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News !

May 31, 2023
Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski III speak at the inaugural cohort of Freeman Hrabowski Scholars at HHMI headquarters campus. video

May 5, 2023
Ron Vale, executive director of Janelia, interviews Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski III, President Emeritus of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).video

April 11, 2023
Arjun Kanjarpane receives prestigious Goldwater Scholarships article

Sept 1, 2022
Former lab member Dr. Blanton Tolbert named HHMI's Inaugural VP of Science Leadership and Culture!

June 15, 2022
"Excellence and Mentorship" Virtual Happy Hour Celebrating Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski, III

July 1, 2021
"A legacy of Mistrust: The collective unconsciousness of black americans and the health care system" by Dr. Ashleigh Bouchelion.

Jan 22, 2021
Dr. Summers' podcast as a featured guest on the Science of Mentorship podcast of th NASEM. Listen to it here


August 10, 2020
Congratulations to Ridhi Chaudhary, who is featured as undergraduate researcher of the week!


July 21, 2020
Dr. Hrabowski's statement of John Lewis and Cordy Vivian.
Listen to it here


July 21, 2020
Dr. Chelsea Pinnix's podcast addressing black representation in the physician workforce
Listen to it here

Duration 1:02:52 min/58.4 mb


June 15, 2020
Congratulations to Dr. Sarah Keane! She was awarded a Pew Scholar Award for her work on large RNAs at University of Michigan!


May 30, 2020
Congratulations to Dr. Xiao Heng! She’s now a tenured Associate Professor at U. Missouri, Columbia


Feb 21, 2019
Mr. Robert Edwards featured in Vimeo video interviewed for HHMI/LBS Corp.


Jan 12, 2019
Dr. Janae Baptiste featured in UMBC News.


Dec 18, 2018
Alexis Waller and Dr. Pengfei Ding featured in UMBC News.


June 6, 2018
Dr. Summers' interview with NIH-NIGMS.


March 13, 2018

Congratulations to Dr. Joshua Brown!

Dec 20, 2017

Congratulations to Dr. Christy Gaines! and Julie Nyman

Nov 29, 2017

Congratulations to Dr. Janae Baptiste !

Oct 31, 2017

Dr. Fatma Zehra Yildiz's interview at Harvard.


Oct 26, 2017

Congratulations to Dr. Lola Brown!

She will be the new Assistant Dean for Research at Weill Cornell Medicine. She will work to bolster research funding and support the development and implementation of relevant research strategies. Additionally, she will foster research-related communication and collaboration across Weill Cornell with the overall goal of enhancing their research profile.

Sept 29, 2017

Congratulations to Dr. Christy Gaines !

Sept, 2017

Congratulations to Dr. Dana Lawrence ! She's been promoted to the Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Physics at Hood College.

July 7, 2017

Congratulations to Dr. Xiao Heng !!! Just received her first independent NIH R01 Award!!!

June 26, 2017
UMBC News recapes recent articles featuring Pres. Hrabowski and Dr. Summers on inclusive excellence!
May 15, 2017
Heather Frank accepted into Ph.D program at Harvard University!
April 29, 2017
Dr. Summers gets inducted into the National Academy of Science.
Video Link. ( Dr. Summers is at 42:05 mark.)
April 10, 2017
Dr. Summers voted the Best academic in BEST of Baltimore by The Baltimore Sun!
April 9, 2017
Janae Baptiste awarded T32 Chemistry-Biology Interface program fellowship!
April 7, 2017
Joshua Brown awarded NIGMS F31 Grant (Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Individual Predoctoral Fellowship to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research (Parent F31 - Diversity)) Grant information
Oct 18, 2016
Dr. Summers featured in UMBC news
Sept, 2016

Interesting articles

Why college Rankings Are a Joke

Is science only for the rich?

Dr. Summers featured in UWF article (page 28-29)

July, 2016
Undergraduate and High School SBTP Students in the Summers Lab, 2016. What a great group of students!
May, 2016
Dr. Sarah Keanes has accepted a faculty position at Michigan!
May, 2016

Dr. De Guzman has been promoted to full professor at the University of Kansas!

May 3, 2016




Congratulations to Dr. Michael Summers on being elected into the National Academy of Science !!!





April 15, 2016
Dr. Peter Mercredi's paper "Structural and Molecular Determinants of Membrane Binding by the HIV-1 Matrix Protein" has been published -- it is a beautiful work that changes the way we think about how HIV assembles in infected cells!
June, 2015
Meyerhoff Scholar Michael Lopresti give commencement talk at Academy of Science in Sterling, VA
May 1, 2015
Dr. Sarah Keane's paper "Structure of the HIV-1 RNA Packaging Signal" has been accepted by Science magazine!

April 6, 2015
Dr. VICTORIA D'SOUZA has been tenured at Harvard University!
Oct 17, 2014
Dr. Gaya got tenure again after moving to Wash U!

Sept 26, 2014
Peter Mercredi awarded PhD!
Aug 21, 2014
Dr. Gaya Amarasinghe's research about Ebola has been highlighted on Nature.
Aug 14, 2014
Dr. Jamil Saad was promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure at Univerity of Alabama at Birmingham.
July 21, 2014
Dr. Summers gave a webinar on "How to integrate mentoring into your research program" on ASM-LINK Mentoring Mondays.

(Access code: 072114)

May 29, 2014
Dr. Summers "interviewed by Science and Social Justice"
May 20, 2014
HHMI News "Three Universities Unite to Replicate and Spread Successful STEM Program"
May 20, 2014
Dr. Summers featured in ScienceInsider paper "HHMI Hopes to Replicate Program to Produce More Minority Science PhDs"
March 7, 2014
Justine Johnson Wins Regents Award!
Feb 26, 2014
Dr. Blanton Tolbert gets amfAR grant for his HIV/AIDS work!
Sept 3, 2013
Dr. Summers is featured in New York Times "Ideas for Improving Science Education"
Aug 15, 2013
Dr. Xiao Heng is appointed as Assistant Professor of Biochemistry in University of Missouri
May 31st, 2013
Isaac Kinde selected as one(#17) of "The Sexiest Scientists Alive" by Business Insider
May 15th, 2013
Isaac Kinde selected as one of the "2013's 10 People to Watch Under 30 in Baltimore"
April 19, 2013
Yuanyuan Liu awarded PhD!
March 1, 2013
Dr. Xiao Heng accepted faculty position at University of Missouri.
Feb 20, 2013
Robert Edwards speaks at HHMI Food for Thought event.
Jan 9, 2013
Isaac Kinde published a research article "Evaluation of DNA from the Papanicolaou Test to Detect Ovarian and Endometrial Cancers" on Science Translational Medicine and made the cover. Baltimore Sun news BloombergBusinessweek news
Dec 17, 2012
Dr. Hrabowski and Dr. Summers talks on iBioMagazine about "Increasing Underrepresented Minorities in Science Research"
Dec 17, 2012
Isaac Kinde is named one of the Forbes' "30 Under 30: The Rising Stars Transforming Science And Health"
Oct 22, 2012
Dr. Summers speaks at Freeman Hrabowski 20th anniversary gala!
video here
Oct 14, 2012
Dr. Anwesha Dey has accept the position as scientist at Genentech!
Sept 27, 2012
Mr. Robert Edwards recognized in HHMI bulletin!
Sept 17, 2012
Dr. Sara Keanes joins the lab!
June 1, 2012
Dr. Blanton Tolbert has moved to the Department of Chemistry at Case Western Reserve University as Assistant Professor!
May 31, 2012

Bill Cosby

visited our lab!
Nov 11, 2011
Dr. Chun Tang gets one of 28 HHMI Early Career Awards!
Oct 14th, 2011
Dr. Kun Lu and Dr. Xiao Heng's Science paper has been published!
Sept 27th, 2011
Dr. Victoria D'Souza gets promoted to Associate Professor at Harvard University!
March, 2011
Dr. Zhengrong Wu gets tenured at Ohio State University!
Sept, 2010
Dr. Sepideh Khorasanizadeh moves from UVA to Sanford Burnham Institute!
2010
Dr. Gaya Amarasinghe moves to Washington University!

 



Dr. Michael Summers is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Robert E. Meyerhoff Chair for Excellence in Research and Mentoring and Distinguished University Professor at UMBC, and also an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Research in his laboratory is aimed at understanding how HIV-1 and other retroviruses assemble in infected cells and package their RNA genomes. His recent work focuses on retroviral RNA packaging and the development of NMR tools to study large RNAs. He and his students showed that genome packaging by HIV-1 and an evolutionarily older retrovirus, MoMuLV, is regulated by a dimerization-dependent RNA structural switch mechanism, in which residues essential for genome packaging are sequestered by base pairing in the monomeric RNA and become exposed to promote protein binding and packaging upon dimerization. They developed a novel NMR method that enabled structural probing of the intact HIV-1 leader (> 700 nucleotide dimer), and showed that the leader undergoes dimerization-dependent remodeling that sequesters signals important for splicing and translation, and exposes NC binding sites. They also identified a minimal region of the HIV-1 leader sufficient to direct RNA packaging, and determined its structure. They are currently studying the protein-RNA complexes that appear to be important for nucleating the assembly of new viruses. Read more...

Click here to see publications via Google Scholar.

 

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