March 2025 - phenixbb - phenix-online.org

Research Specialist Position at the University of Illinois to Study Ribosome Structure | POLIKANOV Lab
by Yury Polikanov 21 Apr '25

21 Apr '25

*Research Specialist Position Available, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago - Polikanov Lab* *The Polikanov Laboratory in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago (IL, USA) is looking for a talented, skillful, and highly motivated researcher to fill the Research Specialist position to study the structure and function of the bacterial ribosome.* For fullest consideration, please submit an application and cover letter describing your scientific interests and how your previous research accomplishments and scientific interests fit with the scope of the research in the Polikanov research group at https://uic.csod.com/ux/ats/careersite/1/home/requisition/7573?c=uic *Position Summary:* The research in the Polikanov Laboratory at UIC is focused on understanding the basic principles of protein synthesis in bacteria, the modes of action of ribosome-targeting antibiotics, and the mechanisms of drug resistance at a structural level. This position is involved in the determination of high-resolution structures of ribosome functional complexes with various protein translation factors, tRNAs, and antibiotics using macromolecular X-ray crystallography and potentially cryo-EM techniques. Expected contributes to the design and delivery of research projects and collaborates with researchers to develop, execute, and interpret research projects. Performs complex laboratory and data collection techniques. *Duties & Responsibilities:* - Perform research relevant to the assigned projects; - Isolate, purify, and crystallize bacterial ribosomes; - Purify all additional components necessary for the crystallization experiments, such as recombinant proteins, tRNAs; - Collect X-ray diffraction data from the ribosome crystals at the APS and NSLS-II Synchrotrons; - Perform structural data analysis; - Coordinate, analyze, and document results for publication; - Directly participate in writing papers and grants based on the experimental data; - Train undergraduate and graduate students in research methods, use of equipment, record keeping, and laboratory database entry; - Attend weekly group meetings and journal club seminars. - Perform other related duties and participate in special projects as assigned. *Minimum Qualifications:* - A bachelor’s degree in chemistry, biochemistry, biophysics, or a related field is required. - A master’s degree in chemistry, biochemistry, biophysics, or a related field is preferred. - A minimum of 3 years related research experience. - Possesses and applies comprehensive knowledge of research principles, concepts, practices, and methods. - Proficient in standard molecular biology and biochemistry lab techniques, such as protein expression, and purification *Preferred Qualifications:* - Experience in structural biology (cryo-EM or X-ray crystallography); - Experience in RNA biology, ribosome, and/or protein synthesis fields. *About the University of Illinois Chicago:* UIC is among the nation’s preeminent urban public research universities, a Carnegie RU/VH research institution, and the largest university in Chicago. UIC serves over 34,000 students, comprising one of the most diverse student bodies in the nation and is designated as a Minority Serving Institution (MSI), an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institution (AANAPSI) and a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI). Through its 16 colleges, UIC produces nationally and internationally recognized multidisciplinary academic programs in concert with civic, corporate and community partners worldwide, including a full complement of health sciences colleges. By emphasizing cutting-edge and transformational research along with a commitment to the success of all students, UIC embodies the dynamic, vibrant and engaged urban university. Recent “Best Colleges” rankings published by U.S. News & World Report, found UIC climbed up in its rankings among top public schools in the nation and among all national universities. UIC has nearly 260,000 alumni, and is one of the largest employers in the city of Chicago. *The University of Illinois System is an equal opportunity employer, including but not limited to disability and/or veteran status, and complies with all applicable state and federal employment mandates. Please visit Required Employment Notices and Posters <https://www.hr.uillinois.edu/cms/one.aspx?portalId=4292&pageId=5705> to view our non-discrimination statement and find additional information about required background checks, sexual harassment/misconduct disclosures, COVID-19 vaccination requirement, and employment eligibility review through E-Verify. **The university provides accommodations to applicants and employees. Request an Accommodation <https://jobs.uic.edu/request-and-accomodation/>*

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Differential density peaks and hydrophobic residues
by Lucas Souza 04 Apr '25

04 Apr '25

Hi everyone, I am refining a ~3A structure using phenix 1.21.2-5419. I am at the final stages of the refinement but I am seeing some positive density on some hydrophobic residues (mainly Ile and Leu) together with a negative density around those residues (image attached). At first, I guessed that might be related to solvent mask, so I turned on optimize_mask. That did not solve the issue, although slightly decreased R values. Diffraction data was processed with autoproc+staraniso and does not seem to be twinned (normal intensity stats + map deteriorates if twinning refinement is applied). Does anyone have a guess about that? Best, Lucas -- Lucas Souza dos Santos Laboratório de Biologia Estrutural Aplicada (LBEA) Departamento de Microbiologia Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas II - USP Cidade Universitária - São Paulo - SP CEP 05508-000

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CloudFlare and Spain
by Billy Poon 31 Mar '25

31 Mar '25

Hi everyone, Does anyone in Spain have issues reaching the Phenix website ( https://phenix-online.org)? Our website is behind CloudFlare and it looks like, periodically, some CloudFlare IP addresses are blocked in Spain due to some piracy issues. Thanks! -- Billy K. Poon Research Scientist, Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory 1 Cyclotron Road, M/S 33R0345 Berkeley, CA 94720 Fax: (510) 486-5909 Web: https://phenix-online.org

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IBA2025 - May 5&6 2025 - Cambridge MA
by Chip Lesburg 31 Mar '25

31 Mar '25

The Industrial Biostructures America conference will take place on May 5 & 6, 2025 at the MassBioHub in Cambridge MA. The conference was launched in 2018 to bring the industry-based structural biology community together for two days of presentations and networking. This is a great place for industrial structural biologists, as well as those who are industry-curious. The conference will feature keynote presentations by: * Dr. Stephen K. Burley, Director RCSB Protein Data Bank and Rutgers University Professor * Dr. James Fraser, Professor and Chair Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutics Sciences at UCSF * Dr. Stephen Harrison, Professor Harvard Medical School/Investigator Howard Hughes Medical Institute * Dr. Mark Murcko, Founding CSO/Board Member at Dewpoint Therapeutics and Relay Therapeutics Conference information is available at https://industrialbiostructuresamerica.org along with guidelines for submitting abstracts for scientific presentations during the conference. Scientific sessions will cover the following topics: * Structural Biology of Targeted Protein Degradation: Glues, TCs & DUBs * Developing Fragments to Drugs: Challenges & Victories * Molecular Dynamics and Allostery - Bridging Experimental and Computational Drug Discovery * Membrane Protein Structure Guided Design * CryoEM Synergies with Molecular Modeling and Computational Models * Biologics (Antibody Design & ADCs) * AI/ML in Structural Biology and Drug Discovery * Hot Topics (SBDD, Kinases, RNA) The abstract deadline is April 1. Space is limited so if you're interested, please register soon. Contact us at iba(a)proteros.com<mailto:[email protected]> for information regarding Exhibitor and Sponsor opportunities [cid:logo_c70edd4a-e7f0-4d54-be6f-d03f53f0c961.png] Charles Lesburg Vice President, Structural Biology odysseytx.com<https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/___https:/odysseytx.com/___.YzJ1Om9keXNzZ…> This message is for the named person's use only. It may contain confidential, proprietary or legally privileged information. If you receive this message in error, please immediately delete it and all copies of it from your system, destroy any hard copies of it and notify the sender. ODYSSEY THERAPEUTICS, INC. ("ODYSSEY THERAPEUTICS") reserves the right to monitor all e-mail communications through its networks. ODYSSEY THERAPEUTICS cannot be committed by this e-mail or warrant the accuracy or validity of any information presented. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender.

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can not launch phenix gui
by lzhlizehou＠outlook.com 29 Mar '25

29 Mar '25

Dears, I am using Ubuntu 24.04 and have successfully installed phenix-1.21.2-5419. However, when I attempt to launch the GUI by running the phenix command, it fails with the following error: Error in sys.excepthook: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/local/phenix-1.21.2-5419/modules/phenix/wxGUI2/App.py", line 961, in _excepthook Error.show_exception_dialog(type, value, traceback) File "/usr/local/phenix-1.21.2-5419/modules/phenix/wxGUI2/Error.py", line 76, in show_exception_dialog if (app.bug_timer.IsRunning() is False): AttributeError: 'PhenixApp' object has no attribute 'bug_timer' Original exception was: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/local/phenix-1.21.2-5419/build/../modules/phenix/wxGUI2/command_line/main.py", line 34, in <module> run(sys.argv[1:]) File "/usr/local/phenix-1.21.2-5419/build/../modules/phenix/wxGUI2/command_line/main.py", line 28, in run wxapp = App.PhenixApp(args) File "/usr/local/phenix-1.21.2-5419/modules/phenix/wxGUI2/App.py", line 84, in __init__ wx.App.__init__(self, 0) File "/usr/local/phenix-1.21.2-5419/conda_base/lib/python2.7/site-packages/wx-3.0-gtk2/wx/_core.py", line 8628, in __init__ self._BootstrapApp() File "/usr/local/phenix-1.21.2-5419/conda_base/lib/python2.7/site-packages/wx-3.0-gtk2/wx/_core.py", line 8196, in _BootstrapApp return _core_.PyApp__BootstrapApp(*args, **kwargs) File "/usr/local/phenix-1.21.2-5419/modules/phenix/wxGUI2/App.py", line 118, in OnInit show_splash_screen(timeout=2000) File "/usr/local/phenix-1.21.2-5419/modules/phenix/wxGUI2/App.py", line 1015, in show_splash_screen dlg,-1,citations.format_citation(citations.citations_db.get("phenix"))) File "/usr/local/phenix-1.21.2-5419/conda_base/lib/python2.7/site-packages/wx-3.0-gtk2/wx/_controls.py", line 997, in __init__ _controls_.StaticText_swiginit(self,_controls_.new_StaticText(*args, **kwargs)) UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xc3 in position 40: ordinal not in range(128) Could you kindly advise on how to resolve this issue? I would greatly appreciate your assistance. Looking forward to your reply. Best regards Li

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Call for Abstracts - Combining experimental data with predicted models - Session at the ACA Meeting, July 18-23, 2025
by Christopher Williams 24 Mar '25

24 Mar '25

Dear All, Rakhi Rajan and I are co-chairing the session "Combining experimental data with predicted models for structure determination" session at the 75th American Crystallographic Association Meeting in Lombard, IL (near Chicago) from July 18–23, 2025. It's a great meeting, and we encourage both general attendance and submissions for our session. We welcome abstract submissions for both talks and posters. If you're interested, please submit your abstract at https://www.acameeting2025.com/. Deadlines are fast approaching: March 31 – Deadline for oral abstracts & travel grant applications April 30 – Deadline for poster abstracts We invite contributions of novel methods and pipelines for combining prediction and experiment. We also invite stories of working with predictions and data. Have you gotten into the weeds with AlphaFold? Has structure prediction let you better design an experiment? Or has experimental data revealed an important detail missing from prediction? We want to hear about it! If you're interested in sponsoring our session, please reach out as well. -Christopher Williams ---Richardson Lab, Duke University -Rakhi Rajan ---University of Oklahoma

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Issues with zero B-factor and ADP refinement
by sylee00＠snu.ac.kr 24 Mar '25

24 Mar '25

Dear all, I am encountering issues related to B-factors and ADP refinement in Phenix and would appreciate any insights or suggestions. I am currently working on my first PDB file, but I've noticed that many atoms in the PDB file have a B-factor of 0. As far as I understand, B-factor values are calculated by ADP refinement in Phenix real-space refinement, but even after running real-space refinement (with ADP on in refinement settings), the B-factor remains 0 for many atoms. I am currently using Phenix 1.20 on Windows (Newest version available on window). I also attempted to run Phenix 1.21 on a Linux in other computer, but when ADP refinement is enabled, the process starts normally but halts during the ADP refinement step. So I couldn't test whether the issue is fixed in the newest version. Aside from the B-factor issue, I am also experiencing an inssue related to ADP refinement: When I run real-space refinement with ADP refinement enabled, the process starts normally but halts during the ADP refinement step. According to the log file, other refinement steps proceed without issues, but it fails to progress at the ADP refinement stage. Additionally, when I try to pause the process, I receive a "NoSuchProcess" error, so ADP refinement process may have unexpectedly terminated. At first, I thought it's the issue related to system performance or hardware differences, because adp refinement with this pdb file and identical parameters works on some computer but fails on others (the same version of Phenix). Still it's weird because this issue has occurred unexpectedly, as ADP refinement previously worked in my computer under the same conditions without any problems and also other PDB files run without any problems in my computer. I would appreciate any insights or suggestions on how to resolve this. Thanks

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phenix low resolution refinement strategies
by a131943017＠163.com 21 Mar '25

21 Mar '25

Hi, how do I set the optimization parameters to make free R lower for 3.2Å x-ray crystallography data, or in other words, how do I go about determining whether the optimization strategy is appropriate or not? Questions from a Phenix Beginner.

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seeking help for phenix - coot model building
by tim smith 20 Mar '25

20 Mar '25

Hi everyone, I’m currently working on building a model and have encountered some difficulties with the map-model process. I would greatly appreciate it if anyone could assist me in either helping to build the model or teaching me how to do it. I’m happy to offer a suitable reward for your time and help. Thank you in advance for considering! Regards, Stim

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CSD changes conformation to planar during phenix.refine
by Andrea Smith 20 Mar '25

20 Mar '25

Hi all, I have a structure where I clearly see that one of the cysteines is oxidised. I have modelled CSD instead of CYS and when I do real space refine in Coot, the CSD sits nicely in the density. When I submit the phenix.refine job, I can see that the geometry changes and now the SOOH is planar. I tried to add the CSD.cif from PDB into phenix.refine as restraints, but it doesn't help and during the automatic refinement the geometry is changed to planar again. Anyone experienced same thing? What do I do? Thank you, Andrea

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