Congrats to Jimmy Siclari for his outstanding PhD defense talk and Q&A on Dec 5, wrapping up the work required for his Ph.D. in the Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology subprogram within the GC Ph.D. Program in Biology.
Starting his dissertation research in the midst of lab lockdowns in Spring 2020, Jimmy conducted a truly comprehensive investigation of novel bacterial one-component signaling proteins which respond to different biochemical triggers. From bioinformatics searches to find proteins with new combinations of sensory and effector domains to structural analyses by NMR, X-ray, and HDX-MS to identifying new DNA binding motifs, Jimmy’s work has been interdisciplinary and insightful. Folks can get a good sense of this from his 2025 Protein Science paper detailing parts of his overall workflow, and will see more as additional work is pre-printed in the near future.
More broadly, Jimmy’s been a great contributor to the lab with his science, his willingness to help others, and his being a friendly & engaged contributor all through our Structural Biology Initiative. Great to see his defense attended by many of those he’s touched professionally and personally, a full ASRC Auditorium locally and Zoom participants from six countries and four timezones!
