News

2018

• Dr. Nagarajan Vaidehi has been named the inaugural chair of the Dept. of Computational & Quantitative Medicine at City of Hope! The dept. consists of the Divisions of Biostatistics, Health Analytics, Informatics & Mathematical Oncology.
• Manbir Sandhu, has been selected to give a short talk at the upcoming Gordon Research Seminar in Molecular Pharmacology, taking place in Ventura, CA. Manbir's talk will focus on the role of conformational plasticity in the intracellular cavity of GPCR-G-protein complexes and how this leads to G-protein selectivity. 
• Ning Ma has published his research on bitopic inhibitor for PKCa in BioChemistry: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.biochem.8b00729. He also recently won a postdoc travel grant to present this research in the ASBMB Kinase Conference (9th Dec. 2018, San Diego). 
• Anita K Nivedha was nominated and accepted as a AAAS member through the AAAS/Science Program for Excellence in Science. This program rewards deserving graduate students and postdocs working in the life sciences with a one-year sponsored membership in AAAS/Science (and includes a subscription to the digital version of Science).
• Congratulations to Anita Nivedha for being awarded best postdoctoral oral presentation at the Annual Research Staff Organization Advance 2018 in Lake Arrowhead, California!
• Anita Nivedha was selected by the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics as the Highlighted Trainee Author for April 2018, a feature designed to highlight emerging scientific talent in the field of pharmacology: https://www.aspet.org/aspet/news/news/2018/03/09/molecular-pharmacology-highlighted-trainee-author-april-2018. She was selected based on her recent work: “Identifying Functional Hotspot Residues for Biased Ligand Design in G-Protein Coupled Receptors”, Molecular Pharmacology, 2018 (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1124/mol.117.110395), in collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim.
• Benjamin Levy, a summer student at the lab, has been admitted into Harvard University and into University of California Berkeley as a Regents Scholar. The Regents' and Chancellor's Scholarship is the most prestigious scholarship offered by UC Berkeley to entering undergraduates, and attracts, retains and graduates the most sought-after students in the world.
• Anita Nivedha is an invited speaker to the Keystone Symposium - GPCR Structure & Function: Taking GPCR Drug Development & Discovery to the Next Level in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
• Anita Nivedha has been awarded the Keystone Future of Science Fund Scholarship to attend the Keystone Symposium - GPCR Structure & Function: Taking GPCR Drug Development & Discovery to the Next Level in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

 

2017

• The Journal of Biological Chemistry has selected our recent work “Structural Elements in the Gαs and Gαq C Termini That Mediate Selective G Protein-coupled Receptor (GPCR) Signaling” to appear in a special virtual issue on structural biology. This virtual issue highlights the most impactful articles published in the journal in the previous three years (2015-2017), focusing on the field of structural biology.  http://www.jbc.org/site/vi/structbio/ 
• Manbir Sandhu was the recipient of the Helen & Morgan Chu Graduate Student Fellowship.
• Manbir Sandhu received a travel grant from the GRC for attending the 2017 Molecular Pharmacology GRC in Barga, Italy.

 

2016

• Nagarajan Vaidehi received the Distinguished Alumni award for 2016 from her alma mater, Indian Institute of Technology. This award is made annually to five or six alumni who have distinguished themselves as leaders in various fields and made path-breaking contributions. It is given in recognition of academic achievements and intellectual contributions to the development and application of new mathematical models for the design and discovery of new therapeutics for cancer.
• Shayla Paulekas was awarded the H.N. Frances Berger Fellowship
• Hubert Li successfully defended his doctoral dissertation and graduated from the Irell & Manella Graduate School of Biological Sciences.

 

2014

• Supriyo Bhattacharya and Nagarajan Vaidehi’s article “Differences in Allosteric Communication Pipelines in the Inactive and Active States of a GPCR”, Biophysical Journal, 2014 (DOI: 10.3410/f.718494182.793497473) has been selected for Faculty of 1000 Prime: https://f1000.com/prime/718494182?bd=1&ui=156456 
• Supriyo Bhattacharya and Nagarajan Vaidehi’s article “Differences in Allosteric Communication Pipelines in the Inactive and Active States of a GPCR”, Biophysical Journal, 2014 (DOI: 10.3410/f.718494182.793497473) has been selected as “New and Notable” in the July 2014 issue of Biophysical Journal.
• Supriyo Bhattacharya, Sangbae Lee and Nagarajan Vaidehi were awarded supercomputing time on the Anton Supercomputer at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center.
• Manbir Sandhu was awarded the H.N. Frances Berger Fellowship

 

2012

• Supriyo Bhattacharya and Nagarajan Vaidehi’s article “Receptor conformations involved in dopamine D2L receptor functional selectivity induced by selected transmembrane 5 mutations” in collaboration with Prof. Richard Mailman of PSU has been selected as the cover illustration for the June 2012 issue of Molecular Pharmacology.
• Supriyo Bhattacharya, Sangbae Lee, Michiel Niesen and Nagarajan Vaidehi were awarded supercomputing time on the Anton Supercomputer at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center.

 

2010

• Vaidehi Lab was ranked at the top among 35 research groups worldwide in the contest GPCRDOCK 2010 for predicting the structures of two class A GPCRs, dopamine D3 and CXC4 prior to the publication of their crystal structures. Congratulations! Alfonso Lam, Gouthaman Balaraman, Hubert Li, Michiel Niesen and Supriyo Bhattacharya.