Nutrients in. Waste out. Everyone and almost every living thing does it, even at the cellular level. It seems like a simple enough concept: to survive, cells have to have a way to move different types of molecules in and out of themselves. It’s how they take in food, get rid of waste, send signals to each other, sense their environment, and more. But the reality is much more complex. Transmembrane proteins — those embedded in the cell membrane and of which some are responsible for this transmission of molecules — are notoriously hard to study and understand.
Lynne Maquat says she was shy when she first started as a graduate student in the Department of Biochemistry, but since graduating with her Ph.D. in 1979, she’s become a force in the field of RNA research. The first person in her family to attend college, she’s earned numerous awards for groundbreaking research and mentoring prowess in her current post as a professor at the University of Rochester.
Maquat studied with now-Emeritus Professor William Reznikoff. After her Ph.D. she also performed postdoctoral work at the UW–Madison McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research. Her lab...
Biochemistry Emeritus Professor Laurens Anderson Remembered as Renowned Carbohydrate Chemist, Mentor
University of Wisconsin–Madison Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry and Ph.D. alumnus Laurens “Andy” Anderson died on Nov. 6, 2018 at the age of 98. He was a faculty member in the department for 35 years, known as a world-renowned expert on carbohydrate chemistry and nomenclature.
Anderson was born in South Dakota on May 19, 1920, and he earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Wyoming in 1942. After college, he joined the Air Force and served as a bomber pilot in missions over southern Europe. In 1946, Anderson and his wife Doris moved to Madison and he began his...
Shouting “Sam” in the lab of University of Wisconsin–Madison biochemistry professor Alessandro Senes won’t get you far. Three talented young scientists will turn their heads: Samantha Anderson, Samson Condon, and Samuel Craven.
All three graduate students in the Integrated Program in Biochemistry (IPiB) ended up in the same lab, which studies membrane proteins. IPiB is the joint graduate program of the Department of Biochemistry and Department of Biomolecular Chemistry. Although from slightly different backgrounds, they are linked by their research interests and, of course, their...
It’s easy to make a difference through an award that’s named after the Wisconsin Idea, and Jacob Olson is doing just that. The biochemistry and environmental studies major traveled to Rwanda this past summer through a Morgridge Center for Public Service Wisconsin Idea Fellowship that helped him combine his education with public service and community engagement.
The Director of the Biochemistry Optical Core, Elle Kielar-Grevstad, has earned an “Image of Distinction” award in Nikon’s 2018 Photomicrography Competition. The contest received more than 2,500 entries from 89 countries, with only the top 95 images receiving a distinction.
The root of a buttercup flower might look ordinary enough, but under a light microscope Kielar-Grevstad captured the beauty and complexity of the cells that are responsible for transporting the plant’s water and food.
Lignin makes up about a quarter of plant biomass and is the most abundant source of renewable aromatics on Earth. Aromatics are materials with six carbon rings usually derived from petroleum that are the building blocks for a wide array from products - from plastics to pharmaceuticals.
Despite its high energy density, researchers have struggled to find ways to realize lignin’s value, but if harnessed, this naturally-occurring substance could transform agricultural markets for the better.
Biochemistry assistant professor Srivatsan “Vatsan” Raman has received a Director's New Innovator Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The $2.2 million-grants fund high-risk, high-reward research performed by early stage investigators. Compared to traditional NIH grants, the New Innovator Award supports “unusually creative early stage investigators” whose research can have a broad impact on biomedical sciences.
Raman’s project is focused on understanding protein allostery. Allostery is a property by which when something happens to one part of a protein, a signal is...
Three UW–Madison Department of Biochemistry undergraduate alumni walked into the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) and were instantly connected by their Badger pride. They might be far from their favorite spot, the Memorial Union Terrace, but that didn’t stop them from showing the rest of their medical team pictures of it — but “they just don’t do it justice,” they say.
The three alumni, all at different stages of their medical education, have met at UPMC as an attending, intern, and medical student. As fate would have it they all ended up on the same medical team at...
Rebecca Smith has loved plants for a long time. In fact, her interest stems from an AP biology class in high school.
“Something about the enormous variation and complexity in the plant kingdom sparked my interest,” says the assistant scientist at the Wisconsin Energy Institute and Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC), “and I knew I wanted to study plants as a career.”
During her undergraduate at the University of Manitoba, Smith took a course called ‘Medicinal and Hallucinogenic Plants’ which, she says, served as her introduction to the fascinating world of plant...
Badger Business Solutions — a team of graduate students and a postdoctoral researcher representing the departments and programs of Biochemistry, Chemistry, Food Science, and Biophysics — won third place at the Tufts New England Case Competition (TUNECC) on Friday, Aug. 3, 2018.
TUNECC is a life sciences consultancy competition where students and researchers are given an actual business case scenario: the company Seres Therapeutics specializes in microbiome therapies and is running out of cash but possesses great assets in their research pipeline that could make a profit. The...
Not every student will go skydiving while doing research abroad like biochemistry undergraduate Meng Lou. However, they can take a plunge by making the decision to travel to a country they’ve never been to and perform research there in a scientific laboratory.
Jason Cantor could describe himself as an engineer, biologist and biochemist, but don’t try to put his expertise into one box.
Cantor, a scientist exploring the environmental influences on cancer cell metabolism, is launching a new lab in the Metabolism Theme at the Morgridge Institute for Research and joining the University of Wisconsin-Madison departments of biochemistry and biomedical engineering this August 2018.
“I have this half engineering, half fundamental biology background, and it’s a bit difficult to fit cookie-cutter style into one traditional department or one...
The University of Wisconsin–Madison campus is saying goodbye to a beloved natural landmark. An elm tree that has stood for more than 100 years fell victim to Dutch elm disease and is in the process of being removed from the Hector F. DeLuca (HFD) Biochemical Sciences Complex by UW–Madison grounds staff.
The tree – often known informally as Elmer – has a rich past with the Department of Biochemistry and surrounding departments in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS), such as the Department of Horticulture. Thousands of students who have taken biochemistry courses or...
Metabolism is referred to as the “chemistry of life” and any dysfunction in its various pathways can greatly affect human health. A new scientific meeting hosted by the Morgridge Institute for Research will focus on the underlying mechanisms of metabolic diseases and innovations in the tools used to study them.
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