News
Greetings from the Craig Lab. Since the last Craig Lab installment of the Newsletter, much has happened. The lab has successfully survived the past year with Betty as Chair of the Department, making steady progress uncovering the mysteries of molecular chaperone action. Here is the NEWS!
Peggy Huang has left her "ribosome-associated chaperone" life and moved on to her postdoctoral position in the lab of Arlen Johnson at the University of Texas - Austin, where she is studying ribosome biogenesis. As luck would have it, Peggy's move dovetailed with the work of Alison Meyer, one of Peggy's successors on the "ribosome/chaperone" project. Alison made the unexpected finding that the "other" ribosome-associated J-protein, Jjj1, works in ribosome subunit biogenesis. A productive collaboration between the Craig and Johnson labs is now underway.
During the past year Peizhen Yang joined Alison and Samantha Herbst on the ribosome-centric project. Peizhen, moved across Henry Mall from Genetics, where she did her PhD in Rick Vierstra's lab working on the proteasome. In addition, Jeanette Waltner a CMB grad student, has joined the lab and is following up the work of Helene Eisenman, trying to figure out how Zuo and Ssz, the "weird" Hsp70, are involved in turning on pleiotropic drug resistance.
Pascual Lopez has come and gone for his sabbatical year. This was Pascual's third (fourth?) visit to the lab, first as a young bachelor postdoc, now on sabbatical from his position as Associate Professor at the University of Zaragoza and father of four. Antonio Pascual Lopez Pena, born on November 7th, is arguably the most visible product of his recent visit to Madison (although we are still working on that paper on stimulation of Hsp70 ATPase activity!). It is nice to see the fond memories that lab alumni have of Madison. Qinglian Liu, a Craig Lab grad from 2002, gave birth last summer to a daughter that she and her husband named Monona Jiayi. Pascual in jest protested -- saying he owned that name, as he and Maria had named one of their daughter's Monona several years ago.
Patrick D'Silva has returned home to take a position as Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at the Indian Institute of Science at Bangalore. He will continue his work on mitochondrial import, focusing on the mammalian import motor. Good luck Patrick (and Savita and Serena) in your new position! We are awaiting Patrick's first report of life as a professor. During the past year Thomas Lee has joined Brenda Schilke, Willy Walter, Dirk Schiller, and Masaya Hayashi in the "mito import" group. Thomas came from the University of Colorado, where he studied the regulation of MAP kinase using Hydrogen and mass spectrometry in Natalie Ahn's lab. He has taken on the challenge of understanding the dynamics of the Tim44:Ssc1 interaction and becoming immersed in yeast genetics.
Our focus on the complexity of the cytosol continues. But by the time you read this, Rebecca Aron will have defended her thesis and moved to San Francisco to join Paul Muchowski's lab. After concentrating on how Sis1 works to maintain the yeast prion [RNQ+], she will delve into the world of protein aggregation and neurological disease model systems in mammalian cells. The chaperone:prion project will continue in the able hands of Takashi Higurashi, while Chandan Sahi has taken on the challenge of understanding the complexities of the multiple J-proteins that populate the cytosol.
As has become the norm Jarek Marsalek joined us as a visiting professor from the University of Gdansk for three months this fall, providing an infusion of energy into our Fe-S cluster and Yfh1 activities, working with Brenda, Amy Andrew and Tao Wang. Amy's work has been going well and will shortly receive the "Lame Duck" from Rebecca. For the alumni of the Lab, it will be reassuring for you to know that the "Lame Duck", the oldest member of the lab (with the exception of Betty) who becomes the responsibility of the eldest grad student, is doing well, although that Ace bandage around his leg is becoming a little tattered.