Visitor of the Week: Judith Cristobal

Meet Judith Cristobal of the State University of New York at Buffalo! The Filipino citizen is postdoctoral associate in John Richard’s lab and is with us at 2022 course of Expression, Purification & Analysis of Proteins and Protein Complexes. This is second course Judith has taken through our program (the first one was X-Ray Methods in Structural Biology in 2017) and the first she’s taken since the pandemic. She shares that “[although] the advancements in technology greatly helped in making distance learning more accessible during the pandemic, in-person training is still invaluable in providing more hands-on experience on carrying out experiments and more collaborative work with instructors and peers in my field.”

Tell us about your research.
My research focuses on determining the role of a global, substrate-driven enzyme conformational change, in enabling the large rate acceleration of enzymes (GPDH and OMPDC) in catalyzing their respective reactions. My research aims to examine the protein–substrate interactions in enzymes by studying the effect of mutations on the critical amino acid residues that interact with the substrate. We also aim to provide insights into the mechanism for small molecule activation of enzyme activity that is analogous to allosteric activation, while enabling practical uses of chemical rescue in the activation of enzymes for catalysis.

How did you decide to focus on this area/project?
I have always been interested and fascinated by how enzymes carry out their respective biochemical reactions and how enzyme mutations or misregulations lead to disorders. Deeper understanding of the enzyme’s structure, properties, and mechanism is vital for drug discovery and development to treat diseases.

What and/or who is the inspiration behind your scientific journey?
My high school teacher inspired me to pursue a chemistry degree in college. Since then, I have the eagerness and motivation to be a part of the scientific community that works on projects with real-world implications for human health.

Where do you see yourself in five years?
I see myself being a part of a research and development (R&D) team of an industrial/pharmaceutical company that aims to search and develop small drug-like molecules for disease treatment.

What do you love most about being a researcher?
What I love about being a researcher is the chance for the endless pursuit of scientific knowledge. There are always new scientific areas to discover, new fundamental questions to answer, and new open doors to explore.

What drew you to apply to this course?
I have done experiments using traditional methods (IEC; SEC) for purification of GPDH using bacterial system (E. coli). I believe that this program will provide more insights on key approaches such as: a) protein expression in insect cells and mammalian cells; b) protein purification via various affinity methods; and c) protein characterization and analysis such as binding assays and post-translational modifications.

What is your key takeaway from the Course; and how do you plan to apply it to your work?
I learned a lot about protein purification techniques especially on proteins with Tags which I will be applying to purify His-Tag TIM and His-Tag AdK in our lab. The course also invited speakers who discussed cryo-EM and mass spectrometry which are powerful tools that provide valuable structural information for analysis of proteins and protein complexes.

What feedback or advice would you share with someone considering to participate in this course?
I highly recommend this course. There’s a vast array of proteins that needs to be studied and characterized and so taking this course provides course participants with a better understanding of purification protocols and strategies best suited to express and purify their protein of interest.

What’s the most memorable thing that happened during the Course?
The most memorable experience I had in the course is the “chalk-talk“ sessions. Each participant had a chance to discuss his/her research project and ask particular research problem(s) on which they need input. During each session, the instructors and the participants have collaborative conversations to provide the researcher new perspective and approaches on how to deal with his/her respective research challenges.

Is this your first in-person course/workshop since the pandemic? If so, any thoughts you’d like to share?
This is my first in-person course/workshop since the pandemic. Although the advancements in technology greatly helped in making distance learning more accessible during the pandemic, in-person training is still invaluable in providing more hands-on experience on carrying out experiments and more collaborative work with instructors and peers in my field.

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
I like the quality time spent with the instructors, assistants, and fellow participants during the course breaks. I also enjoyed taking walks at the campus trails and beach front as well as seeing the rich historic architectures all around the campus.

Thank you to Judith for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured researchers - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course - go here.

Images provided by Judith Cristobal

Visitor of the Week: Temitope "Temi" Adebambo

Meet Temitope “Temi” Adebambo of Emory University. The Nigerian citizen is a postdoctoral fellow and member of Dorothy Lerit’s lab. He is participating in the Quantitative Imaging: From Acquisition to Analysis (QICM) – his first course at CSHL and since the pandemic. Temi shared that “there is [a] healing side to having a program in person” and we could not agree more.

Tell us about your research.
My research is focused on how toxins affect development using Drosophila as a model organism. I am also interested in the roles played by centrosome in regulating cell cycle and how this affect the neurobiology of flies.

How did you decide to focus on this area/project?
Trained as a toxicologist, my Ph.D. demonstrated the global effect of low molecular weight aromatics in flies using genome-wide techniques and linking this to cell cycle defects in mitotically active imaginal wing disc.

What and/or who is the inspiration behind your scientific journey?
Prof. Adebayo Otitoloju, my undergrad/Masters/Ph.D. degrees mentor has been an excellent inspiration for my scientific journey.

What impact do you hope to make through your work?
Teaching and research is my thing and I want to do so much research, acquire relevant training in order to provide meaningful mentorship for the next generation of researchers.

What do you love most about being a researcher?
No time spent in conducting research is ever wasted, there is always a lesson to be learnt.

What drew you to apply to this course?
To be a better researcher but most importantly to help me better settle into cell biology.

What is your key takeaway from the Course; and how do you plan to apply it to your work?
Important microscopic techniques that were learned by accident or by necessity in a haste are no longer so. I have a better knowledge of the behind-the-scene operations of these techniques and how to tailor them to my research interests. From Brightfield to TIRF microscopes and Deep machine learning, I now have the right combination of tools to advance my research.

What feedback or advice would you share with someone considering to participate in this course?
If you think you know microscopy, you don’t.

What’s the most memorable thing that happened during the Course?
I have never seen a live cell imaging system before--that is forever memorable.

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
I don’t have to worry about food; I don’t have to cook and there is absolutely no need to rely on any transport system as everything is in one location. Whoever came up with the idea to have a discussion every morning before lectures and the little break in between lectures is a genius. Those are always very helpful.

Thank you to Temi for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured researchers - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course - go here.

Image provided by Temitope Adebambo

Visitor of the Week: Spyridon "Spiros" Chavlis

Meet Spyridon “Spiros” Chavlis of the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (Greece). The postdoc is a member of Dr. Panayiota Poirazi’s lab within the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology. He is with us this week at the second iteration of the From Neuroscience to Artificially Intelligent Systems meeting, where he presented a poster entitled “Empowering artificial neural networks by adding biological dendrites.” This was the first time Spiros presented this specific project and he “received very constructive feedback, and [NAISys being] a focused conference allowed for discussions on [his] project with people [who share] the same scientific interests.”

Tell us about your research.
My research focuses on how neuronal dendrites affect the formation, storage, and retrieval of memories. To do so, I am using biophysical computational neuronal models, and I am also developing bio-inspired deep learning architectures.

How did you decide to focus on this area/project?
During the last few years, I developed neuronal models and networks of neurons in all levels of abstraction. However, deep learning was always fascinating to me, and thus I decided to follow this direction. I genuinely believe that neuroscience can help us understand and improve AI systems.

What and/or who is the inspiration behind your scientific journey?
Personally, I enjoy following challenging avenues and discovering new areas of interest. My supervisor Dr. Panayiota Poirazi inspired me to pursue a career in academia by sharing her passion for studying the brain and also allowing me to pursue my own research. In addition, the students I supervised throughout the years have encouraged me to continue what I do: try to unravel the mysteries of the brain.

What impact do you hope to make through your work?
I hope to help the field of AI to move forward and be accessible to everyone by reducing the high demand for computational power. Also, I would like my computational models to help us guide more targeted experiments and, in turn, help people with neurological diseases.

Where do you see yourself in five years?
I cannot predict the future, and neither can my algorithms! But, I cannot imagine myself without doing research and teaching/supervising/mentoring young students as a volunteer lecturer at a local university in Heraklion, Crete .

What do you love most about being a researcher?
I always enjoyed learning new things and pushing myself. Being a researcher gives me the necessary space to be creative and pursue whatever idea I have. In addition, supervising young people in the lab is truly inspiring as I like seeing students develop critical thinking and pursuing their own research.

What drew you to attend this meeting?
The title of this meeting, From Neuroscience to Artificially Intelligent Systems (NAISys), is the main focus of my work--improving AI through neuroscience--so it was the best opportunity to learn about the current advances in the field from people who have inspired me through their scientific works, and receive feedback on my current project. In addition, visiting CSHL was always a dream of mine that happened thanks to financial support from CSHL Meetings & Courses.

What is your key takeaway from the Meeting; and how do you plan to apply it to your work?
The key takeaway are the feedback I received about my research and the new advances in the field. I have participated in many conferences; however, this was one of the most targeted meetings I have ever attended. I collected several useful insights to improve my model, and I cannot wait to start incorporating them.

What feedback or advice would you share with someone considering to participate in this meeting?
I would tell them to apply and submit an abstract. It was a fantastic experience, a very well-organized meeting, and an excellent opportunity to meet scientists with whom you share the same interests.

What’s the most memorable thing that happened during the Meeting?
The most memorable moment was when I saw Prof. Andrew Barto give his talk. Meeting in-person one of my true inspirational researchers and learn so many new things from him has been a dream come true for me.

Is this your first in-person meeting since the pandemic?
NAISys was my first in-person meeting since the Covid-19 outbreak, and it solidified the importance of in-person meetings. Although the scientific community tried to fill the gap with virtual meetings that kept us in touch, in my opinion, the networking and non-science-related discussions during an in-person meeting are invaluable.

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
I enjoyed the time spent at the campus during the breaks. I was able to walk around and take in fresh air, always having a fantastic view of the harbor.

Thank you to Spiros for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured researchers - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course - go here.

Image provided by Spyridon Chavlis

Visitor of the Week: Matthew Jessop

Meet Matthew Jessop of the Institute of Cancer Research (United Kingdom). Matt is a postdoc and this is his first in-person meeting since the pandemic. He is a member of Sebastian Guettler’s lab, and is at CSHL for The PARP Family & ADP-ribosylation meeting where his poster presentation of “Structural basis of tankyrase activation by polymerization” was met with “in-depth discussions about what [they’re] working on and…some [new] ideas about other things [they] could try.”

Tell us about your research.
I’m working towards solving the structure of Tankyrase, a protein involved in signaling pathways that often go wrong in cancer. By understanding Tankyrase’s structure, we hope to build up a model of how it functions in the cell to be able to design new drugs to target these pathways.

How did you decide to focus on this project?
I’ve been working in structural biology for a few years, but I really wanted to work on a project that had real-world implications for human health. The team I’m working in is also very multidisciplinary, which means that we’re constantly learning from each other and giving each other fresh ideas.

What and/or who is the inspiration behind your scientific journey?
I’ve been lucky to have amazing mentors over the past few years, both when I was studying in New Zealand and during my PhD in France – Dr. Irina Gutsche and Dr. Ambroise Desfosses taught me a huge amount about electron microscopy and made me passionate about the technique.

Where do you see yourself in five years?
Eventually I’d love to start my own research group and keep working in structural biology of proteins involved in human disease, either in the UK or back home in New Zealand.

What do you love most about being a researcher?
Even though the problems we work on can be challenging, having the chance to increase our understanding of these complex biological processes at an atomic level is really exciting.

What drew you to attend this meeting?
There was an amazing speaker line-up at this meeting, and being able to see the latest unpublished work was a really big drawcard. Even with all of the ways that conferences have changed recently, there really is no substitute for getting together in person with experts in the field to talk about recent developments and fresh ideas!

What is your key takeaway from the Meeting; and how do you plan to apply it to your work?
There have been some exciting new experimental techniques for studying PARPs presented at this meeting, and we hope to try and use these for our own project in the future.

What feedback or advice would you share with someone considering to participate in this meeting?
I would say go for it! The whole conference is particularly well-run, and it’s in an amazing location too.

What’s the most memorable thing that happened during the Meeting?
For me the poster session was a highlight – as well as presenting my own poster I got to walk around the room and see the huge variety of work being done in the PARP field. There are people from all different scientific backgrounds at this meeting, which means that you get lots of ideas from fresh perspectives.

Is this your first in-person meeting since the pandemic?
This is my first in-person meeting since before the pandemic. While virtual conferences have been great for the past two years in keeping us connected, and hybrid meetings such as this one give people options to still attend if they’re unable to make it in-person, the networking that happens outside of the scientific presentations is really valuable.

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
Being able to walk down to the harbour and get some fresh air during breaks was fantastic, it’s a wonderful place to have a conference!

Thank you to Matt for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured researchers - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course - go here.

Image provided by Matthew Jessop

Visitor of the Week: Ayse Malci

Meet Ayse Malci of the Children’s National Hospital where she is a member of Dr. Michael S. Sidorov’s lab. The postdoctoral fellow is at Neuronal Circuits; her first-ever meeting at CSHL that also happens to be her first in-person meeting since the pandemic. Here’s what she has to say about it:

This was my first in-person meeting since the pandemic started and I realized how much I have actually missed this dynamic and vivid environment! It just feels more natural to interact and share compared to virtual meetings. Since I knew that everyone who participated in-person was immunized, I also felt safe to be in contact with other participants.

Tell us about your research.
My research focuses on how neuronal circuits are shaped by visual stimuli and how they are altered in neurodevelopmental disorders. I am interested in investigating neuronal activity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) by using cutting-edge fluorescent imaging techniques and Angelman’s Syndrome (AS) model mice. Ultimately, I aim to discover the cellular features and signatures of neurons within the microcircuits that are responsible for the impairments in the ACC of AS model mice.

How did you decide to focus on this area/project?
I always think of the human brain as a closed box and there is still a lot to explore within there. Among many other interesting fields, neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD) particularly take my attention because it sadly affects children who are our source of all joy. For a better understanding of NDD, I have decided to invest my postdoctoral research in neuronal circuits and in vivo neuronal activity. To do so, I will be primarily relying on my previous experience and personal interest in calcium imaging.

What and/or who is the inspiration behind your scientific journey?
The true inspiration who made me pursue a career in neuroscience is always my uncle who dramatically lived with ALS (a neurodegenerative disease) for five years. He made me realize how essentially basic and translational research is needed to provide treatment for neurological impairments.

Where do you see yourself in five years?
In five years, I aim to reach the end of my postdoctoral journey where I hope to be ready for my independent research. I would like to develop a solid research strategy combined with enriched skill sets and practical experiences. Also, in five years, I hope to expand my network and engage with many more talented scientists to be able to contribute to the scientific community altogether.

What do you love most about being a researcher?
I love and enjoy the creative part of being a researcher. Planning a new project feels like playing a new game – everything is exciting and challenging at the same time. And setting up the rules of this new game pretty much depends on how creative you are.

What drew you to attend this meeting?
I have always known the outstanding reputation of CSHL and their meetings since I was an undergrad student. Back then it was too far away and not affordable in a country like Turkey. Years later, while starting my postdoctoral journey, I discovered that I may have an opportunity to visit CSHL and I was thrilled! At this point, my mentor Dr. Michael S. Sidorov kindly supported and encouraged me to participate together with my colleague Dr. Caleigh Guoynesv. And I decided to take this circuits meeting as a priceless chance to learn about the latest discoveries in the field and inspire me for my new project.

What is your key takeaway from the Meeting; and how do you plan to apply it to your work?
The key takeaway from the Meeting is that one has to be dedicated, patient, and open to sharing. Science is not for the first authorship, science is for society – us!

What feedback or advice would you share with someone considering to participate in this meeting?
The feedback I would share with anyone who wants to join this meeting would be “get ready for an amazing experience.” This is not like any other meeting one participates in and leaves, this meeting is more about being part of the “circuits community” where you can expand your horizon and build new contacts for the future.

What’s the most memorable thing that happened during the Meeting?
The most memorable thing that happened during the Meeting was meeting with new people via Twitter! I was following posts tagged with ‘#cshlcircuits’ and have “liked” some tweets. Later by chance, I met with those folks during the poster session and it was funny to follow up with our experience at the Meeting. This made me think of the power of social media and how it even helps scientists.

What do you like most about your time at CSHL?
What I like the most about my time at CSHL are the inspiring talks, beautiful campus, and relaxing nature... I especially felt privileged to be present in the same place where many legendary senior scientists have been in the past. Seeing black-and-white pictures of names like Barbara McClintock, James D. Watson and Robert Malenka made me emotional and proud at the same time.

Thank you to Edwin for being this week's featured visitor. To meet other featured researchers - and discover the wide range of science that takes part in a CSHL meeting or course - go here.

Image provided by Ayse Malci