James Nowick

Congratulations to Jason Zhu on the publication of his manuscript "A β-Hairpin Peptide Derived from Aβ Forms Different Oligomers in the Crystal State and in Aqueous Solution" in Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry: pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a.... This

Trump administration layoffs set to hit NIH are ‘devastating,’ former director Monica Bertagnolli says Sweeping layoffs are set to hit federal health and science agencies, including at the NIH, and former director Monica Bertagnolli called the situation at the NIH “devastating.”

Sat down with former NIH director Monica Bertagnolli yesterday at #aaasmtg to talk about layoffs set to hit the NIH and other agencies

“We’re going to lose the next generation, that is the most difficult loss," she said, adding she got very little sleep Friday 🧪

www.statnews.com/2025/02/16/n...

There have been both program officers and scientific review officers who have been terminated. However, I do not have a good sense of the numbers nor the rationale for one over others.

3/n

kermit the frog has his hand on his mouth ALT: kermit the frog has his hand on his mouth

The biggest hit to extramural program staff appears to be grants management specialists (GMSs). It appears that 15-20% of GMSs were terminated.

This is quite concerning since these folks have already missed essentially a month of getting-grants-out time and have lots to do. They already work hard.

Vancomycin–Teixobactin Conjugates Vancomycin continues to be a widely used antibiotic of last resort in treating drug-resistant pathogens despite the emergence of vancomycin-resistant strains such as vancomycin-resistant Enterococci (VRE). This communication reports that conjugation of vancomycin to a second antibiotic that targets a different region of lipid II enhances and rescues its antibiotic activity. Conjugation of vancomycin to a minimal teixobactin pharmacophore in which residues 1–6 are replaced with an aromatic amide results in substantial enhancement in activity over the individual components or mixtures thereof. Three conjugates with minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of 0.5 μg/mL against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and 0.063–0.125 μg/mL against methicillin-susceptible Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA) were identified. Each of these conjugates is also active against VRE, even though the individual components are inactive, with the most active conjugate (Cbp-Lys10-teixo7–11-vanco) having an MIC of 2–4 μg/mL. These findings demonstrate that conjugation of vancomycin to a minimal teixobactin pharmacophore is an effective strategy for enhancing the activity of vancomycin against important Gram-positive pathogens.

Congratulations to Sophie Padilla on the publication of "Vancomycin–Teixobactin Conjugates" in the Journal of the American Chemical Society pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/.... Conjugation of vancomycin to a fragment of teixobactin enhances antibiotic activity by 4–8-fold and restores activity against VRE.

The Nowick group welcomes new first-year graduate students Carolina Gatewood and Harry Ung. Carolina earned a B.S. in Chemistry from Georgia Tech and performed research in M.G. Finn's group. Harry earned a B.S. in Chemistry from Emory University and did research in Simon Blakey's group.

Potent Analogues of Clovibactin from Commercially Available Amino Acid Building Blocks This paper reports highly active analogues of clovibactin in which the rare, noncanonical amino acid d-hydroxyasparagine is replaced with the commercially available amino acid d-threonine. Sequential ...

Congratulations to Jackson Brunicardi and co-authors on the publication of Potent Analogues of Clovibactin from Commercially Available Amino Acid Building Blocks in the Journal of Organic Chemistry: doi.org/10.1021/acs.joc.4c02828 .

Frontiers | An artificial transcription factor that activates potent interferon-γ expression in human Jurkat T Cells

Congratulations to Assistant Professor Nick Truex at the University of South Carolina on the publication of his group's first paper, titled An artificial transcription factor that activates potent interferon-γ expression in human Jurkat T Cells (www.frontiersin.org/journals/mol...).

Wishing all of my first-year graduate students success in their day-long Organic Spectroscopy final exam. For previous years' course materials, see: canvas.eee.uci.edu/courses/57646 (2023 website), www.youtube.com/playlist?lis... (2020 lecture videos), www.chem.uci.edu/~jsnowick/or... (old exams).

I am always delighted to see what my graduate students can achieve when entrusted to do so. Two of my graduate students submitted their manuscripts to our favorite journal today. It's been great working with each of them and watching them take ownership of their work and manuscripts in the writing.

Reasons to Give Thanks:
Exciting new results
Manuscripts almost ready to go out
Encouraging score on grant proposal
Superb coworkers
Great colleagues and friends
Supportive department
Engaged grad students in Org. Spec. class
Fun travel as part of my career
My health
My loving supportive husband

Two loaves of sourdough wheat bread with pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds.

Just starting preparation for the Nowick group pre-Thanksgiving dinner. I've just pulled two loaves of my sourdough wheat bread out of the oven. John has already made his all-butter pie crusts and is beginning to work on the apple and pumpkin pies and the cranberry sauce and cranberry-orange relish.