April 13, 2017

Congratulations!

Daniel Afosah, a graduate student in Dr. Umesh Desai’s lab, was named a Future Glycogen leader for the 2017 InterPEG conference.  This annual conference is in association with Dr. Desai’s NIH/NHLBI, Chemistry and Biology of Heparan Sulfate grant.  

April 12, 2017

Daniel Afosah named the Department of Medicinal Chemistry’s 2017 J. Doyle Smith Award for Outstanding Graduate student.

February 10, 2017

In collaboration with the Dr. Erin Wall from the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD and research colleague, Gail Christie, Ph.D. from VCU Department of Microbiology and Immunology.

“Structural Modeling and Functional Analysis of the Essential Ribosomal Processing Protease Prp from Staphylococcus Aureus”.  Wall, E. A., Johnson, A. L., Peterson, D.L., Christie, G.E., 2017 February 10, Molecular Microbiology

January 26, 2017

“Potent, Selective, Allosteric Inhibition of Human Plasmin by Sulfated Non-Saccharide Glycosaminoglycan Mimetics”.  Afosah, D.K., Al-Horani, R.A., Sankaranarayanan, N.V., Desai, U.R., 2017 January 26; 60(2): 641-657, J. Med. Chem.

January 1, 2017

In collaboration with John B. Mangrum from the Food and Drug Administration, “Comparative analysis of INLIGHT™-labeled enzymatically depolymerized heparin by reverse-phase chromatography and high-performance mass spectrometry”. Mangrum JB, Mehta AY, Alabbas AB, Desai UR, Hawkridge AM., Anal Bioanal Chem. 2017 Jan; 409(2):499-509

February 20, 2017

“A Hexasaccharide Containing Rare 2-O-Sulfate-Glucuronic Acid Residues Selectively Activates Heparin Cofactor II”.  Sankarayanan, NV, Strebel T.R., Boothello, R.S., Sheerin, K., Raghuraman, A., Sallas, F. Mosier, P.D., Watermeyer, N.D. Oscarson, S Desai, U.R., 2017 February 20; 56(9): 2312-2317, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed Engl.

February 9, 2017

This paper was published in collaboration with Bhaumik Patel, MD and his research group from the Hunter Holmes McGuire Hospital and VCU Massey Cancer Center.

“A molecular dynamics-based algorithm for evaluating the glycosaminoglycan mimicking potential of synthetic, homogenous, sulfated small molecules”.  Nagarajan, B., Sankaranarayanan, N.V., Patel, B.B., Desai, U.R., 2017 February 9, PLoS One

March 15, 2017

Congratulations to Dr. Martin Safo on receiving a $600,000 NIH equipment grant for an X-ray crystallographic data collection system, project period 03/15/17 – 03/14/18. 

July 12, 2017

Congratulations to Brianna Mackie who graduated and obtained her doctorate degree in Medicinal Chemistry.  Dr. Mackie is now a Project Specialist for a Clinical Trial Company in Raleigh, North Carolina.

July 11, 2017

Dr. Huang is Associate Professor at Purdue University’s College of Pharmacy in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology.  We wish her much success in her endeavors.

July 13, 2017

Daniel Asofah has completed the Medicinal Chemistry graduate program.  He will remain at the Institute as a postdoctoral researcher.  Congratulations Dr. Asofah.

September 11, 2017

Dissecting the structural basis of MEIG1 interaction with PACRG.

Li W, Walavalkar NM, Buchwald WA, Teves ME, Zhang L, Liu H, Bilinovich S, Peterson DL, Strauss JF 3rd, Williams DC Jr, Zhang Z.

September 11, 2017

Sulfated dehydropolymer of caffeic acid: In vitro anti-lung cell death activity and in vivo intervention in emphysema induced by VEGF receptor blockade.

Truong TM, Li H, Dhapare S, Desai UR, Voelkel NF, Sakagami M.

September 11, 2017

Design, Synthesis, and Biological Evaluation of Ester and Ether Derivatives of Antisickling Agent 5-HMF for the Treatment of Sickle Cell Disease.

Xu GG, Pagare PP, Ghatge MS, Safo RP, Gazi A, Chen Q, David T, Alabbas AB, Musayev FN, Venitz J, Zhang Y, Safo MK, Abdulmalik O.

September 11, 2017

Srinivas Sistla, Ph.D. joined ISB3D effective September 1, 2017 as Core Facilities Manager for the Institute. Dr. Sistla is a former product manager (label-free interaction analysis) for GE Healthcare. 

September 11, 2017

Congratulations to Dr. Martin Safo, who received $30,000 from Bioverativ for “Determining the Crystal Structure of Variant of Modified Hemoglobin.”

March 27, 2018

Congratulations to Shravan Morla who received the Peter and Sian Byron Travel Award. He received this award from VCU’s School of Pharmacy, which allowed him to present a poster at the Inter-PEG (Programs in Excellence in Glycosciences) annual conference, in San Diego, California, March 2018.

October 11, 2017

Congratulations to Drs. Huiqun Wang and Rio Boothello recipients of the Donald J. Abraham Postdoctoral Research Award. Dr. Huiqun Wang has proposed to study the potential of treating MS through activating the LPA6 receptor. There appears to be good preliminary evidence for the role of LPA6 in MS, making this is project of potentially high significance. Dr. Wang is part of Dr. Yan Zhang’s research group.  Dr. Rio Boothello of Dr. Bhaumik Patel’s research group proposed to study the killing of cancer stem cells by modulation of the pp38/pERK ratio. This work appears to have been fruitful thus far, with very interesting preliminary data presented. 

October 18, 2017

Characterization of PKACα enzyme kinetics and inhibition in an HPLC assay with a chromophoric substrate.

Luzi NM, Lyons CE, Peterson, DL, Ellis KC

October 23, 2017

A case study will be used to demonstrate 3-D protein structure visualizations, and how to identify and model missing loops in Chimera, a molecular visualization and analysis tool. *Attendees are required to bring a laptop. If you will need to borrow a loaner laptop, please contact gaukh@vcu.edu. This is a 90-minute session. Go to http://vcu.libcal.com/event/3603462 to register.

December 1, 2017

Michelle has been a super-duper staff member of the ISB3D. She takes care of everything with respect to institute facilities, maintenance & repairs, ordering, fiscal reconciliation and outside vendors. In one sentence, she is the 'go-to' person for all ISB3D members. She does all with pleasure and style!

December 14, 2017

Celebrating the season and wishing all of you in the VCU community a safe and enjoyable holiday.

December 15, 2017

Structural and Functional Insight of Sphingosine 1-Phosphate-Mediated Pathogenic Metabolic Reprogramming in Sickle Cell Disease.

Sun K, D'Alessandro A, Ahmed MH, Zhang Y, Song A, Ko TP, Nemkov T, Reisz JA, Wu H, Adebiyi M, Peng Z, Gong J, Liu H, Huang A, Wen YE, Wen AQ, Berka V, Bogdanov MV, Abdulmalik O, Han L, Tsai AL, Idowu M, Juneja HS, Kellems RE, Dowhan W, Hansen KC, Safo MK, Xia Y.

December 15, 2017

Immobilization alters heparin cleaving properties of heparinase I.

Bhushan I, Alabbas A, Kuberan B, Gupta RB, Desai UR.

December 15, 2017

Solution structure of CXCL13 and heparan sulfate binding show that GAG binding site and cellular signalling rely on distinct domains.

Monneau YR, Luo L, Sankaranarayanan NV, Nagarajan B, Vivès RR, Baleux F, Desai UR, Arenzana-Seidedos F, Lortat-Jacob H.

December 15, 2017

Maintaining pH-dependent conformational flexibility of M1 is critical for efficient influenza A virus replication.

Chiang MJ, Musayev FN, Kosikova M, Lin Z, Gao Y, Mosier PD, Althufairi B, Ye Z, Zhou Q, Desai UR, Xie H, Safo MK.