Twenty-four researchers and students awarded exclusive training

Five-day EMSL Summer School focuses on fungal research

Genoa Blankenship | June 13, 2024

EMSL 2024 Summer School. 1000 Fungal Proteins: Gene to structure determination, July 22-26, 2024. Richland, WA. An illustration of a fungal protein. — *Twenty-four students were selected to attend the 2024 EMSL Summer School on the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory campus. (Graphic by Nathan Johnson | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)*

Twenty-four students were recently selected to attend this year’s EMSL Summer School: 1000 Fungal Proteins.

The chosen participants include postdoctoral researchers and undergraduate, graduate, and PhD students in the fields of biology, biochemistry, biophysics, and chemistry.

Students will take part in an intensive, five-day learning experience July 22–26 at the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL), a Department of Energy, Office of Science user facility located at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

The week’s activities align with EMSL’s 1000 Fungal Proteins project, which aims to associate structure with function in poorly characterized or previously uncharacterized proteins that are highly conserved across the fungal kingdom.

EMSL Summer School will highlight the following capabilities:

cell-free expression and purification

cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) screening and data collection
AlphaFold2 modeling and cryo-EM image processing
optical/Raman imaging
whole cell ultrastructural analysis
nanodroplet processing in one pot for trace samples (nanoPOTS)
native mass spectrometry.

Each selected attendee will have the option of proposing one target protein that will be sent through the cell-free expression and cryo-EM workflows for more personalized training.

Meet the 2024 EMSL Summer School students.

Ayodeji Adebola Odunsi

PhD student

Alabama A & M University

Area of study: Molecular biotechnology

Research Focus: Regulation of lipid biosynthesis in Yarrowia lipolytica

Beatrice Bock

PhD student

Northern Arizona University

Area of study: Biology

Research focus: Ecology of plant–fungal symbioses

Bethany Bengs

PhD student

University of Kansas

Area of study: Biostatistics

Research focus: Predicting protein interaction network perturbation of the INO80 complex in S. cerevisiae

Bishal Thapa

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

PhD student

Area of study: Biological and fungal engineering

Research area: Development of high-throughput tools for fungal engineering

Bo Zhang

Postdoctoral researcher

University of California, Santa Barbara

Area of study: Metabolism of anaerobic microbes

Research area: Anaerobic consortia and the metabolism of biomass-degrading organisms

Carlos Lax Molina

PhD student

University of Murcia

Area of study: Fungal genetics

Research focus: Characterization of the epigenetic landscape of early-diverging fungi, focusing on pathogenic Mucorales such as R. microsporus

Christina Jennings

PhD student

Tennessee State University

Area of study: Agricultural science and plant science

Research focus: Identification and functional verification of powdery mildew resistance genes in Hydrangea macrophylla

Csenge Földi

PhD student

Biological Research Centre

Area of study: Fungal developmental biology

Research focus: Conserved unannotated gene underlying fungal fruiting body development

Elise Krespan

PhD student

Syracuse University

Area of study: Biology

Research focus: Effects of combined transgenic and mycorrhizal strategies on poplar cell wall composition

Francis Nzubechukwu Eze

University of North Texas

PhD student

Area of study: Chemistry

Research focus: Natural product biosynthesis in fungi

Hannah Butler Robbins

Northern Arizona University

PhD student

Area of study: Soil microbial ecology

Research focus: Carbon cycling by soil microbes and quantitative stable isotope probing

Hannah Goemann

Montana State University

Postdoctoral researcher

Area of study: Microbial ecology

Research focus: Rhizosphere microbial community dynamics across climatic gradients

Santiago Emil Aves Joson IV

PhD student

University of Georgia

Area of study: Plant pathology

Research focus: Mycotoxins

Jeremy Sabo

Idaho National Laboratory

Postdoctoral researcher

Area of study: Microbiology

Research focus: Yeast cytoskeleton and microgravity, algae preprocessing and storage, enzyme characterization, rare earth element isolation and separation using microorganisms, CO₂ sequestration, proteomics, and metagenomics

Jezreel Wilson

Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi

Master’s student

Area of study: Biology

Research focus: Mycobiome diversity across South Texas barrier islands, with a focus on Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and ectomycorrhizal fungi 

Joshua Oyekanmi

University of Arizona

Graduate student

Area of study: Ecology

Research focus: Using omics analyses to investigate interactions between the fungal microbiome and nutrient composition of lettuce genotypes.

Josue Martinez

Cal State University – San Bernadino

Undergraduate student

Area of study: Biology

Research focus: Biotechnology: Protein purification

Katy Ayers

Undergraduate student

Washington State University

Area of study: Advanced biological sciences

Research focus: Medicinal mycology: Pathogenic fungi for antifungal drug development. I want to understand how fungi infect humans and how to prevent or stop infection.