2022 Inaugural Chemical Biology Symposium

Biomedical Sciences Symposium

The inaugural Chemical Biology Symposium was held October 21-22, 2022 and was attended by over 100 people. Friday featured Graduate Training in Chemical Biology student presentations and a keynote address by Dr. Nozomi Ando from Cornell University. Saturday included presentations by Dr. Jimmy Ballard (University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center), CBID scientists and other selected scientists. A poster session concluded the symposium.

Symposium Information

Conference Schedule & Abstracts - Mobile Devices Format (Includes links to abstracts)
List of Participants
A printable Conference Program Booklet is available by request. Please email Shelley Sandberg at sandberg@ku.edu.

Keynote Speaker

Dr. Nozomi Ando
Associate Professor
Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology
Cornell University

Presentation title: "Evolution of an Ancient Allosteric Enzyme"

Invited Speaker

Dr. Jimmy Ballard
Professor and Chairman
George Lynn Cross Research Professor
PI/Director, Oklahoma Center for Microbial Pathogenesis and Immunity, CoBRE
Department of Microbiology and Immunology
University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center

Presentation title: "Suppressing Toxin Receptor Expression During C. difficile Infection"

Symposium Awardees

Oral Presentation Award Winners

Lightning Talks: Matt Zupan (Mentor: Meredith Hartley, KU Chemistry)
Special Award: Sahida Afroz (Mentor: Dan Dixon, KU Molecular Biosciences)

Poster Award Winners

Erick McCloskey (Mentor: David Davido, KU Molecular Biosciences)
Brielle McKee (Mentor: Josie Chandler, KU Molecular Biosciences)
Naviya Schuster-Little (Mentor: Rebecca Whelan, KU Chemistry)
Blanca Rodriguez (Mentor: Josie Chandler, KU Molecular Biosciences)
Aprajita Tripathi (Mentor: Kalyani Pyaram, KSU Division of Biology)

Awardees Group Picture

2022 Chemical Biology Symposium Awardees

Awardees (from left to right) Erick McCloskey, Naviya Schuster-Little, Matt Zupan, Blanca Rodriguez, Brielle McKee, and Aprajita Tripathi with Dr. Brian Ackley (Sahida Afroz not pictured).

List of Abstracts

Poster Session (3:30 - 5:00 pm)
Poster #	Last Name	First Name	Abstract Title
1	Arteaga	Luis	Characterization of Circulating Extracellular Vesicles Released in Plasma from Colorectal Cancer Mouse Model
2	Binjawadagi	Rashmi	Dose Effect of Thyroid Hormone on Myelin Damage and Myelin Repair
3	Ciftci	Muhammed	Lipids Modulate Membrane Targeting and Activation of Apoptotic Factors BAX and Bcl-xL
4	Dasgupta	Debolina	Oxidative Stress Regulator NRF2 controls Inflammatory T-helper (Th) Subset differentiation by Modulating Glycolysis
5	Downes	Grant	Low Valency Insulin-CD22 Ligand Conjugates Reduce Insulin-specific B Cell Activation in Response to Anti-CD40 Stimulation
6	Ebert	Eric	Optimizing the Delivery of Antibody Therapeutics using Blood-Brain Barrier Modulators
7	Evans	Andrew	Inhibition of Xpo1 in Colorectal Cancer
8	Feehan	Ryan	Can We Identify Enzyme Active Sites Without Experimentation?
9	Garg	Gaurav	Design, Synthesis and Profiling of P-Heterocycles as Covalent Probes
10	Hapugaswatta	Harsha	Role of Rab27A in Cell Growth of Colorectal Cancer Cells
11	Hettiarachchi	Piyanka	Electrochemical Evaluation of the Local Effects of Zn²⁺ Photo Release in the Zebrafish Brain
12	Holt	Esther	Real Time Imaging of Autotaxin Activity in Oligodendrocyte Precursor Cells
13	Hutchison	Justin	SARS-CoV-2 Wastewater Monitoring in Kansas: Correlation with Clinical Data and Variant Tracking
14	Jimenez	Bryan	An Analysis of bar-1 Alleles in Motoneuron Differentiation
15	Joshi	Prabhu	Neuroimmune Regulation of Carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae Infection and Lethal Pneumonia
16	Kroh	Jacob	Determination of the Transmembrane Domain of the Virulence Protein IpaC by ¹⁹F NMR
17	Kurfman	Emily	Capillary Electrophoresis Analysis of Cellular Metabolites for In Situ Life Detection on Ocean Worlds
18	Malvankar	Shweta	Familial Alzheimer’s Disease Mutations Stabilize Stalled Complexes of γ-secretase Bound to Substrate and Trigger Synaptic Loss Independent of Aβ42
19	Martinez	James	A Modular Synthesis of Sanctolide A Analogs
20	McCloskey	Erick	HSV-1 ICP0 Dimer Domain Adopts a Novel β-barrel Fold
21	McKee	Brielle	Genetic Adaptation to Tobramycin Alters the Antibiotic Susceptibility of Quorum Sensing (LasR)-Null Mutants in Pseudomonas aeruginosa
22	Mohotti	Nishama	Investigating Lipid Regulatory Pathways During Demyelination and Myelin Repair Using a Novel Genetic Mouse Model
23	Pfannenstiel	Jessica	Identification of a Coronavirus Macrodomain Inhibitor That Impairs Virus Replication in Cell Culture
24	Rodriguez	Blanca	Mutations in the Nitrogen Phosphotransferase Gene ptsP Destabilize Cooperation in P. aeruginosa
25	Russolillo	Matthew	Labeling Tumor Cells with Synthetic Constructs for Immune Detection
26	Schuster-Little	Naviya	Affinity-free Enrichment and Mass-spectrometry Characterization of CA125 (MUC16) from Ovarian Cancer Patient Ascites
27	Seibold	Steve	The University of Kansas Protein Structure and X-ray Crystallography Laboratory
28	Smith	Nathan	Competitive Impact of Hydrogen Cyanide Produced via Acyl-homoserine Lactone-dependent Eavesdropping by Chromobacterium subtsugae
29	Tripathi	Aprajita	Antioxidation System Metabolically Reprograms Survival and Expansion of Activated CD4 T-Lymphocytes
30	Vithanage	Dimuthu	Synthesis of Novel Macrocyclic N-Acyl Sulfamide Analogs Using a Build-Couple-Pair Strategy
31	Wang	Chien-Wei	Characterizing the Tandem Repeat Region of Ovarian Cancer Biomarker CA125
32	Wei	Lanjing	Functional Inhibition of RNA-binding Protein HuR Reverses Chemotherapeutic Resistance in Triple-negative Breast Cancer

Symposium Agenda

Time		Activity	Speaker
Friday, October 21, 2022 – Oread Hotel, Griffith Ballroom
4:00 pm	4:30 pm	Welcome session - Drinks, snack, and get name tags
4:30 pm	4:35 pm	General Greeting and Presentation of 2022 Chemical Biology Certificates	Timothy Jackson
Graduate Training in Chemical Biology TraineesLightning Talks and PresentationsSession Chair: Esther Holt
4:35 pm	4:55pm	Matt Zupan - Former Trainee, Chemistry Dr. Meredith Hartley, Mentor
4:55 pm	5:10 pm	Jacob Kroh - Trainee, Molecular Biosciences Dr. Roberto De Guzman, Mentor
5:10 pm	5:25 pm	Eric Ebert - Trainee, Pharmaceutical Chemistry Dr. Teruna Siahaan, Mentor
5:25 pm	5:40 pm	Lexie Cutter - Trainee, Molecular Biosciences Dr. Scott Hefty, Mentor
5:40 pm	6:00 pm	Samuel Gary - Former Trainee, Medicinal Chemistry Dr. Steven Bloom, Mentor
6:00 pm	7:00 pm	Dinner Buffet
Keynote Address
7:00 pm		Nozomi Ando (Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology, Cornell University) “Evolution of an Ancient Allosteric Enzyme”
Saturday, October 22nd – School of Pharmacy
8:00 am	8:45 am	Morning Social session – SOP Atrium Coffee, Juice, & Muffins
Session I - 2020 SOPSession Chair: Esther Holt
8:50 am	9:00 am	Welcome and opening comments
9:00 am	9:20 am	Rebecca Whelan (Associate Professor, KU – Chemistry) "New Insights on an Ovarian Cancer Biomarker Enabled by Bioanalytical Chemistry...and the Questions that Remain"
9:20 am	9:40 am	Shyam Sathyamoorthi (Assistant Professor, KU – Medicinal Chemistry) "Tethered Alkene Functionalization Technology for Complex Molecule Assembly"
9:40 am	10:00 am	Anthony Fehr (Assistant Professor, KU – Molecular Biosciences) "The Discovery of Novel SARS-CoV-2 Macrodomain Inhibitors"
10:00 am	10:20 am	Steven Bloom (Assistant Professor, KU – Medicinal Chemistry "Anti-Packaging Peptides (APPs) as New Antiretroviral Drugs for HIV-1"
10:20 am	10:30 am	Break
Special SessionIntroduction by Jacob Kroh
10:30 am	11:30 am	Jimmy Ballard (Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology & Director, Oklahoma Center for Microbial Pathogenesis and Immunity, CoBRE, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center). “Suppressing Toxin Receptor Expression During C. difficile Infection”
12:00 pm	1:00 pm	Lunch - First Floor Dining Area (Mortar & Pestle Cafe)
Session II - 2020 SOPSession Chair: Jacob Kroh
1:00 pm	1:20 pm	Justin Hutchison (Assistant Professor, KU – Civil, Environmental & Architectural Engineering) "Induced Thermal Stability of Phage Protein GP6 via Interactions with Mycobacterium smegmatis"
1:20 pm	1:40 pm	Teruna Siahaan (Aya and Takeru Higuchi Distinguished Professor, KU – Pharmaceutical Chemistry) "Searching for M^pro Enzyme Inhibitors using Immobilized Peptide and Peptidomimetic Libraries"
1:40 pm	2:00 pm	Saswati Biswas (Research Assistant Professor, KUMC – Microbiology, Molecular Genetics and Immunology) "A Strategy for Rapid Screening of Lantibiotics"
2:00 pm	2:15 pm	Break
Session III - 2020 SOPSession Chair: Matthew Russolillo
2:15 pm	2:35 pm	Scott Lovell (Director, KU Protein Structure & X-Ray Crystallography Laboratory) "Gene to Structure: Utilizing X-Ray Crystallography to Support Chemical Biology"
2:35 pm	2:55 pm	David Johnson (Director, , KU CBID Computational Chemical Biology & Molecular Graphics and Modeling Core Facilities) "Structure Prediction of Protein Monomers and Complexes Using Alphafold"
2:55 pm	3:15 pm	Sahida Afroz (Ph.D. Candidate, KU – Department of Molecular Biosciences) "Overexpression of the Small GTPase Rab27B Promotes Tumor Growth by Regulating Autophagy Flux in Colorectal Cancer"
3:30 pm	5:00 pm	Poster Session Snacks and Drinks – SOP Atrium
5:00 pm		Poster and Flash Talk Award Ceremony, 2020 SOP
6:00 pm		Invited Dinner, Merchant’s Pub & Plate

The 2022 symposium was possible through support from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences CoBRE in Chemical Biology of Infectious Disease (P20GM113117), the National Institute of General Medical Sciences Graduate Training in Chemical Biology (T32-GM132061) and the Higuchi Biosciences Center.