Joe Loparo

Check out the GRC for DNA damage and Cancer! Join us in Summy California for a week of DNA repair and Cancer! www.grc.org/dna-damage-m...

I still can’t believe that all NIH grants to my colleagues at Harvard and Harvard Medical School have been nullified. And that, as a nation, we’re somehow okay with this illegal, arbitrary, and petty act. Just think of the consequences: scientists, students, and patients will all suffer.

The White House Vision for Dismantling Science in One Simple Plot Proposed NIH, NSF, and NASA budgets would be catastrophic for innovation and discovery. But they aren’t reality yet. The time to speak up is now.

open.substack.com/pub/joshuasw...

Senator Durbin noted that some (I believe Republican Senators) had indicated the US had been doing more than its share of biomedical research and it was time for other countries take a turn.

I felt I had to interrupt to respond...

Research into quantum mechanics, volcanic eruptions and all sorts of other studies already underway canceled for no reason - a waste of resources, loss of innovation and undercutting expertise across multiple fields.

Thanks Michael. I decided to share because I think it is important that people know what is happening.

Last week I learned that all my NIH awards were terminated due to perceived acts of antisemitism by Harvard. My understanding (which may be incorrect) is that this has been extended to literally every grant to grad students, postdocs and faculty throughout the university.

How does Pol IV overcome strong replication blocks in E. coli? Our latest study with @joeloparo.bsky.social uncovers a bipartite clamp interaction that helps Pol IV compete with Pol III, enabling efficient TLS at stalled forks and reducing mutagenesis.
https://buff.ly/3Xbgjxd

Congrats Sam!

Please join us in person for a BCMP seminar on Thursday, January 16 at 2pm by Stephen Bell, Professor, Dept of Biology and HHMI Investigator. Please note the new location: Armenise Amphitheater Room 125. @mitofficial.bsky.social @hhmi.bsky.social

The Loparo lab wishes you a joyful holiday season!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

MreC-MreD structure reveals a multifaceted interface that controls MreC conformation The peptidoglycan (PG) cell wall is critical for bacterial growth and survival and is a primary antibiotic target. MreD is an essential accessory factor of the Rod complex, which carries out PG synthe...

Or two recent preprints: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Allosteric activation of cell wall synthesis during bacterial growth - Nature Communications Coordination of cell wall assembly is critical for bacterial morphology and survival. Here, the authors show that activation of cell wall synthesis by the Rod complex is regulated by the structural dy...

You can learn more about her work by checking out: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Employing single-molecule, genetic and protein engineering approaches Irina has shown how structural dynamics induced by essential regulating factors activate these machines so that their activities are productive and are not wasteful.

Congrats to Irina Shlosman on an amazing defense and thesis! Jointly mentored by Andrew Kruse, Irina single-handedly created a new collaborative project between our two labs investigating the machines that build the bacterial cell wall.