Lab News

11/20/23: Cale Locicero, Michael Xiong, and Yunlong Zhao join the lab as first-year chemistry PhD students. Welcome to the group, Cale, Michael, and Yunlong!

11/13/23: Berenice Chavez joins the lab as a joint lab manager between the Shoulders Lab and the Johnson Lab. Welcome, Berenice!

11/5/23: Matteo Gionfriddo joins the lab as a postdoctoral researcher. Welcome to the lab, Matteo!

9/25/23: The Shoulders Lab is awarded an R01 grant from the NIH's National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases to support research aimed at identifying and elucidating key mechanisms of intracellular collagen folding and quality control, and assessing the therapeutic potential of proteostasis network-targeted therapeutics in the collagenopathies.

8/28/23: Jiacheng Lin joins the lab as a postdoctoral researcher. Welcome to the Shoulders Lab, Jiacheng!

8/8/23: Mani wins 2023 BroadIgnite Award. With this award, Mani aims to optimize directed evolution techniques across a range of systems. Congrats, Mani!

7/17/23: Jimin wins a DEI Travel Award and a Best Poster Award from The Protein Society 37th Annual Symposium. Congrats, Jimin!

7/2/23: Mani wins a poster award at CHSL: CRISPR Frontiers 2023 Conference. Congrats, Mani!

6/7/23: Mani and Kathryn are honored with 2023 Mentorship Spotlight Awards from the Department of Chemistry. Congrats, Mani and Kathryn!

6/2/23: The lab says goodbye to UROP scholars Yu Meng Zhang and Sophia Mirda. Yu Meng will begin her graduate work at the Harvard Virology Program, and Sophia will start her graduate program at Stanford, Department of Developmental Biology. Best wishes to both of you!

5/30/23: April Yu, a freshman in MIT's Biology program, and Nathan Shapiro, a freshman in MIT's Biological Engineering Program, join the lab as UROP scholars. Welcome, April and Nathan! 

5/23/23: Jess Bonnar joins the lab as a first-year biology PhD student. Welcome to the group, Jess!

5/17/23: Yu Meng wins The Gene Brown Prize for outstanding academic scholarship, and demonstrated excellence as a teaching assistant. Sophia wins the Whitehead Prize for outstanding promise for a career in biological research. Congrats, Yu Meng and Sophia!

5/1/23: Kathryn wins an Outstanding UROP Mentor Award. Congrats, Kathryn!

4/30/23: Peter Nguyen Tran joins the lab as a postdoctoral researcher. Welcome to the lab, Peter!

4/25/23: Robbie Wilson, Julie McDonald, and Matthew Shoulders are awarded the monumental J-WAFS grant (Abdul Latif Jameel Water & Food systems). Matt will be leading an interdisciplinary team to improve RuBisCO -- the photosynthesis enzyme thought to be the holy grail for improving agricultural yield. Congrats!

4/19/23: Yu Meng and Sophia receive the 2023 Deaprtment of Chemistry Research Award for outstanding acheivement in chemistry research. Congrats, Yu Meng and Sophia!

4/10/23: Andrew receives an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship! Congrats, Andrew!

4/3/23: Kathryn wins the best poster award at the Cartilage Biology, Structure and Function GRC. Congrats, Kathryn!

2/5/23: Chiara Giannone joins the lab as a postdoctoral researcher. Welcome to the Shoulders Lab, Chiara!

1/30/23: Mani wins a best presentation award at the 4th International Conference on Base Editing. Congrats, Mani!

1/9/23: The Shoulders Lab is awarded a $1,000,000 grant from the NSF's Division of Molecular and Cellular Bioscience to support research on how collegen, the molecular scaffold for animal life, assembles inside cells into the complex three-dimensional strutures required to function.

12/22/22: Seo-yeon and Jimin win Fall 2022 Mentorship Spotlight Awards from the Department of Chemistry. Congrats, Seo-yeon and Jimin!

11/21/22: Stephanie Halim and Anton Barybin join the lab as first-year chemistry PhD students. Welcome to the group, Stephanie and Anton!

9/30/22: Jimin wins the Best Poster Award in The Protein Society 36th Annual Symposium. Congrats, Jimin!

9/20/22: Karun receives The Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes. Congrats, Karun!

9/6/22: The Shoulders Lab is awarded a $3,000,000 R01 grant from the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to support research aimed at investigating how the composition and activies of host proteostasis shapes the protein sequence space of an evolving virus and the therapeutic implications of this relationship.

9/1/22: Ra'Mal, who was previously MSRP-Bio student in lab, joins the lab as research technician. Welcome again, Ra'Mal!

8/28/22: The Shoulders Lab receives a $100,000 Deshphande Center Grant. These funds will support our efforts to enable continuous directed evolution of therapeutic gene editors in mammalian cells.

8/5/22: Robbie is promoted to Research Scientist. Congrats, Robbie!

7/14/22: Jimin is selected as a 2022-2023 recipient of the MathWorks Science Fellowship. Congrats, Jimin!

6/15/22: Prof. C. Brandon Ogbunugafor, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University, joins the Shoulders Lab as a Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Visiting Professor. Congrats and welcome, Brandon!

6/9/22: Ms. Julie McDonald joins the lab as a biology PhD student. Welcome to the group, Julie!

6/1/22: Ra'Mal Harris, a senior in Florida International University, and Xavier Bonilla Garcia, a junior in University of Puerto Rico - Mayagüez, join the group as MSRP-Bio students. High school student Brittan Gallo also joins the group for a summer internship. Welcome all!

4/28/22: Kathryn is off to India for two weeks supported by MIT's MISTI program to collaborate with Prof. Jeet Kalia at IISER-Bhopal on connections between the UPR and lipid biosynthesis

4/26/22: Chichi successfully defends her thesis. Congrats, Dr. Li!

4/19/22: Sam successfully defends his thesis. Congrats, Dr. Hendel!

4/14/22: Rebecca successfully defends her thesis. Congrats, Dr. Sebastian!

4/4/22: Sorin receives an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship! Congrats, Sorin!

4/1/22: The Shoulders Lab receives a $400,000 grant from the Merkin Institute for Transformative Technologies in Healthcare. These funds will support our efforts to perform directed evolution of CRISPR-based systems in mammalian cells.

3/11/22: Matt is selected as a 2022 Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow, an award recognizing faculty that demonstrate exemplary and sustained contributions to undergraduate education at MIT. Congrats, Matt!

1/26/22: Mani receives the Fund for the Future of Science Graduate Fellowship from the MIT School of Science. Congrats, Mani!

11/15/21: Andrew Sabol joins the lab as a chemistry PhD student. Welcome to the group, Andrew!

8/25/21: Anna Plank, a sophomore in MIT's Biology program, joins the lab as a UROP student. Welcome to the lab, Anna!

6/24/21: Jimin receives a poster prize from the FASEB ER conference. Congrats, Jimin!

6/8/21: Jingting Lin, a first-year in MIT's biological engineering program, Mudita Goyal, a first-year in MIT's Chemistry and Biology program, and Sophia Mirda, a sophomore in MIT's Chemistry and Biology program, join the lab. Meryl Mendoza, a junior in California State University, Los Angeles, also joins the lab as an MSRP student over the summer. Welcome, Jingting, Mudita, Sophia, and Meryl!

6/1/21: Agata receives MIT's 2021 Outstanding UROP Student Award! Way to go, Agata!

5/30/21: Kathryn, Jimin, and Mani pass their third-year qualifying exams. Seo Yeon and Jess pass their second-year qualifying exams. Congrats to everyone!

2/18/21: Mx. Sorin Srinivasa joins our group jointly with the Drennan Lab as a chemistry PhD student. Welcome to the group, Sorin!

1/22/21: Kathryn wins an NIH F31 Predoctoral Fellowship. Congrats, Kathryn!

12/18/20: Mani receives the Robert J. Silbey Fellowship. Congrats, Mani!

9/8/20: Maile Jim, a junior in MIT's biological engineering program, and Yu Meng Zhang, a sophomore in MIT's Chemistry and Biology program, join the lab. Welcome Maile and Yu Meng!

8/4/20: Anna successfully defends her thesis. Congrats, Dr. Ponomarenko!

7/17/20: Kathryn, Jimin, and Mani pass their second-year qualifying exams. Congrats to all three!

6/1/20: Marissa Vera, a junior in The University of Texas, Austin, joins the group for the summer as an MSRP student. Abigail Koyler, a first-year at MIT, also joins the group. Welcome Marissa and Abigail!

5/27/20: Kenny successfully defends his thesis. Congrats, Dr. Chen!

1/30/20: Mani is featured in a Chemistry Department "Spotlight"!

1/25/20: Kenny is off to London for two weeks supported by MIT's MISTI program to collaborate with Dr. Stuart Haslam at Imperial College London on our stress-induced glycosylation project.

12/19/19: Louis successfully defends his thesis. Congrats, Dr. Papa!

12/16/19: The Shoulders Lab receives MISTI Global Seed Funds to support our collaboration on lipids and the unfolded protein response with Prof. Jeet Kalia at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India.

12/12/19: Rachel Weissman, a junior in MIT's chemistry program, joins the group. Welcome, Rachel!

12/10/19: Ms. Seo Yeon Kim and Ms. Jessica Patrick join the lab as chemistry PhD students. Welcome to the group, Seo Yeon and Jess!

11/1/19: Kathryn heads to Melbourne, Australia for eight weeks to pursue our collaboration on osteoarthritis with Profs. John Bateman and Shireen Lamande at Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, supported by our joint MISTI and G. Harold and Leila Y. Mathers Foundation grants.

9/12/19: Lab alumnus Dr. Angela Phillips is named a 2019 Hannah H. Gray Postdoctoral Fellow by HHMI. Congrats, Angela!

8/6/19: Mani wins the MIT Department of Chemistry Award for Outstanding Teaching. Congrats, Mani!

7/25/19: The Shoulders Lab receives a $150,000 grant from the John W. Jarve (1978) Seed Fund for Science Innovation. These funds will support our efforts to invent next-generation methods for in vivo directed evolution. We are grateful for this generous support of our work!

7/16/19: Chichi presents her collaborative work with Madeline explaining the context-dependent essentiality of collagen's conserved N-glycan to preserve extracellular matrix homeostasis at the 2019 Gordon Research Conference on Collagens and Associated Molecules Supporting Organ Structure and Function in New London, NH.

7/8/19: Kenny presents his collaborative work with Madeline and the Mahal and Dell/Haslam Laboratories showing that XBP1s globally modulates protein N-glycosylation at the NIH & FDA Glycoscience Research Day in Bethesda, MD.

6/24/19: Rebecca presents her discovery that HSF1 regulates protein SUMOylation dynamics at the 2019 Gordon Research Conference on Stress Proteins in Growth, Development, and Disease in Lucca, Italy.

6/14/19: The lab says farewell to Chris over drinks and pizza at The Muddy. Chris is off to Philadelphia where he will begin his new job at Boston Consulting Group!

6/3/19: Chris successfully defends his thesis. Congrats, Dr. Richardson!

5/3/19: Anna gives a platform presentation on her influenza nucleoprotein evolution studies at the EMBO Protein Quality Control: From Mechanisms to Disease meeting in Costa de la Calma.

4/9/19: Michelle Huang, a current UROP in the lab, and lab alumnus Sebasthian Santiago are awarded Graduate Research Fellowships by the National Science Foundation. Congrats, Michelle and Sebasthian!

2/22/19: Chichi, Rebecca, and Sam pass their third-year qualifying exams and are officially PhD candidates. Congrats to all three!

1/25/19: Kenny participates in the Mentorship Table on Graduate Programs in Chemistry at the eighth annual National Collegiate Research Conference (NCRC) at Harvard University.

1/4/19: Best wishes to Madeline, who is off to a Teaching Fellow position at Harvard Chemistry for the spring, followed by starting a position as a faculty member in the Phillips Academy Andover Division of Natural Sciences this summer!

12/19/18: The lab says farewell to Azade over tacos, chips, salsa, and drinks at Naco Taco. Azade will begin her new job as a Scientist at Neon Therapeutics in January!

11/28/18: The lab gathers for a private party at Meadhall to welcome all the new group members!

11/15/18: Louis is featured in a Chemistry Department "Spotlight"!

11/14/18: Ms. Amanuella Mengiste, Ms. Kathryn Yammine, and Ms. Jimin Yoon join the lab as chemistry PhD students. Welcome to the group, Mani, Kathryn, and Jimin!

10/26/18: The lab gathers at Cambridge Brewing Company to say goodbye to Chet, who is starting a postdoctoral fellowship in Prof. Karl Griswold's Lab in the Dartmouth College Thayer School of Engineering. Best of luck, Chet!

10/15/18: Duc, Chichi, Michelle, and Agata head to Las Vegas for the American Society for Matrix Biology Biennial Meeting. Duc is giving a platform presentation on his findings regarding the unfolded protein response and collagen proteostasis. Chichi, Michelle, and Agata are presenting posters on their discoveries regarding collagen folding, assembly, and quality control.

10/11/18: Angela's and Anna's work on influenza virus evolution is featured in Nature Reviews Microbiology and by the MIT Tech.

9/21/18: Chet successfully defends his thesis. Congrats, Dr. Berman!

9/10/18: Chichi passes her second-year qualifying exam. Congrats!

9/6/18: Eileen Tan-Aristy, an alumnus of our high school internship program, rejoins the lab now as an MIT freshman. Welcome back, Eileen!

8/27/18: Madeline successfully defends her thesis. Congrats, Dr. Wong!

8/21/18: Kenny wins the best poster award at the Boston ACS National Meeting from the Division of Carbohydrate Chemistry for his collaborative work with Madeline and the Mahal and Dell/Haslam Laboratories showing that XBP1s globally modulates protein N-glycosylation. Congrats, Kenny!

8/20/18: Anna and Louis give platform presentations and Chichi and Sam present posters on their research at the Boston ACS National Meeting.

8/3/18: Capstone presentations by six NSF-funded high school interns in the Shoulders and Strano Labs at MIT. Awesome session!

7/23/18: Anna presents her viral evolution work at the FASEB Virus Structure and Assembly Meeting in Steamboat SpringsCO.

6/30/18: Sam spends a week in the Netherlands supported by the MIT International Science and Technologies Initiatives working with our collaborators in Prof. Rob Hoeben's group at Leiden University Medical Center.

6/28/18: The lab says farewell to Chris M., who will begin work at Rubius Therapeutics as a Research Scientist. Best of luck, Chris!

6/21/18: The lab says goodbye to Angela, who is starting a postdoctoral fellowship in Prof. Michael Desai's Lab in the Harvard University Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. Best of luck, Angela!

6/12/18: Matt is named a 2018 American Cancer Society Research Scholar. The accompanying $800,000 grant will support our efforts to understand the mechanistic origins of altered glycosylation in malignancies. We are grateful for the Society's generous support of our work.

6/7/18: The lab says farewell to Andrew, who will begin work at AbbVie as a Senior Scientist. Best of luck, Andrew!

6/5/18: Michelle is off to Genentech for a summer internship.

6/1/18: The Shoulders Lab is awarded a $750,000 research grant by the Mathers Foundation. The funds will support our efforts to test the proteostasis collapse model of osteoarthritis, which is among the most widespread aging-related diseases. We are grateful for the Foundation's generous support of our work.

5/27/18: Deepsing Syangtan joins the lab for summer research before starting graduate school in August here in the MIT Chemistry Department. Welcome, Deepsing!

5/20/18: Kenny heads to Vertex Pharmaceuticals for a summer internship.

5/10/18: Kenny receives the William L. Stewart, Jr. and John S.W. Kellett ‘47 Awards in recognition of his outstanding contributions to student life at MIT. Congrats, Kenny!

5/7/18: Angela successfully defends her Ph.D. thesis! Congrats, Dr. Phillips!

5/3/18: Matt is named a 2018 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar. The accompanying $75,000 grant will help to fund our research and education efforts.

5/2/18: Rebecca and Sam pass their second-year qualifying exams. Congrats to both!

5/2/18: Agata is named a 2018 Johnson and Johnson UROP Scholar! The funds will support her work in our lab this summer.

4/21/18: Chris R. heads to San Diego for the 2018 Annual Meeting of the ASBMB, where he will present his zinc work.

4/10/18: Anna wins first prize at the 2018 CEHS & SRP Poster Session. Congrats, Anna!

4/6/18: The lab says farewell to Emmanuel, who will begin work at Potenza Therapeutics as an Associate Scientist. Best of luck, Emmanuel!

4/5/18: Chris M. successfully defends his Ph.D. thesis! Congrats, Dr. Moore!

4/3/18: Chichi and Sam are awarded Graduate Research Fellowships by the National Science Foundation. Congrats to both on this signal honor!

3/19/18: Louis and Chet present their research at the 255th ACS National Meeting in New Orleans, LA!

3/9/18: Kenny and Anna pass their third-year qualifying exams and are officially PhD candidates. Congrats, Kenny and Anna!

3/8/18: The lab heads to Roxy's for a fun night of drinks, arcade games and grilled cheese!

3/2/18: Chris R's new paper on selective zinc-depletion from cell culture media was featured on In the Pipeline.

2/20/18: The lab says goodbye to Alex, who will begin medical school at UCSF in the fall. Best of luck, Alex! 

1/29/18: The lab celebrated Luna's graduation at the Muddy. Congrats on graduating, Luna! 

12/19/17: Andrew successfully defends his Ph.D. thesis! Congrats, Dr. DiChiara!

10/27/17: Anna passes her second-year qualifying exam. Congrats, Anna!

9/26/17: Angela's new paper on how host proteostasis modulates influenza evolution is featured on MIT News, MIT Technology Review, and by the Boston Globe.

9/19/17: Agata Bikovtseva, a new freshman at MIT, and Nicholas Guiliano, a sophomore in MIT's chemistry program, join the group. Welcome, Agata and Nicholas!

9/1/17: Associate Professor of Biological Sciences Madhusudan Dey returns to the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. Best of luck, Madhu!

8/18/17: The Shoulders Lab receives a pilot grant from the NIH-funded MIT Center for Environmental Health Sciences! The funds will support our efforts to understand how zinc deficiency mediates heavy metal toxicity at the mechanistic level, with a focus on cadmium exposure.

7/11/17: The Shoulders Lab is awarded a $1,700,000 R01 grant from the NIH's National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases to support research aimed at defining molecular mechanisms of collagen folding and quality control and discovering potential new therapeutic strategies for osteogenesis imperfecta.

7/1/17: Kenny and Madeline go to London through MIT's MISTI program to collaborate with Dr. Stuart Haslam at Imperial College London on their work on glycoproteomics.

6/18/17: Chris R. presents at the 2017 Meeting of the International Society of Zinc Biology in Pyla, Cyprus.

6/13/17: Angela gives a platform presentation on her work on influenza evolution at the Molecular Mechanisms in Evolution Gordon Research Conference.

6/7/17: Farewell dinner for Patreece Suen, who will be pursuing her Ph.D. in Biochemistry & Biophysics at Yale University. Good luck, Patreece!

6/4/17: Chet heads over to Rubius Therapeutics for a summer internship.

6/1/17: Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee Madhusudan Dey joins the lab for the summer. Welcome, Madhu!

6/1/17: High school students Ms. Eileen Tan-Aristy and Ms. Rebecca Schooler join the lab for a summer internship. Welcome, Eileen and Rebecca!

5/31/17: Kenny wins a Buchi/Luk Family Graduate Research Fellowship. Congrats, Kenny!

5/25/17: Chris R. is featured in a Chemistry Department "Spotlight"!

5/17/17: Chris R. passes his third-year oral exam and is officially a PhD candidate. Congrats, Chris!

5/3/17: Kenny passes his second-year qualifying exam. Congrats, Kenny!

4/25/17: Chris M. and Duc travel to Chicago, IL to give platform and poster presentations at the National Meeting of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

4/17/17: Apolonia Gardner, a freshman in MIT's biology program, joins the group. Welcome, Apolonia!

4/14/17: Chris M. travels to Texas to give an invited seminar at his alma mater, the University of Texas-Dallas Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

3/21/17: Angela is named a 2017 MIT Graduate Woman of Excellence, is featured on the department website, and is the subject of a Chemistry Department "Spotlight". Congrats, Angela!

3/8/17: Michelle is named a 2017 MIT-Amgen Summer Scholar and will work with us this summer supported by the program. Congrats, Michelle!

3/8/17: Louis passes his 3rd year oral exam and is officially a PhD candidate. Congrats, Louis!

1/5/17: Matt receives the National Science Foundation CAREER Award. The >$1,000,000 grant from NSF's Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences that is associated with this award will support our work on protein evolution.

12/20/16: The Shoulders Lab receives funding from the MISTI-Imperial College Seed Fund to support our collaboration on effects of the unfolded protein response on N-glycan maturation with Prof. Anne Dell and Dr. Stuart Haslam at Imperial College in London, UK.

12/7/16: Angela and Anna attend the 2016 Keystone Symposium on Cellular Stress Responses and Infectious Agents in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Angela gives a platform presentation on influenza evolution in altered host proteostasis environments.

12/5/16: Andrew and Madeline spend two weeks in Australia supported by the MIT International Science and Technologies Initiatives working with our collaborators in Prof. John Bateman's and Prof. Shireen Lamande's groups at Murdoch Childrens Research Institute.

12/1/16: Chris Moore featured in the latest issue of Chemformation!

11/22/16: Party in a private room at State Park to welcome all the new group members!

11/18/16: Sam Hendel is the cover model for Volume 93, Issue 8 of J. Chem. Ed. for his paper with Professor Elizabeth Young at Amherst College, "Introduction to Electrochemistry and the Use of Electrochemistry to Synthesize and Evaluate Catalysts for Water Oxidation and Reduction."

11/15/16: Emmanuel attends the H3D Syposium on Malaria, TB, and Neglected Tropical Diseases in Cape Town, South Africa.

11/12/15: Mr. Sam Hendel, Ms. Chichi Li, and Ms. Rebecca Sebastian join the lab as chemistry PhD students. Welcome to the group, Sam, Chichi, and Rebecca!

10/31/16: Angela visits executive agencies in Washington DC with the MIT Science Policy Initiative.

10/19/16: Emmanuel attends the 6th European Congress of Virology in Hamburg, Germany.

10/17/16: Alex Weickhardt joins the lab as a Research Technician after completing his B.S. in Biology at Harvard. Welcome, Alex!

10/11/16: Azade Hosseini joins the lab as a postdoctoral fellow after completing her Ph.D. in Chemistry with the Gao Group at Boston College. Welcome, Azade!

9/23/16: The Shoulders Lab receives funding from the NIH's National Institute on Aging to support research aimed at elucidating the biophysical consequences of pathologic protein aggregation in living cells.

9/1/16: Michelle Huang, a sophomore in Chemical Engineering, formally joins the lab after spending the summer working on osteogenesis imperfecta with Profs. John Bateman and Shireen Lamande at Murdoch Childrens Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia, supported by our joint MISTI grant. Welcome, Michelle!

6/27/16: The Shoulders Lab receives the Jeptha H. and Emily V. Wade Award for Creative Research. The funds will support our work on the heat shock response. Thanks to the Wade Family for their support!

6/10/16: The Shoulders Lab hosts ~150 local school kids on campus for a "Chemistry Magic Show" in collaboration with MIT's ClubChem. It was a great and highly educational event!

6/6/16: Chris M. presents his development of methods for multi-dimensional, chemogenic control of CRISPR-Cas9 at the Bioorganic Chemistry Gordon Research Conference at Proctor Academy in Andover, NH. Chris won the conference's poster award for his presentation!

6/4/16: Emmanuel is off to San Francisco for the UNCF/Merck Bio Symposium.

6/2/16: Diya Malhotra is back from the University of Michigan for summer research. Welcome back, Diya!

6/1/16: Camden Holm, a local homeschooled high school student, joins the lab for a summer internship. Welcome, Camden!

5/28/16: Matt is named to the Whitehead Career Development Professorship.

5/27/16: Nora Enright, a rising sophomore in Biological Engineering, joins the lab. Welcome, Nora!

5/18/16: Angela presents her viral evolution work at the 2016 Smith Family Foundation Scientific Poster Session and Reception at the Harvard Club in Boston, MA.

5/12/16: Ilana wins the 2016 MIT Department of Chemistry F. D. Greene Teaching Award for outstanding contributions in the area of teaching chemistry. Congrats, Ilana!

5/11/16: Chris M. is awarded a Broadnext10 Research Grant, which funds catalytic steps towards the development of potentially transformative new technologies, by the Broad Institute. The funds will support his work on human cell-based directed evolution. Congrats, Chris!

5/5/16: Louis and Chris R. pass their second year qualifying exams. Congrats to both!

4/30/16: Luna presents her development of computational algorithms to study influenza evolution at the MIT Department of Chemistry Undergraduate Research Symposium in Cambridge, MA.

4/29/16: Duc is awarded a CIHR postdoctoral fellowship to study osteogenesis imperfecta in collaboration with the Warman Lab at Boston Children's Hospital. Congrats, Duc!

4/20/16: Madeline presents her work on how the unfolded protein response regulates the molecular architecture of the N-glycome at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Protein Homeostasis in Health and Disease Meeting in Cold Spring Harbor, NY. Madeline's trip was supported in part by an MIT Women in Chemistry travel grant sponsored by the MIT CEHS.

4/20/16: Chris M. presents his work on multidimensional, chemogenic regulation of Cas9 at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Protein Homeostasis in Health and Disease Meeting in Cold Spring Harbor, NY.

4/3/16: Emmanuel presents his work on HIV evolution at the New England Science Symposium at Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA.

4/1/16: Duc presents his work on collagen and osteogenesis imperfecta at the 2016 American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA. Duc's trip was supported by a generous travel award from the ASBMB.

4/1/16: Ilana Porter and Dr. Patti Christie join the education side of the Shoulders Group to lead the development of a Fundamental Knowledge Module for Matt's course 5.111 Principles of Chemical Science. Welcome, Ilana and Patti!

3/29/16: Louis is awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship by the National Science Foundation. Congrats, Louis!

3/16/16: Chet, Angela, Madeline, and Chris M. pass their 3rd year oral exams and are officially PhD candidates. Congrats to all!

3/9/16: Chris R. is selected for the MIT Neurobiological Engineering Training Program, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. Congrats, Chris!

3/7/19: Emmanuel presents an invited seminar on his work on HIV evolution at the Minority Training Research Forum in Puerto Rico.

3/1/16: Emmanuel is featured by the ASBMB for a Research Spotlight -- check out the article here. Congrats, Emmanuel!

2/17/16: The d'Arbeloff Fund for Excellence in Education awards a grant to Matt and Prof. Troy Van Voorhis to support the creation of a Foundational Knowledge Module for MITx to accompany their 5.111 Principles of Chemical Science course that hundreds of MIT students participate in each academic year.

1/14/16: Emmanuel presents invited seminars on his work on HIV evolution at the Centre Pasteur du Cameroun-Yaounde and in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Buea, also in Cameroon.

12/17/15: The Shoulders Lab receives MISTI Global Seed Funds to support our collaboration on osteogenesis imperfecta with Profs. John Bateman and Shireen Lamande at Murdoch Childrens Research Institute in MelbourneAustralia.

12/14/15: Chris M. and Angela present their research at the 2015 Broad Institute Scientific Retreat at Hynes Convention Center in Boston, MA.

11/12/15: Ms. Anna Ponomarenko and Mr. Kenny Chen join the lab as chemistry PhD students. Welcome to the group, Anna and Kenny!

10/7/15: Farewell lunch at Bertucci's for Pyae, who is now a Research Scientist at Juno Therapeutics in Cambridge, MA. Good luck, Pyae!

10/6/15: Matt receives the 2015 National Institutes of Health Director's New Innovator Award. This $2,400,000 grant will fund our efforts to develop new directed evolution platforms for generating active biomolecules for medical and research applications, as well as research into understanding how the proteostasis network influences and directs client protein evolution.

10/1/15: Matt is named an Associate Member of the Broad Institute in Cambridge, MA. We look forward to many exciting new scientific opportunities and collaborations!

9/5/15: Matt joins the Center for Skeletal Research at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, MA as an Investigator. The Center provides exceptional opportunities to rapidly advance our research on the biochemistry of collagen folding by collaborating with bone disease experts and working with animal models.

8/21/15: Chris M., Chet, and Louis spend a week in the Netherlands supported by the MIT International Science and Technologies Initiatives working with our collaborators in Prof. Rob Hoeben's group at Leiden University Medical Center.

8/18/15: Mahender presents his work on the effects of unfolded protein response activation on the molecular architecture of the N-glycome at the 250th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston, MA.

8/17/15: Emmanuel gives a platform presentation on his HIV evolution studies at the 250th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston, MA.

7/30/15: The Shoulders Lab receives funding from the NIH's National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases to support research aimed at elucidating cellular pathways involved in collagen folding, trafficking, and quality control.

7/13/15: Andrew, Duc, and Madeline present their work on collagen-I and osteogenesis imperfecta at the Gordon Research Conference on Collagen at Colby-Sawyer College in New London, NH.

7/2/15: Farewell dinner at Royal East for Mahender, who is now Principal Scientist and a Founding Member at Expansion Technologies in Cambridge, MA. Good luck, Mahender!

7/1/15: Angela and Emmanuel present their work on influenza and HIV evolution at the Gordon Research Conference on Molecular Mechanisms in Evolution at Stonehill College in Easton, MA. Angela's travel was supported in part by an MIT Women in Chemistry travel grant sponsored by the MIT CEHS.

6/15/15: Caiden Kumar, a local high schooler, joins the lab for summer research. Welcome, Caiden!

6/10/15: Andrew presents his work on collagen-I proteostasis at the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Skeletal Research Annual Symposium in Boston, MA. Andrew won second place in the poster competition for his work!

6/9/15: Mr. Lucas Akin, a rising senior in the University of Texas-Austin Department of Chemistry, joins the lab as an MIT-Amgen Summer Scholar. Welcome, Lucas!

6/5/15: Congratulations to our graduating seniors Becca and Patreece! Patreece is continuing on at MIT to wrap up some very nice research findings and then plans to pursue a Ph.D. Becca is traveling across the street to Harvard University for graduate school this fall. Good luck to both!

6/1/15: Diya Malhotra, a rising junior in the University of Michigan Undergraduate Neuroscience Program, joins the lab for summer research. Welcome, Diya!

5/29/15: Angela, Chet, and Madeline pass their second year qualifying exams. Congrats to all!

5/28/15: Daniel Mirny, a freshman in MIT's Departments of Biology and Music and Theater Arts, joins the group. Welcome, Daniel!

5/18/15: Emmanuel and Angela present their viral evolution work at the 2015 Smith Family Foundation Scientific Poster Session and Dinner in Boston, MA.

5/15/15: Chet is selected for the MIT/NIGMS Biotechnology Training Program, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. Congrats, Chet!

5/14/15: Becca wins the MIT Department of Chemistry Undergraduate Research Award and the Merck Index Award for Outstanding Scholarship. Congrats, Becca!

5/14/15: Louis wins a Buchi/Luk Family Graduate Research Fellowship. Congrats, Louis!

5/14/15: Chet wins an A.D. Masamune Memorial Graduate Research Fellowship. Congrats, Chet!

5/13/15: Chris M. presents his efforts toward the development of a highly potent and selective chemical genetic technique to inhibit Heat Shock Factor 1 at the MIT Center for Environmental Health Sciences Poster Session in Cambridge, MA.

4/25/15: Patreece presents her work developing a new assay for the retrotranslocation of misfolded proteins from the endoplasmic reticulum to the cytosol at the MIT Department of Chemistry Undergraduate Research Symposium in Cambridge, MA.

4/20/15: Emmanuel receives a full scholarship to attend the 23rd Annual Principles of STD/HIV Research Course at the University of Washington in July. Congrats, Emmanuel!

4/14/15: Emmanuel is named a 2015 UNCF-Merck Postdoctoral Fellow. Congrats, Emmanuel!

4/12/15: Luna Gonzalez, a freshman in MIT's math and computational biology programs, joins the group. Welcome, Luna!

3/31/15: Angela and Becca are awarded Graduate Research Fellowships by the National Science Foundation. Congrats to both!

3/31/15: Chris M. presents his work on modulating cytosolic proteostasis at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in Boston, MA.

3/30/15: Angela presents her work on influenza evolution at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in Boston, MA. Angela won the Best Poster Award for her presentation!

3/16/15: The Shoulders Lab joins the MIT Center for Environmental Health Sciences, which is currently supporting our protein folding research via a pilot grant. We look forward to many exciting new scientific opportunities!

3/2/15: Andrew passes his 3rd year oral exam and is officially a PhD candidate. Congrats, Andrew!

2/28/15: Andrew is awarded a National Institutes of Health F31 pre-doctoral fellowship by the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases for his research on osteogenesis imperfecta. Congrats, Andrew!

2/25/15: Joint lab party with the NolanPentelute, and Shalek Groups at the Beat Hotel in Harvard Square! Good food, good drinks, and good company.

1/12/15: Chris M. passes his qualifying exam. Congrats, Chris!

11/13/14: Chris Richardson, a first-year inorganic chemistry PhD student, joins the lab as a joint student with Prof. Steve Lippard. Welcome, Chris!

11/13/14: Louis Papa, a first-year bioorganic chemistry PhD student, joins the lab. Welcome, Louis!

10/13/14: Andrew presents his studies on collagen-I folding and quality control, performed collaboratively with Madeline and Becca, at the 2014 Biennial Meeting of the American Society for Matrix Biology in Cleveland, OH. Andrew won the Outstanding Poster Presentation Award for his work!

10/10/14: The Shoulders Lab receives Phase 2 funding from the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology for a collaborative project with Prof. Eng Eong Ooi at Duke-NUS to support our efforts to improve the pharmacological properties of Dengue virus-targeting monoclonal antibodies.

9/17/14: Emmanuel presents his HIV work performed in collaboration with Mahender at Dow's BEST Symposium in Midland, MI.

8/29/14: Dr. Ngoc Duc Doan joins the lab as an FRSQ postdoctoral fellow from the Lubell Group at the University of Montreal. Welcome, Duc!

8/11/14: Dr. Pyae Hein joins the lab from the Landick Group at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Welcome, Pyae!

7/19/14: Emmanuel is selected from an extremely competitive field of candidates to attend Dow's BEST symposium, where he will present his HIV work. Congrats, Emmanuel!

7/16/14: The Shoulders Lab receives a pilot grant from the NIH-funded MIT Center for Environmental Health Sciences! The funds will support our efforts to understand how xenobiotic heavy metals influence protein folding.

6/27/14: Chris Moore wins a Walter L. Hughes Graduate Research Fellowship. Congrats, Chris!

6/26/14: Christopher Hillenbrand joins the lab as a Research Science Institute scholar. Welcome, Christopher!

6/10/14: The Shoulders Lab receives funding from the Royal G. and Mae H. Westaway Family Memorial Fund! The grant will support our work on a novel directed evolution platform.

6/6/14: Congratulations to our graduating senior Chyleigh! Good luck at Georgetown!

6/2/14: Angela wins a Strem Family Graduate Research Fellowship. Congrats, Angela!

6/2/14: Chet wins a Daniel Kemp Graduate Research Fellowship. Congrats, Chet!

6/1/14: Andrew wins an A.D. Masamune Memorial Graduate Research Fellowship. Congrats, Andrew!

5/29/14: Andrew passes his qualifying exam. Congrats, Andrew!

5/20/14: The Shoulders Lab organizes and hosts a workshop on Virus Evolution and Adaptation at MIT. Presenters include the HoebenHartlChodoshBolonSabetiRunstadler, and Hoekstra groups, with attendees from all around the Cambridge area. Thanks to MISTI for sponsoring the workshop!

5/1/14: The Shoulders Lab receives Phase 1 Pilot Programme Funding from the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology to support our efforts to reduce the immunogenicity of recombinant, protein-based therapeutics.

4/30/14: Dr. Ngoc Duc Doan receives a postdoctoral fellowship from the Fonds de Recherche Sante Quebec to support his proposal to identify mechanism-based therapeutic targets for osteogenesis imperfecta. Dr. Doan will join the group in September to begin the project. Congrats, Duc!

4/26/14: Becca presents her work on osteogenesis imperfecta at the MIT Department of Chemistry Undergraduate Research Symposium in Cambridge, MA.

4/2/14: Madeline is awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship by the National Science Foundation. Congrats, Madeline!

3/28/14: Sebasthian Santiago, a freshman in MIT's Chemistry Department, joins the group. Welcome, Sebasthian!

2/7/14: The Shoulders Lab receives an Innovation Grant from the Mizutani Foundation for Glycoscience to support Mahender's studies on stress-induced changes in protein N-glycosylation.

12/31/13: Madeline is awarded a Prof. Amar G. Bose Research Grant. The funds will support her studies on the development of self-healing biomimetic materials. Congrats, Madeline!

12/16/13: The Shoulders Lab receives MISTI Global Seed Funds to support our collaboration on adenovirus evolution with Prof. Rob Hoeben at Leiden University Medical Center.

12/9/13: Mahender wins the best poster award at the "Journey through Science Day" hosted by the New York Academy of Sciences and PepsiCO in NYC. Congrats, Mahender!

12/6/13: Second Annual Shoulders and Lin Labs Holiday Party at Matt's house in Davis Square. Good times.

12/1/13: Ms. Madeline Wong, Ms. Angela M. Phillips and Mr. Chet Berman join the lab as chemistry PhD students. Welcome to the group, Madeline, Angela and Chet!

11/13/13: Matt receives the Smith Family Foundation Award for Excellence in Biomedical Research. The funds will support our research on influenza adaptation.

11/8/13: Dual group party with the Pentelute lab. Tacos and drinks all around!

9/5/13: Ms. Nancy Lu, a sophomore in MIT's Chemical Engineering program and one of Matt's former 5.111 Principles of Chemistry students, joins the group. Welcome, Nancy!

8/22/13: Andrew wins the MIT Department of Chemistry Award for Outstanding Teaching. Congrats, Andrew!

7/25/13: Chyleigh is awarded research support by the Paul E. Gray Endowed Fund for her summer UROP. Congrats, Chyleigh!

6/14/13: Matt is named the 56th Edward Mallinckrodt Jr. Foundation Faculty Scholar. The funds will support our efforts to develop optical sensors of protein misfolding in live cells and the development of synthetic methods for enzyme-independent tagging of proteins with small molecules in cells.

6/11/13: Ms. Helen Hobbs joins the lab as an MIT-Amgen Summer Scholar. Welcome, Helen! 

5/20/13: Andrew wins a C.P. Chu and Y. Lai Graduate Research Fellowship--Congrats, Andrew! 

5/20/13: Chris is awarded a Walter L. Hughes Graduate Research Fellowship.

5/16/13: Chyleigh is awarded a 3M UROP fellowship--Congrats, Chyleigh! 

4/1/13: Chris is named a Graduate Research Fellow by the National Science Foundation. Congrats, Chris!

3/15/13: Emmanuel's and Khalilah's daughter is born--Congrats! 

2/28/13: We expand into 56-545 for additional instrument and bench space!

2/6/13: Chris is named an MITx Fellow for Spring 2013. Congrats, Chris!

1/26/13: First Shoulders and Lin Labs (Belated Holiday) Party at Matt's house in Davis Square.

12/1/12: Mr. Andrew DiChiara and Mr. Christopher Moore are the first chemistry PhD students to join the group. Welcome, Andrew and Chris!

11/28/12: Matt receives the 2012-2013 Outstanding Recent Alumnus Award from the Virginia Tech College of Science.

11/15/12: Dr. Mahender Dewal joins the group from Prof. Steve Firestine's laboratory at Wayne State University. Welcome, Mahender! 

11/1/12: Dr. Emmanuel Nekongo joins the group from Prof. Vladimir Popik's laboratory at the University of Georgia. Welcome, Emmanuel!

9/12/12: Ms. Patreece Suen, a sophomore in MIT's Chemistry Department, joins the group. Welcome, Patreece!

9/12/12: Ms. Chyleigh Harmon, a junior in MIT's Chemistry Department, joins the group. Welcome, Chyleigh!

8/31/12: The Shoulders Lab opens for business. Stop by to meet us and check out our newly renovated space in Building 56-546.

7/23/12: Ms. Abigail Caron, a rising sophomore in MIT's Biology Department, joins the group. Welcome, Abby!

7/16/12: Ms. Rebecca Taylor, a rising sophomore in MIT's Chemistry Department, is the first student to join the nascent Shoulders' "group". Welcome, Becca!

7/15/12: Matt arrives at MIT from The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA.

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