{"id":173696,"date":"2023-03-06T16:24:37","date_gmt":"2023-03-07T02:24:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=173696"},"modified":"2024-03-15T13:10:53","modified_gmt":"2024-03-15T23:10:53","slug":"biophysical-society-research-award-simien","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2023\/03\/06\/biophysical-society-research-award-simien\/","title":{"rendered":"National award for <abbr>PhD<\/abbr> student\u2019s research of entangled protein structure"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><figure id=\"attachment_173697\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-173697\" style=\"width: 676px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/manoa-chemistry-jennifer-simien-presentation.jpg\" alt=\"person smiling by a poster\" width=\"676\" height=\"381\" class=\"size-full wp-image-173697\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/manoa-chemistry-jennifer-simien-presentation.jpg 676w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/manoa-chemistry-jennifer-simien-presentation-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/manoa-chemistry-jennifer-simien-presentation-130x73.jpg 130w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-173697\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jennifer <abbr>M<\/abbr>. Simien at the 67th Biophysical Society Annual Meeting poster competition.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>A University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Hawai&#699;i<\/span> at M\u0101noa <abbr title=\"Doctor of Philosophy\">PhD<\/abbr> student won a national award for science research excellence. <strong>Jennifer <abbr>M<\/abbr>. Simien<\/strong> from the <a href=\"http:\/\/manoa.hawaii.edu\/chem\/\">Department of Chemistry<\/a> earned a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biophysics.org\/\">Biophysical Society<\/a> Student Research Achievement Award for her research on the hormone leptin which is a model system of the Pierced Lasso Topology (<abbr>PLT<\/abbr>). This protein structure controls the protein\u2019s function and influences human health, which was recently discovered by Assistant Professor <strong>Ellinor Haglund<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/manoa-chemistry-jennifer-simien-team-photo-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"people smiling at the camera\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-173700\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/manoa-chemistry-jennifer-simien-team-photo-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/manoa-chemistry-jennifer-simien-team-photo-130x73.jpg 130w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/manoa-chemistry-jennifer-simien-team-photo.jpg 676w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Simien was one of 36 winners in the country who were recognized for their outstanding presentations during the poster competition of the 67th Biophysical Society Annual Meeting held in San Diego in February. One hundred and twenty seven students participated in the competition.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;As an important hormone in human health linked to obesity, diabetes and cancer, this research is fundamental for understanding which regions of the protein are critical for folding and biological activity,&rdquo; Simien said. &ldquo;By challenging myself to participate in the Biophysical Society Student Research Achievement Award poster competition, I have grown as a researcher. I am honored by the acknowledgement that comes with this award.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Topology refers to the way parts or components are arranged. <abbr>PLTs<\/abbr> are a type of &ldquo;knot-like&rdquo; structure found in 18&#37; of disulfide-bonded proteins. Disulfide bonds play a critical role for protein stability and biological activity, regulated by environmental factors such as oxidizing and reducing environments.<\/p>\n<p>Simien earned a bachelor of science in biochemistry in 2018 before joining <abbr title=\"University of Hawaii\">糖心Vlog官方<\/abbr> M\u0101noa\u2019s chemistry <abbr>PhD<\/abbr> program. She plans to defend her thesis in either fall 2023 or spring 2024.<\/p>\n<p>The Department of Chemistry is housed in <abbr>糖心Vlog官方<\/abbr> M\u0101noa\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/natsci.manoa.hawaii.edu\/\">College of Natural Sciences<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Related <em><abbr>糖心Vlog官方<\/abbr> News<\/em> stories:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2022\/02\/14\/pierced-lasso-topology-grant\/\">$670<abbr>K<\/abbr> boost to study proteins involved in obesity, skin cancer, tuberculosis, more<\/a>, February 14, 2022<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2021\/01\/12\/threaded-protein-class-explained\/\">Newly discovered threaded protein class explained<\/a>, January 12, 2021<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jennifer Simien was one of 36 winners out of 127 entrants in the competition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[251,308,1467,1363,568,660,9,1626],"class_list":["post-173696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","tag-chemistry","tag-college-of-natural-sciences","tag-manoa-excellence-in-research","tag-manoa-research","tag-natural-science","tag-student-recognition","tag-uh-manoa","tag-women-of-uh","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173696"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":173708,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173696\/revisions\/173708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}