 27, 202 Light Hall, Alberto Ciccia, Columbia University, “Dissecting the DNA damage response network”
Friday, September 27, 208 Light Hall, 3:00 PM, Apex Lecture, Venki Ramakrishnan, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, “Why We Die”
October 11, 202 Light Hall, The Lubomir S. Hnilica Lecture, Anjana Rao, La Jolla Institute for Immunology, “The TET-DNMT-ASXL1-OGT axis: regulation of DNA and histone methylation,clonal haematopoiesis and cancer”
October 25, 202 Light Hall, Rohit V. Pappu, Washington University, St. Louis
Wednesday, October 30, 202 Light Hall, 2:00 PM, APEX Lecture, Agnel Sfeir, Memorial Sloan Kettering Institute,“Two Genomes, One Balance: Mitochondrial and Nuclear DNA Stability”
November 8, 202 Light Hall, Karla Neugebauer, Yale University
November 22, 214 Light Hall, Francisco Barrera, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
December 16, RECRUITING: Candidate Seminar Symposium, time TBD, likely in 202 LH
December 17, RECRUITING: Candidate Chalk Talks, time TBD, in 618 LH. Open to primary faculty, select secondary faculty and BSC, select senior postdoctoral fellows.
2025
January 13, RECRUITING: Candidate Seminar Symposium, time TBD, likely in 202 LH
January 14, RECRUITING: Candidate Chalk Talks, time TBD, in 618 LH. Open to primary faculty, select secondary faculty and BSC, select senior postdoctoral fellows.
Wednesday, January 15, 1220 MRBIII, 2:00 PM, APEX Lecture, David Bartel, MIT. Reception held at 1:00pm prior to lecture at adjacent atrium lobby.
January 31, 214 Light Hall, 12:00 PM, Minglei Zhao, University of Chicago, “Structural and functional studies of vault particle”
February 14, 214 Light Hall, 12:00 PM, The Richard Armstrong Mentoring Lecture, Scott Hiebert, Vanderbilt University, “A journey towards understanding how cells turn genes on and off“
Tuesday, February 18, 1220 MRBIII, 2:00 PM, SPECIAL SEMINAR, Dr. Rafael Radi, Universidad de la Republica, Uruguay, “Insights into the biochemistry of peroxynitrite: a stealthy oxidant in disease and aging”
February 28, 214 Light Hall,12:00 PM, Allan Drummond, University of Chicago, “Rethinking the cellular response to stress”
Tuesday, March 4 11:00 AM 206 PRB SPECIAL SEMINAR, Dr. Ellen Shrock, University of Washington, “Decoding the Structural Basis of Immunogenicity”
Monday, March 17 12:00 PM noon 206 PRB SPECIAL SEMINAR, Dr. Philipp Oberdoerffer, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, “Manipulating (cancer) genome maintenance through chromatin and RNA/DNA secondary structures,”
March 28, 214 Light Hall,12:00 PM, John Petrini, Memorial Sloan Kettering Institute, “A link between DNA replication fork stability and innate immune signaling”
POSTPONED April 4, 206 Preston Research Building,12:00 PM, Blanton Tolbert, University of Pennsylvania, “Biophysical Features of Intrinsic RNA Heterogeneity“
April 11, 214 Light Hall,12:00 PM, Kathleen Collins, University of California, Berkeley, “Harnassing R2 Retrotransposon Machinery and RNA-Only Delivery for Site-Specific Safe-Harbor Transgene Addition to the Human Genome”
May 16, 202 Light Hall,12:00 PM, Josh Coon, University of Wisconsin, Madison, “From Systems to Structure: how mass spectrometry drives biological discovery”
Dissertation Defense
Monday, March 17, 2025, Lindsey Guerin (Hodges lab) “Investigating DNA Methylation and Chromatin Accessibility Dynamics During Cell Fate Specification,” 11:00 AM 214 Light Hall
Wednesday, March 19, 2025, Jenny Tran (Brown lab) ” Structural investigation of ALA synthase reveals allosteric regulation governed by protein dynamics,” 9:30 AM 202 Light Hall
BIOCHEMISTRY DISCOVERY/FLEXNER LECTURE
4:00 – 5:00 PM, 208 Light Hall
The next scheduled Biochemistry Flexner Discovery Lecture is TBD. Please check back here for updates.
In recent years, the Department of Biochemistry has hosted such illustrious speakers as: Jennifer Doudna, Peter Agre, Karl Deisseroth, Joan Steitz, NIDA Director Nora Volkow, Nancy Andrews, and several Nobel Prize winners (Sydney Brenner, Tom Cech, Andrew Fire, Bengt Samuelsson, Kurt Wuthrich, Sir Paul Nurse, and in 2017 Eric Kandel). View a full listing of all Vanderbilt Flexner Discovery Lectures, past and present. Lectures are recorded and may be viewed online.
STUDENT COLLOQUIUM
Dec 6, BPSA Colloquium, Todd Blakely, Jr., and Mithun Karadi Giridhar, Ph.D., 202 LH at 12noon
Dec 13, No event – BPSA Colloquium rescheduled
Jan 10, BPSA Colloquium, Kevin McCarty (Guengerich lab), 214 LH at 12noon
Jan 24, BPSA Colloquium, Vincent Yao (Tansey lab), 214 LH at 12noon
Feb 7, BPSA Colloquium, Nicky Eleuteri (Tansey lab), 214 LH at 12noon
Feb 21, BPSA Colloquium, Sara Conwell (Dewar lab), 214 LH at 12noon
March 7, BPSA Colloquium, Emma Vontalge (Dewar lab), 214 LH at 12noon
March 14, BPSA Colloquium, Alexia Angelos (Ren lab) and Alexis Campbell (Blind lab), 214 LH at 12noon
March 21, BPSA Colloquium, Yelena Perevalova (Ascano lab) 214 LH at 12noon
April 18, BPSA Colloquium, Samika Joshi (Osheroff lab), 214 LH at 12noon
April 25, BPSA Colloquium, Sander Haigh (Cortez lab) and Jessica Day (Hodges lab), 214 LH at 12noon
May 2, BPSA Colloquium, Lilia Merbouche (Tansey lab), 214 LH at 12noon (Lecture by E. Villa will be rescheduled for Fall 2025, tbd)
May 9, BPSA Colloquium, Louis A. Otero (Folkmann lab) and Andrea Ascura (Ascano lab), 214 LH at 12noon
May 23, BPSA Colloquium, TBD, 214 LH at 12noon
STUDENT RETREAT 2024 PHOTOS
Thank you to all who attended our 2024 Biochemistry Department Retreat at the VU Student Life Center! We appreciate the planning contributions of Dr. Yi Ren and the BPSA representatives: Ali Angelos, Xiaoyu Lily Yu, Ronan Bracken, Jenny Tran, Gabriela Gonzalez Vasquez, Mithun Nag Karadi Giridhar, Vincent Yao, Sara Conwell, Tara Hickman, and Jordan Stacy.
