September 20 – 21, 2024
Heritage Hotel, 522 Heritage Rd. Southbury, CT
Day 1 Friday
| Time | Event | Location |
| 8:00 a.m. | Bus Departs Ingalls Ice Rink | 73 Sachem St. New Haven |
| 9-00-10 a.m. | Check-in/Registration | Heritage Hotel downstairs foyer |
| Bags to be stored in Washington Room
DO NOT BRING INTO CONSTITUTION ROOM |
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| 9-10 a.m. | Continental Breakfast | Constitution Foyer |
| 10:00-10:15 | Welcome by Enrique De La Cruz & Carol Martin | Constitution Room |
| 10:15-12:10 p.m. | Session 1 Moderator- David Flesher | Constitution Room |
Session 1
10:15-10:31 a.m. | Ron Breaker “Riboswitches in Mammals.”
10:32-10:48 a.m. | Ran Yang and Olivia Hunker (Bleichert Lab)”From Origins to DNA Replication.”
10:49-11:05 a.m. | Allison Didychuk with Sara Gelles-Watnick “We Still Donut Know What ORF68 is Doing”.
11:06-11:22 a.m. | Yong Xiong with Christian Freniere and Fidel Arizaga “Visualizing host-virus structures at high resolution.”
11:23-11:39 a.m. | Ailong Ke “Leveraging molecular mechanisms to improve genome editing applications”.
11:40-11:56 a.m. | Mark Hochstrasser “A SUMO Tale or Why Have a Tail?”
11:57 a.m.-12:13 p.m. | Brigitte Naughton and Dylan Poch (Schlieker Lab) “From Membranes to Motions: Forces Behind NOMO Functionality in Muscle and Small Molecule Modulation of Neurological Disorders.”
| 12:15-1:15 p.m. | Lunch | Timbers Room |
| 1:16 – 2:30 p.m. | Session 2 Moderator – Ryan Stanton | Constitution Room |
Session 2
1:16-1:32 p.m. | Kate Schilling and Ghazia Abbas-Curriculum Updates for AY 2024-2025
1:32-1:48 p.m. | Julien Berro with Yuan Ren “Fantastic forces and where to find them.”
1:49-2:05 p.m. | Steven Tang with Taylor Gierke “Decoding and Rewiring Cell-Surface Interactomes for Cell-Cell Fusion.”
2:06-2:22 p.m. | Candie Paulsen with Isabel Romov “A TRP down regulatory lane! A guide to channel regulation in the Paulsen Lab.”
2:23-2:39 p.m. | Nikhil Malvankar “How do Microbes Respire without oxygen-like Soluble Electron Acceptors using Protein Nanowires: Structures, Functions, and Electron Transfer mechanisms.”
| 2:39-4:30 p.m. | Free time – Please see list below of possible activities and locations | |
| 4:30- 5:15 p.m. | Poster Session 1 | Lincoln Room |
| 5:16-6:00 p.m. | Poster Session 2 | |
| 6:00-6:45 p.m. | Dinner | Garden Room and Timbers |
| 6:45 p.m. | Macnab Poster Winners Announced | |
| 7:00-10:00 p.m. | The Sigler Soiree (Mixer/Social Event) | Timbers and Outside Terrace |
Day 2 Saturday
| 8-9:00 a.m | Breakfast | Garden Room and Timbers |
| 9:05-10:44 a.m. | Session 3 Moderator -Greg Quevedo | Constitution Room |
9:05-9:15 a.m. | Steven Tang and Allison Didychuk “Introduction to Directors of Postdoctoral Affairs.”
9:16-9:32 a.m. | Michael Koelle with Shavanie Prashad “How a neural circuit makes a decisive decision.”
9:33-9:49 a.m. | Amanda Jeng and Yevheniia (Jane) Ishchenko (Koleske Lab) “An autism-associated mutation in TRIO drives deficits in excitatory neurotransmitter release”
9:50-10:06 a.m. | Matt Simon with Isaac Vock “Ensuring your chromatin and RNA biology isn’t half baked.”
10:07-10:23 a.m. | Danni Jin (Gilbert Lab) “Specificity of SARS-CoV-2 non-structural protein 1 (Nsp1) translation inhibition of human 5′ UTRs”
10:24-10:40 a.m. | Marisa Michalchik (De La Cruz Lab) “An example of how textbook biochemistry explains clinical enzyme replacement therapy outcomes.”
10:41-10:57 a.m. | Karla Neugebauer “Splicing is hot to go.”
| 10:58-11:10 a.m. | Wrap up by Enrique De La Cruz and Carol Martin | |
| 11:20-11:40 a.m. | Group Photo | Stone Garden |
| 11:45 a.m. | Bus Departs | Front entrance to Heritage Hotel |
Faculty Advisor: Enrique De La Cruz
Retreat Coordinator: Carol Martin
Special thanks to the Student Organizers: Aden Alemayhu and Charlotte Godfrey
Student Volunteers: Camila Garcia, Isabel Romov, Yixuan Chen, Ashleigh Smirnov, Changhao Zhu, Bingnan Luo, Taylor Gierke, Pedro Madalozzo, Hyunkyung Lee, Chimere Nnatubeugo, Ryan Stanton, Gregory Quevedo, Marisa Michalchik, and David Flesher.
Available Activities
- Outside of Garden Room-Giant Jenga, Ladder ball, Corn Hole
- Tennis Courts- Pickelball (Games provided by the Sigler Fund)
- Pumpkin painting and crafts
- Swimming Pool, Fitness Center, Ping Pong, Game Room
Poster Sessions Titles and Locations
| Name First | Name Last | Title | Session | Poster # | |
| Wendy | Zhang | GS | “Identification of coilin interactors reveals new regulators of Cajal body number and substructure”. | 1 | 1 |
| Isabel | Romov | GS | Elucidating the molecular and structural mechanisms of a TRPA1 channelopathy | 2 | 1 |
| Camila | Garcia | GS | “When and Where: Forward trafficking and turnover of a critical pain receptor” | 1 | 2 |
| Sara | Gelles-Watnick | GS | “Mapping the location and interactome of essential herpesvirus packaging factor ORF68”. | 2 | 2 |
| Jackson | Gordon | GS | “Co-transcriptional microexon definition in neuronal alternative splicing programs” | 1 | 3 |
| Brigitte | Naughton | GS | Nodal Modulator (NOMO) is a force-bearing transmembrane protein required for muscle differentiation | 2 | 3 |
| Chris | King | GS | “Bacterial OmcS-type cytochrome nanowires evolved for versatile extracellular and interspecies electron transfer”. | 1 | 4 |
| Dylan | Poch | GS | “Neurological Disorders and Phase Separation – a High-throughput Small Molecule Approach” | 2 | 4 |
| Elizabeth | Black | GS | “Chk2 sustains mitotic PLK1 activity to promote proper chromosome segregation” | 1 | 5 |
| Ran | Yang | GS | “Structural basis for MCMBP chaperoning MCM2-7 during human DNA Replication.” | 2 | 5 |
| Yara | Mustafa | GS | Elucidating which “flavors” of FG-repeat nucleoporins bind HIV-1 Capsid | 1 | 6 |
| Max | Paul | GS | “The C2 domain augments Ras GTPase Activating Protein catalytic activity.” | 2 | 6 |
| Chrishan | Fernando | GS | “Bioinformatic prediction of proteins relevant to functions of the bacterial OLE ribonucleoprotein complex”. | 1 | 7 |
| Bingnan | Luo | GS | De novo Discovery of Functional RNAs | 2 | 7 |
| Jiaqi | Li | GS | “Exploring the potential roles of acetyl-methyllysine (Kacme) in spermatogenesis”. |
1 | 8 |
| Olivia | Hunker | GS | “Phylogenetic analysis reveals a surprising loss of ORC’s ORC6 subunit in diverse metazoan taxonomic groups”. | 2 | 8 |
| Klarissa | Hollander | GS | “A Dual-Pronged Approach to Attacking HIV Infections.” | 1 | 9 |
| Gregory | Quevedo | GS | Elucidating the mechanism of calcium desensitization of a critical pain receptor | 2 | 9 |
| Zion | Perry | GS | “Structure of the long noncoding RNA HOTAIR in breast cancer.” | 1 | 10 |
| Sabrina | Grunseich | GS | “High-Throughput Mutational Analysis of Translation Initiation by an IGR IRES” | 2 | 10 |
| Kimberly | Vish | GS | Investigating the role of MEKK2’s αG helix in kinase activity | 1 | 11 |
| Joey | Erwin | GS | “Metabolic trade-offs using a widespread porin-cytochrome complex Om(abc)B kickstarting microbial respiration and nanowire formation” | 2 | 11 |
| Nicholas | Doak | GS | “A Deep Mutational Scanning Approach to Characterizing the Gammaherpesvirus vPIC”. | 1 | 12 |
| Christian | Fagre | GS | “Identification of pseudouridine in mammalian microRNA” | 2 | 12 |
| Ryan | Stanton | GS | “Regulation of protein synthesis by PUS1-mediated mRNA modification.” | 1 | 13 |
| Kyrillos | Abdallah | GS | “Massively parallel assay for non-canonical translation initiation by human 5′ UTRs reveal global effects of N6-methyladenosine”. | 2 | 13 |
| Amanda | Jeng | GS | Heterozygosity for neurodevelopmental disorder-associated TRIO variants yields distinct deficits in behavior, neuronal development, and synaptic transmission in mice | 1 | 14 |
| Dave | Hiller | PD | “Encouraging curiosity with hands-on explorations of scientific concepts” | 2 | 15 |
| Chengtao | Xu | PD | Less is More: Structure-guided engineering converts IscB into a versatile RNA-guided RNA-editor | 1 | 15 |
| Yuan | Ren | PD | Genetically encoded in vivo force sensors with versatile readouts and compact size. | 2 | 16 |
| Pankaj | Madheshiya | PD | “Viral recruitment of RNA Polymerase II” | 1 | 16 |
| Sunanda | Mallik | PD | “Protein folding and quality control during nuclear transport” | 2 | 17 |
| Cong | Shen | PD | “Bacterial OmcS-type cytochrome nanowires evolved for versatile extracellular and interspecies electron transfer” | 1 | 17 |
| Chandrayee | Mukherjee | PD | “Unravelling molecular mechanisms underlying DYT1 dystonia: insights from a genome-wide CRISPR screening study” | 2 | 18 |
| Nooshin | Shatery Nejad | PD | ” Mechanism of Arp2/3 complex regulation by Coronin-7 “ | 1 | 18 |
| Aldo | Salazar Morales | PD | Electron imaging & cryo-tomography reveal bacteria respire via cytochrome nanowires secreted by type IV-II pili | 2 | 19 |
| Chetna | Dhembla | PD | “Insights into the interaction interface of 26S proteasome with nuclear importins and Sts1 adaptor protein in S. cerevisiae.” | 1 | 19 |
| Sayed Iman | Mousavi | PD | Role of Fimbrin’s domains in crosslinking actin filaments | 2 | 20 |
| Yuekang | Zhang Presenting for Wei Zhang | PD | Visualizing the Translation Landscape in Human Cells at High Resolution. | 1 | 20 |