September 2024
Our collaboration with the Kading lab for edible barcodes was written up for Wing Beats, a publication of the American Mosquito Control Association [Wing Beats article] See page 10
Our collaboration with the Kading lab for edible barcodes was written up for Wing Beats, a publication of the American Mosquito Control Association [Wing Beats article] See page 10
A [Source article] about our efforts to capitalize on the new AI tools for protein modeling and design
Our Anschutz Foundation project on wastewater screening has been written up in a new [Source article]. A major milestone was the successful capture of virions on the engineered protein crystal surfaces.
Congratulations to Dr. Jacob DeRoo for successfully completing his dissertation defense!
Congratulations to Callie Slaughter for the 1st place graduate student poster award at the annual Quantitative Cell and Molecular Biology Symposium.
Dr. Snow was awarded a Resident Fellowship from the School of Global Sustainability for the 2024-2025 academic year. 2023 saw giant steps forward in the capabilities of machine learning tools for protein design and structure prediction. This project applies these tools to design a new family of protein materials intended for carbon capture in crop plants. The resulting novel materials will fix carbon for decades, enabling an unprecedented, scalable technology for CO2 removal.
We had the largest ever lab contingent go to the Protein Society conference in Boston this year. Four graduate students (Alec, Jacob, Ethan, and Callie) and four undergraduates (Anika, Cole, Tim, and Kunjian). Thanks to the team for getting the word out about our science with seven poster presentations and congratulations to Jacob DeRoo, Cole Shepherd, and Anika O'Brian in particular for impressing the poster judges. Jacob and Cole picked up official poster prizes this year, bringing our streak to 3 years.
Congratulations to our collaborator Natalie Wickenkamp in Rebekah Kading's laboratory, Natalie presented on the interesting possible applications of our edible barcode crystals at CSU Demo Day and received the Innovation in Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences award.
Congratulations to Callie Slaughter for being selected as one of the new OVPR Fellows!
Exciting days! The group has officially been awarded a second NSF grant to further dive into the exciting properties and applications of design protein-DNA co-crystals.
Congratulations to Dr. Julius Stuart for getting a position at IDT in Boulder. We'll miss you.
The recent publications in the area of mosquito barcoding have received some press attention. Here are links to the initial reporting from CSU, an article in Chemical Engineering Process news, and an article in Sciences et Avenir
Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. student Jacob DeRoo was recognized with a Walter Scott College of Engineering Excellence in Research Award at the annual Grad Show. Congratulations to Jacob!
Congratulations to Ph.D. student Julius Stuart on successfully defending his thesis on the loading of DNA into porous protein crystals and the applications thereof for mosquito tracking when the DNA is a synthetic barcode sequence.
Biomedical Engineering MS student Michael Scroggins has successfully defended his thesis. Congratulations to Michael!
Congratulations to Ph.D. student Alec Jones on winning a poster competition award at the 36th annual Protein Society Symposium.
Chemistry PhD student Abby Orun has successfully defended her thesis. Congratulations to Abby! We wish her excellent luck in her postdoctoral research in the Blind lab at Vanderbilt
Chemical and Biological Engineering MS student Moe Masri has successfully defended his thesis. Congratulations to Moe and best of luck at AGC Biologics!
The research group is mourning the tragic loss of Rojina Shrestha. We will miss her enthusiasm for science and life.
Two groups of undergraduates presented their work at the CURC symposium. The team that is training rats to press a specific lever when they perceive wintergreen and the three first-year undergraduate researchers who have been growing designed DNA crystals. The latter group will be recognized with an award! Congrats to Nabila, Sage, and Sebastian.
Long-term undergraduate researcher in the group, Sara Dmytriw was recognized by the Chemical and Biological Engineering department for research excellence. Congratulations to Sara!
Our senior design team that is working to convert CJ crystals into virus traps was featured in a [Source article].This team was also selected as one of the top 3 design teams for the CBE department as part of E-days.
Two long-term undergraduate researchers in the group are bound for graduate school. Congratulations to Lauren Beatty who is heading to Buffalo with a swanky fellowship, and Ananya Vajapayajula, who is heading to Georgia Tech! You will be missed.
Two group members participated in a Cyberbiosecurity challenge event.[Source article]
Callie Slaughter joins the lab! Our second Ph.D. student from the Cell and Molecular Biology program.
With two new grants on the horizon, we are officially looking for additional researchers! Candidate graduate students, research scientists, postdoctoral fellows please contact Dr. Snow!
Rojina Shrestha joins the lab! Our first Ph.D. student from the Cell and Molecular Biology program.
We've filed a follow-on patent application involving a specific application for our engineered porous protein crystals.
Rachel Cohen, a Chemistry Ph.D. student joins the group! She will apply enzyme design and engineering in collaboration with Chris Ackerson's laboratory.
We are commencing a new collaborative project with funding from the Anschutz Foundation via the Office of the Vice President for Research. Specifically, we are working with Susan De Long, Carol Wilusz, John Mizia at the Powerhouse and others to create novel technology for the specific capture of SARS CoV-2 virions out of wastewater. A [Source article] describes the overall pandemic preparedness effort. Another Source article talks more specifically about our collaboration.
Congratulations to Dafu Wang -- successfully defending his thesis, completing his Ph.D. program in the School of Advanced Materials Discovery, and moving onto a postdoc position at Duke in the Gerecht lab! Dafu worked on a collaboration between the Kipper and Snow research groups.
Thanks to the Isoreticular Co-crystal team (Abby, Sara, Ananya, and Ethan) for training Sage, Sebastian, Julia, and Nabila as part of the pilot program MURALS First Year Academy described in this [Source article]. Check out the first three photos! We're pleased that both of the novel designed DNA tiles have grown crystals as intended
Congratulations to Abby for her Protein Society poster award! Also, Lauren who presented a poster on behalf of the BIOMOD team!
Just before heading off for sabbatical, Dr. Snow received a mid-career award from the College of Engineering. [Source article] Thanks to the Nelson familty for supporting our undergraduate researchers, the main focus of this award.
Dr. Snow received a teaching award! [Source article]
Abby and others ran a crystallography camp for high school interns. [Source article]