BMI Weekly Newsletter  

March 6, 2023 

News: 

Congratulations to Madison Walton from the Withey lab for successfully defending her Ph.D. dissertation, "Identifying critical genetic factors in pandemic Vibrio cholerae colonization of the zebrafish natural host".  We wish her all the best! 

Congratulations to Dr. Jeff Withey and his colleagues, who were recently awarded a grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health to better understand the lifecycle of cholera, how it contributes to pathogenesis in humans, and ultimately identify new strategies to combat the disease and its transmission. A School of Medicine News story about the project is available here. 

President Wilson’s Campus Safety Town Hall Meeting is on Thursday, March 9, 2023, 10:00am. To RSVP and submit your questions click on https://i.wayne.edu/view/63f6723aba98e  

Upcoming News Reminder: 

2023 MI-ASM Annual Meeting is April 1, 8am to 4:30pm at Oakland Center, Oakland University, Rochester, MI 

• Speaker: Mecky Pohlschroder, Ph.D., Professor and Undergraduate Chair of the Biology Department at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) https://asm.org/Biographies/Mecky-Pohlschroder,-Ph-D  
• Registration* Deadline for All attendees is March 22 http://mi-asm.org/currentmeetingindex.html 
• Students and Postdocs are asked to submit their oral presentation abstracts by March 16, or poster abstracts by March 22.
• *The department will reimburse for the registration fee ($75 for faculty, $15 for everyone else). 

A Message of Interest from Dr. Robert Akins: You are Invited to a Career/Workforce Event - the Michigan BioTalent Strategy Exchange on March 21st.   

This virtual event is meant to gather life sciences/bio-industry companies, educators, workforce development partners, curriculum developers, STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) retraining experts, job seekers and other stakeholders, together to discuss the challenges surrounding workforce sustainability and talent scarcity in life sciences careers. The first part of the event will be educational sessions focused on exploring hiring strategies used by companies, curriculum development processes, public private partnerships, non-technical skills required for life sciences employment, and the career paths available at different degree levels – from high diploma to PhD. The afternoon is then structured as a series of roundtables where targeted discussions, Q&A, and other types of engagement can begin to identify areas for partnerships, new programs, etc. Throughout, industry organizations will give short presentations from their virtual booths about their specific hiring needs and philosophies, open positions and more.  

It is important to have as many different voices in the conversations as possible to explore all avenues for addressing the talent challenges in the life sciences and how best to prepare the next generation of the workforce.   

If you know of others for whom this event would be relevant, please share the information. 

Wayne State is a member. To make it easy for our member academic contacts to register at the discounted price, we created coupon code ACAMEMBER-BT2023 that will take $30 off.  

Students are free with this code, faculty $30.  

Events This Week:  

Journal Club: Two Presentations on Wednesday, March 8, 2023, 11:30am, 3125 Scott Hall 

• First Presentation:  BMB MS student, Vignesh Morappur Pasupathi  
• Title: “Characterization of Cytochrome C Tyrosine 97 Phophorylation” 
• Mentor: Dr. Maik Hüttemann 
• Second Presentation: IM MS Student, Vaishnavi Akula 
• Title: TBA 
• Advisor: Dr. Jeffrey Withey 

Dissertation Public Lecture Presentation For the degree of Ph.D. Doctor of Philosophy: In-Person only, Wednesday, March 8, 2023, 2:00 PM, Room 2268 Scott Hall, School of Medicine 

• Presenter: IM Ph.D. student, Nathan Kelley
• Title: “Characterization of the Novel NLRP10 Inflammasome” 
• Advisor: Dr Yuan He 

Upcoming Events: 

No Seminar or Journal Club scheduled for next week – Spring Break 

Next Journal Club: Wednesday, March 22, 2023, 11:30am, 3125 Scott Hall  

• Presented by:  IM PhD student, Callen Bleick 
• Title: TBA 
• Advisor: Dr. Michael Rybak 

Next BMI Seminar is scheduled for March 28, 2023 

• Speaker: Dr. Andrew Lipchik, Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutics, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy, Wayne State University  
• Title: “From Pathogenic to Therapeutic: Engineering IgG as an anti-inflammatory therapy” 
• Hosted by: Dr. Jianjun Wang jjwang@med.wayne.edu  

Return to Campus:     

Recent Updates for Campus Conditions and Requirements as of March 6, 2023: https://wayne.edu/coronavirus  

Campus Daily Screener link: https://forms.wayne.edu/covid-19-screening/  

From Office of President Wilson: Resources with contact numbers to support, guide and assist you while on campus.  https://i.wayne.edu/view/61d756b21bf13?utm_source=lnk&utm_medium-email61d75621bf13&utm_campaign=Welcome+to+a+new+semester&utm_content=Read+this+email+on+the+Web and additional resources https://wayne.edu/safety