October 31, 2024
We had a modest farewll lunch with our beloved Zhiguang. He will
join the Mass General Hospital as a Rearch Fellow. Zhiguang
has been the backbone of the lab since 2014, a true leader and role
model. He has helped us in so many ways, keeping our computers
running, teaching us how to run various types of simulations, and
making major discoveries in every project that he has been involved
with. He has also being doing all these while going through some
extraordinary challenges in life. The lab will never be the same
without Zhiguang. We all wish him and his family the absolute best
in Boston!
September 6, 2024
We are pleased to welcome Devanshee Sanghvi to our lab! Devanshee is a
(graduating) junior BMB and Chemistry double major, who originally
came from Pune, India. Devanshee will be learning molecular modeling
and simulation, likely in parallel to her experimental work in Tom
Maresca’s lab.
August 27, 2024
Congratulations to Jian, Kairong, David, Shrishti and Harsha for
highly successful presentations at the annual Chemistry
ResearchFest event. They were able to showcase several exciting
projects from our lab. A very special recognition goes to Jian
for being selected to give a coveted talk and winning the
prestigious Dr. Paul Hatheway Terry Endowment Award (thre years in a
row for the Chen lab)! What a beautiful day!
June 3, 2024
We officially welcome Harsha Chilukuri S to the lab as a PhD student
in Chemical Engineering! Harsha came from Bengaluru, India. He
received his BE in Chemical Engineering from Visvesvaraya
Technological University and MS from UMass Amherst, studying the
interaction of small molecules with membranes. In our lab, Harsha
will be studying membrane ion channels, biomolecular condensates and
others. We look forward to exploring some exciting science (and
engineering) together in the next few years!
May 28, 2024
We are thrilled to received an UMass Interdisciplinary Research Grant to
support a new collaborative project on antibiotic forcasting using biophysics
and machine learning, with
Anna Green from CICS and
Lulu Kang
from Math & Stat.
May 18, 2024
Yumeng came back for the Graudate School Commencement! It was the
first of the lab and Jianhan finally was able to have his first
hooding experience! The group enjoyed a day hiking to a couple of
group favorite waterfalls in Green Mountains and enjoyed a picnic
together. We (re)discovered that the railway through the famous
Hoosac Tunnel is a live one ...
April 26, 2024
Congratulations to Aron for winning the Uche Anyanwu Memorial Award for Outstanding
Research at the 20th Annual Undergraduate Poster Session at UMass Department of
Chemistry! Aron presented some of his exciting findings about how drug molecules
modulate the structure and dynamics of TRPC5 channels.
April 13, 2024
We hosted the Molecualr Biophysics in the Northeast
on UMass Amhest campus this Saturday. This is an exciting one-day meeting that brings
together experimental and computational molecular biophysicists in the norteatern region and
emphasizes the involvement of student and postdoctoral trainees. This year's meeting
had over 170 researchers in attendence from ~20 universities and institutions and
showcased 80 poster presentations in addition to 14 talks from PIs and trainees.
We look foward to future MBN meetings!
April 8-25, 2024
Congatulations to Shrishti, Kairong and David for passing their prospectus (Shrishti) and ORP
(Kairong and David) exams! One small step forward a time and in the right direction!
Feb 26, 2024
Warmest congratulations to Xiaorong Liu, our first PhD from UMass, who has accepted
the offer to become an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology
at the University of New Mexico! We are all very proud of Xiaorong and wish her the
best in the exciting new chapter of her career!
Feb 15, 2024
Warmest congratulations to Erik and Zhiguang for their paper on
"Inner pore hydration free energy controls the activation of the big potassium
channel and its mutants" being selected as one for the
Best of 2023 published in Biophysical Journal!
Feb 9-14, 2024
Jian, Kairong, Shrishti and Jianhan attended the annual Biophysical Society meeting
in the beautiful Philadelphia. We celebrated the Lunar Chinese New Year in the best
chinese restaurant of the town, presented some of our exciting results, and enjoyed
the beautiful city. We also reconnected with the Chen lab alumni Erik and Mahdieh,
as well as our collaborators from WUSTL, Buffalo, ISU, KSU, USC, Copenhagen, Van Andel
and others. It was an exciting and memorable meeting!
Jan 15 and Feb 2, 2024
The lab celebrated Yumeng's memorable four years in the lab together
at Jianhan's house. Yumeng has demonstrated how much one could
accomplish with extreme dedication to research excellence and
tenacity in front of extraordinary challenges. We are all so proud
of her and wish her the best in her next chapter of life and
scientific careeer!
We missed Yumeng so much that she had to come
back to the lab for two more weeks before eventually saying goodbye
one last time after the Feburary lab research update.
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