August 16, 2024

Topic: “The Molecular Landscape of Dementia: Insights from Genetic and Microbiome Studies”
Speaker: Bernard Fongang, PhD, Assistant Professor
UT Health San Antonio
Hosted by: Dr. Reuben Harris
In -Person at LSOM 309L


August 21, 2024

Topic: “Molecular Mechanisms of BRCA1/2 Mediated Genome Maintenance”
Speaker: Weixing Zhao, PhD, Assistant Professor
UT Health San Antonio
Hosted by: Dr. Reuben Harris
In -Person at LSOM 409L


August 26, 2024

Topic: “Getting to the Core of Structural Biology at UT Health “
Speaker: Alex Taylor, PhD, Research Assistant Professor
UT Health San Antonio
Hosted by: Dr. Reuben Harris
In -Person at LSOM 309L


September 6, 2024

Topic: “Potent and Selective Small Molecule PKCε Inhibitors for Non-Opioid Pain Applications: Enantioselective Synthesis, Structure-Activity Relationship and In Vivo Efficacy Studies”
Speaker: Stanton McHardy, PhD, Associate Professor
University of Texas at San Antonio
Hosted by: Dr. Reuben Harris
In -Person at LSOM 209L


September 20, 2024

Topic: “Oral Delivery of Cx43 Carboxyl Terminal Mimetic Peptides by Milk Exosomes as Treatments for Radiation Injury and Heart Disease”
Speaker: Robert Gourdie, PhD, FAHA, AIMBE, Professor
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Hosted by: Dr. Jean Jiang
In -Person at LSOM 309L


October 4, 2024

Topic: “hnRNPs & RNA Biosynthesis: Insights from a Fusion-Driven Cancer”
Speaker: Natasha Caplen, PhD, Investigator Genetics Branch
Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute
Hosted by: Dr. David Libich
In -Person at LSOM 309L


October 11, 2024-BSB Horowitz and Lee Award Symposium 2024

Topic– Dr. Rape, “From basic biology to new therapies: stress response signaling in development and disease”
Topic-Dr. Vos, “Understanding how genomes are compacted and read”
Speakers: Michael Rape, Professor and HHMI Investigator, UC Berkley and
Seychelle M. Vos, PhD, Professor, MIT
Hosted by: Dr. Reuben Harris
In-Person at GCCRI Auditorium


October 18, 2024

Topic: “A New Family of Superoxide Dismutases in Fungal Pathogens”
Speaker: Ahmad Galaleldeen, PhD, Professor
UT Health San Antonio
Hosted by: Dr. Reuben Harris
In -Person at LSOM 309L


November 1, 2024

Topic: “DNA replication fork protection by the DNA repair protein RAD52 and its potential as an Anticancer Drug Target”
Speaker: Maria Spies, PhD, Professor of Radiation Oncology
University of Iowa
Hosted by: Dr. Alex Mazin
In -Person at LSOM 309L


November 11, 2024

Topic: “Chromatin Recognition and Modification in the DNA Damage Response.”
Speaker: Georges Mer, PhD, Professor
Mayo Clinic
Hosted by: Drs. Shaun Olsen and Patrick Sung
In -Person at GCCRI Auditorium, 2.160


November 15, 2024

Topic: “Biophysics of Phase Separation and Implications for Function and Disease Mechanisms.”
Speaker: Tanja Mittag, PhD, Member
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
Hosted by: Dr. Patrick Sung
In -Person at LSOM 309L


December 13, 2024

Topic: “Computational Simulations for Cancer Research”
Speaker: Andrès Cisneros, PhD, Professor
University of Texas at Dallas
Hosted by: Dr. Reuben Harris
In -Person at LSOM 309L


January 5, 2024
Topic: “A chemical biology toolbox for probing A-to-I RNA editing”
Speaker: Jennifer Heemstra, PhD, Professor
Washington University in St. Louis
Hosted by: Dr. Reuben Harris
In-Person at LSOM 309L


January 19, 2024
Topic: “RAD54L regulates replication fork reversal in human cells”
Speaker: Claudia Wiese, PhD, Associate Professor
Colorado State University
Hosted by: Dr. Alex Mazin
In-Person at LSOM 309L


February 2, 2024
Topic: “Controlling the structure of TRP channels through small molecules in CRYO-EM”
Speaker: Kirill Nadezhdin
Columbia University
Hosted by: Dr. Oleg Klykov
In-Person at LSOM 309L


February 16, 2024
Topic: “Black spot, black death, black pearl: tales of bacterial effectors”
Speaker: Kim Orth, PhD, Investigator and Professor
UT Howard Hughes Medical Institute/Southwestern Medical Center
Hosted by: Dr. Reuben Harris
In-Person at LSOM 309L


March 1, 2024
Topic: “Dissecting the influence of NAD+ metabolism in regulating dynamic gene expression programs”
Speaker: Lorena Aguilar-Arnal, PhD, Associate Professor
Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
Hosted by: Dr. Kevin Koronowski
In-Person at LSOM 309L


March 29, 2024
Topic: “Proteolytic regulation of cytokines in innate immunity”
Speaker: Cornelius Taabazuing, PhD, Assistant Professor
University of Pennsylvania
Hosted by: Dr. Elizabeth Wasmuth
In-Person at LSOM 309L


April 12, 2024
Topic: “Advancing precision genome editing: understanding molecular mechanisms to engineer safer and therapeutically relevant tools”
Speaker: Audrone Lapinaite, PhD, Assistant Professor
Arizona State University
Hosted by: Dr. Reuben Harris
In-Person at LSOM 309L


May 10, 2024
Topic: “Interrogating the druggable proteome with proximity”
Speaker: Fleur Ferguson, PhD, Assistant Professor
University of California San Diego
Hosted by: Dr. Shaun Olsen
In-Person at LSOM 309L


May 24, 2024
Topic: “Head and neck cancer cells hijack KEAP1/NRF2 signaling axis to promote tumor chemoresistance and distant metastasis”
Speaker: Abdullah Osman, PhD, Associate Professor
MD Anderson Cancer Center
Hosted by: Dr. Alex Mazin
In-Person at LSOM 309L


Friday December 8, 2023
Topic: “Separate yet connected: mitochondrial and nuclear genome stability”
Speaker: Agnel Sfeir, PhD, Associate Professor, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Hosted by: Dr. Reuben Harris


Friday November 17, 2023
Topic: “BRCA1 mutations to study DNA repair mechanisms in cancer”
Speaker: Neil Johnson, PhD, Associate Professor, Fox Chase Cancer Center
Hosted by: Dr. Weixing Zhao


Friday November 3, 2023
Topic: “Visualizing Base Excision Repair in Chromatin”
Speaker: Bret Freudenthal, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Kansas Medical Center
Hosted by: Dr. Reuben Harris


Friday October 6, 2023
Topic: “Obesity, Inflammation, and Metabolic Diseases”
Speaker: Zhenyu Zhong, PhD, Assistant Professor, UT Southwestern Medical Center
Hosted by: Dr. Peng Zhao


Friday September 22, 2023
Topic: “Mechanisms of RNA-mediated DNA double-strand break repair in yeast and human cells”
Speaker: Francesca Storici, PhD, Associate Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology
Hosted by: Dr. Alex Mazin


Friday September 8, 2023
Topic: “Evolved molecular mechanism for repair protein regulation at damaged chromatin”
Speaker: Justin Leung, PhD, Associate Professor, UT Health San Antonio
Hosted by: Dr. Reuben Harris


Friday August 25, 2023
Topic: “Structural Biology of Ubiquitin and Ubiquitin-like Protein Signaling”
Speaker: Shaun Olsen, PhD, Associate Professor, UT Health San Antonio
Hosted by: Dr. Reuben Harris


Friday May 26, 2023
Topic: “Understanding Molecular Mechanism of Current Precision Genome Editing Tools: how Adenine Base Editors modify DNA”
Speaker: Audrone Lapinaite, PhD, Assistant Professor, Arizona State University
Hosted by: Dr. Reuben Harris


Friday May 12, 2023
Topic: “How Ribosomes are Made in Human Cells”
Speaker: Arnaud Vanden Broeck, PhD, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Rockefeller University
Hosted by: Dr. Elizabeth Wasmuth


Friday April 14, 2023
Topic: “Understanding Human Genetic Variation with Precision Genome Editing Tools”
Speaker: Alexis Komor, PhD, Assistant Professor, University of California-San Diego
Hosted by: Dr. Reuben Harris


Friday March 31, 2023
Topic: “Mechanisms of Genome Rearrangements from Mitotic Errors and Micronuclei”
Speaker: Peter Ly, PhD, Assistant Professor, UT Southwestern
Hosted by: Dr. Patrick Sung


Friday March 3, 2023
Topic: “Structural Visualization of Chromatin Regulatory Complexes by Cryo-EM”
Speaker: Yuan He, PhD, Associate Professor, Northwestern University
Hosted by: Dr. Weixing Zhao


Friday February 17, 2023
Topic: “APOBEC Enzymes at the Crossroads Between Anti-Viral Activity and Cancer Mutagenesis”
Speaker: Remi Buisson, PhD, Assistant Professor, University of California-Irvine
Hosted by: Dr. Reuben Harris


Friday February 3, 2023
Topic: “Chemical Strategies for Regulating DNAInteractive Proteins: Targeting APOBEC Cytosine Deaminases and the N-Myc Transcription Factor”
Speaker: Daniel Harki, PhD, Northrop Professor, University of Minnesota
Hosted by: Dr. Reuben Harris


Friday January 20, 2023
Topic: “Insights into the Hairpin-Rolling Replication Mechanism by Adeno-Associated Virus Rep Proteins”
Speaker: Carlos Escalante, PhD, Professor, Virginia Commonwealth University
Hosted by: Dr. Yogesh Gupta


Friday December 9, 2022
Topic: “Unraveling mechanisms of DNA double-stranded break repair”
Speaker: Dr. Kara Bernstein, PhD, Professor, University of Pennsylvania
Hosted by: Dr. Eloise Dray

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Friday November 18, 2022
Topic: “The Arvin’s PROTAC Discovery Engine: Insights from discovering and developing molecules that induce targeted protein degradation”
Speaker: Dr. Mikos Bekes, PhD, Associate Director, Arvinas
Hosted by: Dr. Shaun Olsen

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Friday November 4, 2022
Topic: “DNA polymerase theta protects leukemia cells from metabolic-induced DNA damage”
Speaker: Tomasz Skorski, MD, PhD, DSc, Professor, Temple University, Lewis Katz School Medicine
Hosted by: Dr. Alex Mazin

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Friday October 7, 2022
Topic: “Insights into the hairpin-rolling replication mechanism by Adeno-Associated Virus Rep proteins”
Speaker: Dr. Carlos Escalante, PhD, Professor, Virginia Commonwealth University
Hosted by: Dr. Yogesh Gupta

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Friday September 23, 2022
Topic: “The BRCA-1PALB2-BRCA2 axis in the DNA damage response and cancer development”
Speaker: Dr. Bing Xia, PhD, Professor, Rutgers University
Hosted by: Dr. Patrick Sung and Dr. Weixing Zhao

_______________________________________________________________

Friday September 9, 2022
Topic: “Systematic Chemical to Develop Biological Probes and Therapeutics”
Speaker: Damian Young, PhD, Associate Professor, Baylor College of Medicine
Hosted by: Dr. Reuben Harris

_______________________________________________________________

Friday May 27, 2022
Topic: “Ubiquitin-mediated transactions in the DNA replication stress response”
Speaker: Dr. Tony Huang, PhD. New York University, Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology.
Host: Dr. Shaun Olsen

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Friday May 13, 2022
Topic: “Structural bases of substrate recognition by ssDNA cytosine deaminase enzymes
Speaker: Dr. Hideki Aihara, PhD. University of Minnesota, Professor, Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics
Host: Dr. Reuben Harris

_______________________________________________________________

Friday April 1, 2022
Topic: “A proteome-centric view of high-grade serious ovarian cancer biology and therapuetic approaches”
Speaker: Dr. Stefani Thomas, PhD. University of Minnesota, Professor, Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology
Host: Dr. Reuben Harris

_______________________________________________________________

Friday March 4, 2022
Topic: “Lockdown – how mutation in penicillin-binding protein 2 confer-cephalosporin resistance to N. gonorrhoeae”
Speaker: Dr. Chris Davis, PhD. University of South Alabama, Professor
Host: Dr. Shaun Olsen

_______________________________________________________________

Friday February 18, 2022
Topic: “Pre-mRNA processing as a regulator of gene output and biomolecular condensation”
Speaker: Dr. Karla Neugebauer, PhD. Yale University, Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry and of Cell Biology; Director of Graduate Studies, Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry; Director, Yale Center for RNA Science and Medicine
Host: Dr. Patrick Sung

_______________________________________________________________

Friday February 4, 2022
Topic: “The Structural and Functional Landscape of Bacterial Riboswitches”
Speaker: Dr. Ronald Breaker, Ph.D. Yale University, Professor and HHMI Investigator, Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology
Host: Dr. Patrick Sung

_______________________________________________________________

Friday January 21, 2022
Topic: “Nuclear Import of Histones”
Speaker: Dr. Yuh Min Chook, Ph.D. University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Professor and Mabel and Alfred Gilman Chair in Molecular Pharmacology, Dept. of Pharmacology.
Host: Dr. David Libich

_______________________________________________________________

Friday, December 10, 2021
Topic: “Cancer Cell: Changing for a Better Future”
Speaker: Dr. Monserrat Rojo de la Vega, Ph.D. Scientific Editor at Cancer Cell and Elsevier
Host: Dr. Zhao Weixing

_______________________________________________________________

Friday, May 01, 2020
Topic: TBA
Speaker:  Claudia Wiese, PhD, Assistant Professor at Colorado State University, Dept. of Radiation Cancer Biology & Oncology
Host: Dr. Sung and Dr. Zhao

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Friday, May 08, 2020
Topic: TBA
Speaker: Hani Goodarzi, PhD, Assistant Professor at The University of California, San Francisco, Dept. of Biochemistry & Biophysics & Dept. of Urology
Host: Dr. Gupta

_______________________________________________________________

Friday, May 15, 2020
Topic: TBA
Speaker: Melanie Cobb, PhD, Jane and Bill Browning Jr. Chair in Medical Science at University of Texas Southwestern, Dept. of Pharmacology
Host:  Dr. Burma and Dr. Sung
Location: Room 309L

_______________________________________________________________

Friday, May 22, 2020
Topic: TBA
Speaker: Richard Kolodner, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Distinguished Professor of Cellular and Molecular Medicine, UC San Diego, Dept. of Cellular and Molecular Medicine
Host: Dr. Sung and Dr. Hromas

_______________________________________________________________

Friday, May 29, 2020
Topic: TBA
Speaker: Joshua Mendel, MD, PhD, Professor at University of Texas Southwestern Medical, Dept. of Molecular Biology
Host: Dr. Burma

_______________________________________________________________

Friday, April 24, 2020
Topic: TBA
Speaker: Dipanjan Chowdhury, PhD, Associate Professor, Radiation Oncology, Harvard Medical School & Professor, Radiation Oncology, Harvard Medical School
Host: Dr. Burma

_______________________________________________________________

Friday, April 17, 2020,
Topic: TBA
Speaker: Tanja Mittag, PhD, Structural Biology Department St. Jude Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences
Host: Dr. Libich

_______________________________________________________________

Tuesday, April 14, 2020,
Topic: TBA
Speaker: James E. Haber, PhD, Director, Rosenstiel Basic Medical Sciences Research Center, Brandeis University in Boston, Department of Cell Systems & Anatomy,
Host: Dr. Lee, Dr. Sung and Dr. Kraig

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Friday, April 3, 2020,
Topic:  “Using Single Molecule Methods to Reveal Membrane Protein Folding Mechanisms”
Speaker: James Bowie, PhD – (Horowitz Lecture), Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
UCLA-DOE Institute
Host: Quintero

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Friday, March 27, 2020,
Topic: TBA
Speaker: Eric Greene, PhD. Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics
Host: Dr. Daley and Dr. Sung

_______________________________________________________________

Friday, March 20, 2020,
Topic: TBA
Speaker: Dr. Rachel Klevit, Edmond H. Fischer/WRF Endowed Chair of Biochemistry, University of Washington, Dept. Of Biochemistry.
Host: Dr. Zhao

_______________________________________________________________

Friday, March 6, 2020,
Topic: TBA,
Speaker: Elan Eisenmesser, PhD. University of Colorado Denver, School of Medicine, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics
Host: Dr. Ivanov

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Friday, February 28, 2020,
Topic: “Arrhythmia mechanisms in arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy: Role of Connexin43 hemichannels.”,
Speaker: Mario Delmar, MD, PhD, Patricia M. and Robert H. Martinsen Professor of Cardiology Dept. of Medicine and Professor Dept. of Cell Biology.
Location: Room 409L LSOM

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Friday, February 21, 2020,
Topic: “TBA”,
Speaker: Robert Brenner, PhD, Associate Professor, Dept. of Physiology, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, UT Health San Antonio,
Location: Room 409L LSOM

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Friday, February 14, 2020,
Topic: “Etiology of Chromosomal Rearrangements”,
Speaker: Jeremy M. Stark, PhD. Professor, Dept. of Cancer Genetics and Epigenetics, Scientific Director, Analytical Cytometry Core Director of Ph.D. Curriculum, Irell and Manella Graduate School of Biological Sciences Beckman Research Institute of the City of Hope.
Location: Room 409L LSOM

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Thursday, February 6, 2020,
Topic: “The atomistic world of the mechanosensitive Piezo channel through computational ‘microscopy”,
Speaker: Yun Luo, PhD, Associate Professor, Dept. of Pharmaceutical Sciences.
Location: Room 209L LSOM

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Thursday, January 30, 2020
Topic: “Measuring phosphorylation state in the human proteme”
UT Health San Antonio, Brian Searle, PhD, Translational Research Fellow, Institute for Systems Biology – Seattle, WA.
Location: Room 209L LSOM

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Monday, January 27, 2020
BSB Faculty Candidate, Francesca M. Marassi, PhD, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, La Jolla, CA.
Topic: “TBA”
Location: Room 209L LSOM

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Thursday, January 23, 2020
BSB Faculty Candidate, Kai Xu, PhD, Project Team Leader, Vaccine Research Center, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH.
Topic: “Structural Vaccinology: Towards the Development of an Effective HIV Vaccine”
Location: Room 409L LSOM

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Friday, January 17, 2020
UT Health San Antonio, Dr. Bruce Nicholson, PhD, Professor, Co-Director of Center for Innovative Drug Discovery, Department of Biochemistry and Structural Biology.
Topic: “The cellular internet: The good, the bad and the ugly of gap junction coupling in disease”
Location: Room 409L LSOM

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Thursday, January 9, 2020

UT Health San Antonio, Dr. Tianmin Fu, PhD, Research Associate, Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, Boston, MA.
Topic: “Rotating and Gating: Molecular Mechanism of human TRPM2 Opening”
Location:  Room 309L LSOM

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Friday, December 20, 2019
Dr. Sandeep Burma
UT Health San Antonio, Vice Chair of Neurosurgery and Professor of Biochemistry
Host: Dr. Patrick Sung
Topic: “Targeting the DNA damage response for glioblastoma therapy”
Location for this Seminar will be held in room 309L.

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Friday, December 13, 2019
Dr. Petr G. Leiman
Associate Professor, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, UT Medical Branch, Galveston Campus
Host: Dr. Dmitri Ivanov
Topic: “Transformation of a contractile macromolecular machine in atomic detail”

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Friday, November 22, 2019
Dr. Katsumi Kitagawa
Associate Professor, UT Health San Antonio, Mol Med/GCCRI
Host: Ajinkya Kawale and Dr. Patrick Sung
Topic: “Centromere Regulation and Cancer”

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Friday, November 15, 2019
Dr. Peng Zhao
Postdoctoral Research Fellow (Laboratory of Dr. Alan Saltiel)
Dept of Medicine, Univ. of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA
Host: TBA
Topic: “At the Crossroads of Metabolism, Inflammation and Apoptosis”

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Friday, November 8, 2019
Dr. Mark Hochstrasser
Yale University, Chair Mol Biophy. & Biochemistry
Host:  Maritza Quintero and Courtney Johnson
Topic: “How endosymbiotic bacteria manipulate reproduction of their eukaryotic hosts”

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Friday, November 1, 2019
Dr. Kirsten J. Lampi
Oregon Health & Science University – Integrative Biosciences & School of Dentistry
Host: Dr. Jean Jiang
Topic: “Aggregation of eye lens proteins due to deamidation, a modification associated with aging and cataracts”

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Friday, October 25, 2019
Dr. Mingjiang XU
UT Health San Antonio, Professor – Department of Molecular Medicine
Host: Cody Rogers and Dr. Patrick Sung
Topic: “Exploration of the mechanisms by which TET2 mutations leads to hematological malignancies”

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Friday, October 11, 2019
Dr. Junji Iwahara
The University of Texas Medical Branch, Sealy Center for Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics
Host: Dr. David S. Libich
Topic: “Dynamics of DNA Recognition by Proteins.”

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Friday, September 27, 2019
Dr Francesca Cole
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (Science Park)
Host: Dr. Eloise Dray and Dr. Patrick Sung
Topic: “DNA repair by homologous recombination, lessons from mammalian meiosis”

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Friday, September 13, 2019
Dr. David Taylor
University of Texas at Austin
Host: Arijit Dutta and Dr. Patrick Sung
Topic: “Snapshots of macromolecular machines in action”

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Friday, September 6, 2019
Dr Gaczynska, Maria E & Pawel Osmulski
UT Health San Antonio, Molecular Medicine
Topic: “From molecules to cells: the power of atomic force microscopy.”