In the news
May 10, 2023
University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers and their collaborators have used high-resolution imaging to gain a more nuanced understanding of the structure and multiple functions of...
August, 01, 2022
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have described the way an enzyme and proteins interact to maintain the protective caps, called telomeres, at the end of chromosomes, a new ...
October 7, 2022
With support from the National Institutes of Health 2022 High Risk, High Reward New Innovator Awards, University of Wisconsin–Madison biochemistry professors Ci Ji Lim and Amy Weeks are pursuing...
Announcements
March–April 2024 | TEAM NEWS
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Three of our graduate students won competitive Department Graduate Fellowships for 2024-2025. Qixiang won the Department Graduate Fellowship, Sourav won the William H. Peterson Graduate Fellowship, and Bianca was awarded the Arthur B. Michael Biochemistry Graduate Fellowship.
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Dr. Xuyao Liu (Priscilla) joins us as a postdoctoral fellow in April. She did her PhD thesis at the Mechanobiology Institute in the National University of Singapore with Dr. Linda Kenney and Dr. Michael Sheetz, and her first postdoctoral training with Dr. Jie Yan at the same institution. Priscilla will be using the LUMICKS C-Trap to study telomere chromatin dynamics and organization.
February 2024 | TEAM NEWS
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Kaitlyn’s first work is published online on BioRxiv. Small LEA proteins as an effective air- water interface protectant for fragile samples during cryo-EM grid plunge freezing
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Ci Ji gave a talk — Template requirements for human CST-Polα-primase de novo RNA-DNA primer synthesis initiation — at the 6th DNA Repair/Replication Structures and Cancer Conference at Cancun, Mexico
October 2023 | TEAM NEWS
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Qixiang was one of the selected graduate students around the country to present at the inaugural Weill Institute Emerging Scholars Symposium! He gave a talk on his human CST-Polα-primase preinitiation complex cryo-EM structure at Cornell.
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Ci Ji gave a talk — Illuminating the Darkside of Human Telomere Synthesis: Machines that safeguard the genome integrity — at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
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Ci Ji gave a talk — Using Naturally-Evolved Small Proteins As Air-Water Interface Protectants — at the MS+M meeting held at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery
September 2023 | TEAM NEWS
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Nathan Sever, an Economics & Math major, joins us as an Undergraduate Research Scholar. He will be working with his lab mentor, Vivek, to develop an innovative methodology to map repetitive chromatin landscape in human cultured cells.
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Perla Larios, a Genetics major, joins us for her undergraduate research experience. She will be working with Vivek, her lab mentor, to use AI to design de novo protein binders for telomeric proteins.
August 2023 | TEAM NEWS
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Qixiang was awarded the highly prestigious Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-financed Students Abroad. He received his prize at the Education Facility of the Chinese Consulate General in Chicago in August.
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We published our first invited review article on human Telomere C-strand fill-in mechanism in Trends in Biochemical Sciences. Models for human telomere C-strand fill-in by CST–Polα-primase
May–June 2023 | TEAM NEWS
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Bianca won the 2023-2024 Arnold E. and Catherine M. Denton Award for her excellence in mentoring and potential to become a leader in the STEM field.
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Ci Ji, Qixiang and Bianca attended the Cold Spring Harbor Telomeres & Telomerase meeting in Long Island, New York. Ci Ji gave a talk — Molecular requirements for human telomere C-strand fill-in machinery preinitiation complex assembly and de novo RNA primer synthesis initiation. Qixiang and Bianca presented a poster for their research projects.
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Ben and Joana graduated with their Biochemistry degrees. Ben accepted a post- baccalaureate at Dr. David Toczyski lab at the University of California San Francisco. Joana landed a research technician position at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Medical School.
April 2023 | TEAM NEWS
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We published our 2nd peer-reviewed article, led by Qixiang, in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology! Structures of human primosome elongation complexes
o Nature Research Briefing: Human primase hangs on the primer–template and Polα to facilitate primer termination
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Qixiang won the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center Genome Maintenance Graduate StudentTravel Award. He is invited to present a talk at the Rising Stars symposium at Vanderbilt.
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Qixiang also landed the prestigious William H. Peterson Graduate Fellowship administered by the Biochemistry department for his stellar research work on human telomere structural biology.
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Victoria won two prestigious undergraduate fellowships. She won the Mary Shine Peterson Undergraduate Award and the Hilldale Undergraduate Research Fellowship.
February–March 2023 | TEAM NEWS
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Ci Ji gave a talk — Human CST sets the stage for Polα-primase de novo primer synthesis at telomere overhang — at the 7th Nucleic Acids Fusion Meeting at Cancun, Mexico.
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Dr. Vivek Susvirkar, recently graduated from his PhD studies with Dr. Faesen’s research group at Max-Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences, joins the lab as our first postdoctoral fellow. He will be developing tools to study the human telomere chromatin landscape and their regulation across cell cycle.
November–December 2022 | TEAM NEWS
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Ci Ji gave an invited talk — Illuminating the Darkside of Human Telomere Synthesis: Machines that safeguard the genome integrity — at the University of Virginia.
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Kaitlyn Abe, a new graduate student from the Biophysics program, joins the lab! She will be working on developing new strategies to combat the air-water interface problem of cryo-EM sample grid preparation.
August 2022 | TEAM NEWS
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Ci Ji gave received the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award for his lab’s research efforts toward mapping the human telomere chromatin landscape!
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Zach Faterioun, a Biochemistry major, joins our lab for his undergraduate research experience. He will be working with his lab mentor, Sourav, to study telomere C-strand processing mechanism.
July 2022 | TEAM NEWS
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Josh graduated with a Masters in Biophysics and proceeds to pursue his new passion in nursing at the Virginia Commonwealth University
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We published our first peer-reviewed paper in Nature! Structures of the human CST-Polα–primase complex bound to telomere templates
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We published our second work from the Lim lab in collaboration with the Tahirov group at the University of Nebraska Medical Center — Structures of human primosome elongation complexes — on Research Square, a preprint server.
June 2022 | TEAM NEWS
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Ci Ji gave an invited talk — Human CST sets the stage for Pol-α/primase de novo RNA-DNA primer synthesis — for the 42nd Steenbock Cryo-EM Symposium held at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery.
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Ci Ji also gave an invited talk — Human CST sets the stage for Pol-α/primase de novo primer synthesis at telomere overhang — for the Center of Bioimaging Sciences at the National University of Singapore, his graduate school alma mater.
April 2022 | TEAM NEWS
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Our undergraduates won two prestigious fellowships for their research efforts. Ben won the Mary Shine Peterson Undergraduate Award. Joana won the Hilldale Undergraduaten Research Fellowship.
February–March 2022 | TEAM NEWS
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Ci Ji, Qixiang and Josh attended the Biophysical Society Meeting at San Francisco, California. Ci Ji gave an invited talk — Human CST sets the stage for Pol-α/primase Telomere C-strand fill-in — at the Macromolecular Machines and Assemblies Symposium at the BPS meeting. Qixiang and Josh presented a poster for their research work.
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Ci Ji did an invited talk (“chalk talk” style presentation) for the RNA Maxigroup, sharing the latest insights we gathered from our human CST-Pol-α/primase cryo-EM structures.
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Ci Ji also gave an invited talk (remote) — Human CST sets the stage for Pol-α/primase Telomere C-strand fill-in — for the McArdle Seminar series at the medical school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
December 2021 | TEAM NEWS
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Sourav Agrawal, a new graduate student from the Biophysics program, joins the lab! He will be working on investigating the roles of human Replication Protein A in telomere maintenance.
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Ci Ji gave a talk (remote) — Human CST sets the stage for Pol-α/primase Telomere C- strand fill-in — at the Cold Spring Harbor Telomeres & Telomerase meeting.
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The Lim lab publishes their first work, led by Qixiang, on BioRxiv! Structure of human CST-pol-α/primase bound to a telomeric overhang poised for initiation of telomere C-strand synthesis
September 2021 | TEAM NEWS
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Bianca Chavez, a graduate student from the IPiB program, joins the lab! She will be working on understanding human telomeric proteins and protein complexes regulation of telomeric D-loops and their impact on telomerase activity.
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Ci Ji gave an invited talk (remote) — Multiscale investigations of macromolecular assemblies at human telomere: From mesoscale single-molecule imaging to near-atomic resolution molecular structure determination — at the Physics seminar series held in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, his undergraduate degree alma mater.
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Victoria Tholkes, a Biochemistry scholar, joins the lab for her undergraduate research experience. She will be working with her lab mentor, Qixiang, to use single-molecule approaches to study CST oligomerization mechanism.
August 2021 | TEAM NEWS
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Eric, received his Biochemistry degree, and landed a post-baccalaureate at Dr. Yvette Wong lab at Northwestern university. At the Wong lab, he will be learning how to use super-resolution fluorescence microscopy to study lysosomal signaling and processes in the context of neurodegenerative disorders.
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Juliet, received her Biochemistry degree, and continues her career aspiration to become a dentist at the University of Louisville School of Dentistry.
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Joana Pashaj, a Biochemistry major, joins the lab for her undergraduate research experience. She will be working with her lab mentor, Josh, on using the LUMICKS C-Trap tom study telomeric protein assembly at long telomeric DNA.
June 2021 | TEAM NEWS
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Ben Lusk, a Biochemistry major, joins the lab for his undergraduate research experience. He will be working with his lab mentor, Qixiang, on human CST and DNA polymerase alpha-primase biophysical characterization.
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Dami Oluwadamilare, an undergraduate from University of Maryland, is joining us for the summer as a remote researcher under the Biological Interactions Summer Research Program. She will be working with her lab mentor, Josh, to develop and perform single molecule data analysis using Python.
January–February 2021 | TEAM NEWS
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The LUMICKS C-Trap @ Lim lab is installed and operational!
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The Nikon iLas2 TIRF microscope is installed and operational!
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Juliet Arzumanyan, a Biochemistry major, joins the lab for her undergraduate research experience. She will be working with Josh, her lab mentor, to develop new methodology to synthesize long repetitive DNA sequences for single molecule experiments.
December 2020 | TEAM NEWS
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Joshua Kraus, a new graduate student from the Biophysics program, joins the lab! He will be using single molecule approaches to investigate telomere chromatin assembly.
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Ci Ji gave an invited talk (remote) — The structure of human CST reveals a decameric assembly bound to telomeric DNA — at the International Symposium of Biophysics and Soft Matter Frontiers held in Jinan, China.
November 2020 | TEAM NEWS
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Eric Leisten, a Biochemistry major, joins the lab for his undergraduate research experience. He will be working with his lab mentor, Qixiang, on live cell single-molecule imaging of human CST recruitment to telomeres.
September 2020 | TEAM NEWS
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The start of Lim lab at the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in the middle of the COVID pandemic!
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Qixiang He, a graduate student from the Biophysics program, joins the lab! He will be studying how human CST complex influences telomeric DNA synthesis.