Structural Biologists Build Partnerships at Inaugural Symposium at UB-HWI

That was the clear take-home message from the first Western New York Structural Biology Collaborative Symposium, held Aug. 6 at the UB Hauptman-Woodward Research Institute (UB-HWI) on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.

Organized by the WNY Structural Biology Collaborative, the inaugural event attracted 160 people working in many scientific disciplines from all over the upstate region, with a few coming from Toronto.

Monica Pillon, PhD, assistant professor of structural biology in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, and Makaía Papasergi-Scott, PhD, of the University of Rochester Medical Center were the scientific organizers.

“We want this to be the beginning of something bigger,” said Pillon. “We are building bridges and partnerships between people in structural biology and people in other fields who see the value in structural biology.”

Rhonda Drewes, a doctoral student in the Department of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences in the Jacobs School, attended the conference. She said she has always wanted to learn more about structural biology. Working in the lab of Yongho Bae, PhD, associate professor of pathology and anatomical sciences, she and her colleagues use synthetic material hydrogels to model human tissue order to study atherosclerosis and other cardiovascular diseases. 

“One of the projects in our lab focuses on a specific gene and I’m interested in exploring more about the protein it encodes using different methods like computational structural biology and molecular dynamics simulations,” she said. “I want to understand its 3D structure and motion better and how it behaves in different disease contexts. We don’t do any structural biology in our lab, so I’d like to learn about new techniques, and potentially get the conversation started.”

While more than 40 faculty members attended, the largest group of attendees were trainees like Drewes, including graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and even some undergraduates.

That breakdown was exactly what Pillon says the organizers had been hoping for.

“So much participation from trainees is a huge win for us,” she said. “We see trainees as what’s threading this whole community together, so we can know what they’re doing and facilitate their development.”

Networking opportunities were provided throughout the day, with organizers noting that they are especially useful for trainees.

In his opening remarks, Michael G. Malkowski, PhD, professor and chair of the Department of Structural Biology, emphasized that “collaborative” was the key word for the symposium.

“This level of interest and engagement speaks volumes,” he said, addressing the audience in his opening remarks. He noted that now that HWI has officially joined UB, it was an opportune time and place to hold the symposium. He thanked Jason Benedict, PhD, interim director of UB-HWI, for hosting the event in the HWI building.

He said that with the hiring of new faculty at UB and U of R and other institutions, “the timing has finally aligned” to fully realize the structural biology potential of the region. “In my mind, the mission of this symposium — and really of the collaborative as a whole — is to cultivate a vibrant, regional community of structural biology researchers,” he said.

Several awards were presented. Rahul Ribeiro, a doctoral student from Cornell, won the oral talk award for his presentation on “Crystal structure of Hepatitis C virus E2 glycoprotein from transmitted/founder strain in complex with broadly neutralizing antibody isolated from the same individual.”

Emad Pihardi and Jitendra Singh, both UB doctoral students, and Hannah Schneiderman, a research technician in the Department of Structural Biology, won awards for best posters.

In addition to people from UB and the University of Rochester, faculty and trainees attended from Rochester Institute of Technology, Syracuse University, Binghamton University, Cornell University, SUNY Upstate Medical and the University of Toronto; a few industry representatives also attended.

UB units and departments represented were the departments of Biological Sciences and Chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences; the departments of Biomedical Engineering, Materials Design and Innovation, and Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; and the departments of Biochemistry, Biomedical Informatics, Microbiology and Immunology, Pathology and Anatomical Sciences, Pharmacology and Toxicology, Physiology and Biophysics, and Structural Biology, Jacobs School.