Brannigan Lab

Our PhD student Lindsey Riggs presented a poster about the Blobulator toolkit at the MidAtlantic Bioinformatics Conference last week! Well done👏🏻! Check out the Blobulator web tool here 😁: blobulator.branniganlab.org

10.11.2025 03:07 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

SARS-CoV E protein couples asymmetric leaflet thickness and curvature deformations The Envelope protein (E protein) of SARS-CoVs 1 and 2 has been implicated in the viral budding process and maintaining the spherical shape of the viru…

⚠️Do you run coarse-grained membrane simulations with restraints on the absolute positions of any molecules? We found a common setting combination that causes metastable membrane distortions! Read our paper here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

31.10.2025 16:32 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Thank you to everyone who participated, and congratulations again to our winners🎉 !! Let us know your favorite image/movie 😁 Until next time!

31.10.2025 16:30 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

We also had some really unique media from Regina Salzer, Ezry Santiago-McRae, and another image from Jesse Sandberg!

31.10.2025 16:30 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

2nd place 🥈: Ryan Lamb for "Under the Surface" youtu.be/4AAqFJvUxbU?...

31.10.2025 16:30 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Last but not least, this year we decided to introduce a "Scientific media category" which allows participants to explore various editing/rendering tools. Please congratulate our winners:

1st place 🥇: Jesse Sandberg for "A postcard from Wyoming"

31.10.2025 16:30 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

3rd place 🥉: Jesse Sandberg for "Sugar and Fat for the brain" youtu.be/dr8YujmwWcI?...

31.10.2025 16:30 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

2nd place 🥈: Connor Pitman for "Looking Glass" youtu.be/dT-x54ZXd-s?...

31.10.2025 16:30 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Moving on to the winners for Best #VMD Movie of 2025🎉:
1st place 🥇: Jesse Sandberg for "Can you find the binding lipid?" youtu.be/9yo2ePhhUX8?...

31.10.2025 16:30 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

We also had fantastic image entries from Connor Pitman, Lindsey Riggs, Ryan Lamb, and a second image from Jesse Sandberg!

31.10.2025 16:30 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

And of course, Best entry by a beginner goes to Asim Dave for "Structure in sync" 🥇

31.10.2025 16:30 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

3rd place 🥉: Jesse Sandberg for "Ghostly gathering"

31.10.2025 16:30 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

2nd place 🥈: Jahmal Ennis for "Positive Infinity"

31.10.2025 16:30 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Without further ado, let’s congratulate our winners for Best #VMD Image of 2025🎉:

1st place 🥇: Ezry Santiago-McRae for "In a Bind"

31.10.2025 16:30 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

First, we are truly appreciative of our panel of judges! Thank you to Colin Kinz-Thompson, Ilya Levantol, Ed Lyman, @susyk.bsky.social, @sykhalid.bsky.social, Alex Sodt, @markusdeserno.bsky.social, Emad Tajkhorshid, @jerome-henin.bsky.social, and Matthew Hansen! We couldn’t have done it without you!

31.10.2025 16:30 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

🥁🥁We received some really outstanding entries this year for our Fourth Annual #VMD Contest! See the thread for all of the entries!🥁🥁

31.10.2025 16:30 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Absolute Binding Affinity of a Phospholipid for a Membrane Protein: Alchemical Free Energy Calculations at Atomistic Resolution Specific lipid binding is a likely mechanism by which phospholipids may modulate the conformational ensembles of membrane proteins. An absolute binding affinity is the natural quantitative descriptor ...

Congratulations, Ezry, for publishing a preprint, “Absolute Binding Affinity of a Phospholipid for a Membrane Protein: Alchemical Free Energy Calculations at Atomistic Resolution” at @chemrxiv.org. Give it a read😁! chemrxiv.org/engage/chemr...

29.10.2025 19:42 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Congratulations to Ryan Lamb for successfully defending his Master's thesis!🥳🎉🎓 Ryan studied properties of hydrophobic clusters on tertiary interactions in peptides and developed an awesome VMD GUI for blobulating proteins! We are so proud of you, and we wish you luck in your future endeavors! 😄

18.09.2025 20:47 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

The lab

Regina and Sully

Chessie smiling for apples

Chessie and Lindsey

The lab took a field trip to see @reginasalzer.bsky.social’s horses this week! A beautiful day in PA to celebrate Regina’s birthday! 🐴🎉🥳

08.06.2025 01:00 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

And more poster presentations about intrinsically disordered proteins and peptides by Lindsey and Ryan!

14.03.2025 21:14 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

In addition to wonderful talks by our lab, we also gave poster presentations about lipid membranes by Jahmal, Jesse, and Regina.

14.03.2025 21:13 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Recently, at the Biophysical Society conference in LA, two of our talented PhD students, Ezry and Connor, delivered excellent talks on their research. Congratulations—we are so proud of you both!

14.03.2025 20:46 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Last month, our lab member Jesse Sandberg presented a wonderful flash talk on our lab’s research at the Camden Aquarium during the annual CCIB retreat. Well done, Jesse! 🐟🐡🫧

18.01.2025 04:13 — 👍 1    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0