James Checco

Looking forward to speaking at this seminar series on Friday. (Note this is at 3 PM UK time, which is 9 AM central!)

November edition of the PPSG online webinar is taking place at 3pm, Friday the 7th November!

Sign up link below:

bit.ly/4hqPbTQ

We look forward to hearing from our speakers:
🧪 Dr James Checco from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
🧪 Dr Martin Spinck from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology

I will be presenting at the RSC Protein and Peptide Science seminar this Friday! Come check it out!

www.rsc.org/events/detai...

Proposed cuts could have ‘catastrophic effect,’ 110 biomedical, health sciences industry leaders tell Congress Proposed cuts will have “a catastrophic effect on the advancement of biomedical and biotechnology capabilities in the United States,” more than 100 leaders of biomedical/health sciences companies tell...

Good to see acknowledgment from industry about the importance of fundamental research funding. We need more industry leaders to step up to make this point to Congress. www.statnews.com/2025/06/27/b...

Awesome - congratulations!!

HA!

I had an excellent time last week at the 2025 American Peptide Symposium! For me, the main highlight of the event was the inaugural Young Investigators' Symposium, where students and post-docs had a chance to share their research.

Check out the awesome video below:
aps2025.org/young-invest...

Annual Nebraska Drug Discovery and Development Pipeline symposium June 25-26 World-renowned experts will offer their insights during the fifth annual ND3P Symposium, set for June 25-26. The symposium will be virtual and highly interactive.

This Wednesday and Thursday is the VIRTUAL Nebraska Drug Discovery and Development Pipeline Symposium! Registration is still open! Plenary speakers include Brian Kobilka and Virginia Man-Yee Lee.

#chemsky, you should attend!

research.unl.edu/blog/annual-...

This is huge.

This was a great collaboration with our UMN chemistry team and @mayoclinic.org collaborators, including Vijay Shah ad Harmeet Malhi @umnchemistry.bsky.social

What is the deal with people saying "acrossed"?

Awesome! This is important work - understanding deamidation occurring from sample preparation is super important. Congratulations!

Oh no! Incorrect structure on the TOC graphic. That's glutamine!

The Wicked movie is fabulous! Don’t let anyone tell you different!

The one time @theguardian.com could rightly use a left-handed DNA image... and they choose right-handed 🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️
@iansample.bsky.social

PPI Prediction Challenge #2 For this protein-protein interaction prediction challenge, we present three target proteins: KRAS, RAF (the KRAS binding domain), and Mdm2. For each target protein, we are providing you a list of 8 po...

Back by popular demand, I present PPI Prediction Challenge #2.

My claim: I AM SKEPTICAL COMPUTATIONAL APPROACHES CAN PREDICT WHETHER TWO PROTEINS INTERACT.

Someone prove me wrong (take two).
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

1/n

Yeah, that's definitely how research works, right??

Wow - cool idea!!

Chemically Induced Dimerization via Nanobody Binding Facilitates in Situ Ligand Assembly and On-Demand GPCR Activation Methods that enable the on-demand synthesis of biologically active molecules offer the potential for a high degree of control over the timing and context of target activation; however, such approaches often require extensive engineering to implement. Tools to restrict the localization of assembly also remain limited. Here we present a new approach for stimulus-induced ligand assembly that helps to address these challenges. This methodology relies on the high affinity and specificity recognition exhibited by antibody fragments (nanobodies, Nbs). By using Nbs that recognize short peptide epitopes to create semisynthetic conjugates, we develop a bioengineering platform termed peptide epitope dimerization (PED) in which the addition of heterodimeric peptide composed of two Nb epitopes stimulates the proximity-induced synthesis of a functional ligand for the parathyroid hormone receptor-1, a G protein-coupled receptor. We further demonstrate that high efficiency assembly can be achieved on the cell surface via Nb-based delivery of template. This approach opens the door for the on-demand generation of bioactive receptor ligands preferentially at a desired biological niche.

Happy and proud to see this paper from postdoc Shubhra Saha and myself come out in JACS Au! This was a project where I really had no idea if we could get the design to work but IT DID and I think it’s quite cool. A brief rundown 1/n

Got the chance to put together the "Click of Chemical Biologists" starter pack v1 and v2 over the Thanksgiving Break. Feel free to ping me on who else I might be missing!
V1: go.bsky.app/3P5i7nJ
V2: go.bsky.app/Cr4ej7

A quantitative framework for structural interpretation of DMS reactivity Dimethyl sulfate (DMS) chemical mapping is widely used for probing RNA structure, with low reactivity interpreted as Watson-Crick (WC) base pairs and high reactivity as unpaired nucleotides. Despite i...

🧬 Excited to share our new preprint! DMS chemical mapping, a key technique for studying RNA structure. Everyone assumes low DMS reactivity = Watson-Crick , high = non-WC. However, analyzing 7,500 RNA structures containing known 3D structures reveals it's not that simple. doi.org/10.1101/2024...

I’m seeing more folks from UNL joining and created a UNL STEM starter pack to bring together and highlight the fantastic research and science outreach at UNL! Let me know who I missed!

go.bsky.app/4KUGrvQ

a cartoon character from the emperor 's new groove is holding a fan and says boom baby Alt: Emperor Cuzco from the animated movie "The Emperor's New Groove" bursts into a room shouting "BOOM BABY!", representing the american chemical society division of biochemistry and chemical biology's presence on BlueSky should be known, celebrated, and perhaps feared by the #chembio #chemsky #chemtwitter #chemicalbiology #realtimechem and other communities. The jovial reference to a children's movie likewise signifies the division's interest in making this online space fun and inclusive for scientists of all ages and career stages, and likely foretells of future memes to be posted by this account.

We are so back

Where my other #chemtwitter #chemsky #chembio #chemicalbiology #realtimechem homies at?

WOW is right!

Wishing the Elsevier editors who desk-accepted this all the best for their next career moves.

doi.org/10.1016/j.ij...

These worms are the best! Cool article, @biyolokum.bsky.social !

Oooof!

So far, I'm loving it!!

Download our database of 492 (!) funding opportunities for EARLY-CAREER FACULTY AND RESEARCHERS.

For each entry, we provide link to funder, description, amount, deadline, and eligibility criteria (e.g. citizenship).

Download freely here: research.jhu.edu/rdt/funding-...

Wow, this is really scary! What kind of universities do not teach chemistry??