First paper from the lab on BioRxiv!!!

We’re very excited to share the first paper from the lab “Host glutathione is required for Rickettsia parkeri to properly septate, avoid ubiquitylation, and survive in macrophages” now available online as a preprint on BioRxiv! https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.02.560592v1

This project has been spearheaded by our technician Michelle Sun, congratulations Michelle! The title pretty much says it all, but what it doesn’t convey are the very cool super-resolution images showing how glutathione depletion causes Rickettsia to chain. We propose the idea that reducing environments are host-associated molecular patterns (HAMPs), sensed by cytosolic bacteria as a cue to initiate virulence.

The fall quarter starts – welcome back!

To all the new CMB and other graduate students, welcome to UCI! The sun might be setting earlier but don’t worry you can still head to the beach for another few (12) months.

Journal club this week was a paper from Andrew Olive’s lab on CRISPR screening in macrophages, which Jessie is optimizing and we’re excited to be performing a forward genetic screen in host cells. The Cancer Research Institute had a picnic yesterday, thanks for putting that together CRI!

We’re busy writing manuscripts and are excited to share our new findings with the world 🙂 I’m also busy writing my first R01 and R21 – I need a more comfortable chair. Fingers crossed on these submissions, check in next month to see if we have submitted a manuscript!

Mid-2023 year in review:

It’s been a while since our last post, we’ve been busy! A few exciting Burke lab updates to share:

Our lab’s first hire, Thaomy Vo, has sadly departed us for graduate school at USC. We were happy to throw her a fun goodbye bbq (pics below). Best of luck Thaomy! Thank you for all your hard work and dedication.

This summer we welcomed the lab’s second graduate student, Meggie Danielson. Meggie will be studying how to activate innate immunity for cancer immunotherapy. Welcome Meggie!

This summer we welcomed that lab’s first undergraduate, Michael Lee – welcome Michael! Thank you for bringing a youthful spirit to the lab 🙂