STARS Atlanta Branch

Unveiling crystallography to students

Campus Situation

The vast majority of science-based organizations on campus only perform social aspects of club-making, such as inviting lecturers, having lunches, and having socials. Where are the hands-on science and wet-lab work in the programs they host for the scientific research associations that they claim to be? There are several barriers: (1) research equipment barrier, (2) time barrier of faculty mentors, and (3) space barrier (where they would perform the wet-lab research).

Lysozyme crystals grown at the Jan. 2024 Crystallography workshop

Crystallography and its crystals are both beautiful and important for therapeutic drug discovery. We take advantage of these two characteristics to engage and empower students in research. While other science-based experiments may require hot plates, strong acids and bases, or cell lines, growing crystals of DNA and proteins are relatively straightforward: pipette the samples into the plate and seal, and now you are done!

STARS member talking with fellow workshop attendees at Jan. 2024 Crystallography workshop

Crystallography is a relatively safe and straightforward way to ease students into research without the traditional barriers to entry for undergraduate research while still retaining all the research benefits of intriguing students and getting them more interested in the science behind it.

Our organization's mission is different from those of other groups on campus because we not only provide students a chance to socialize through our workshops and club meetings but also provide them the opportunity to have a taste of what real research is like.

The target audience for STARS Atlanta branch at Georgia Tech is undergraduate students (more specifically 1st and 2nd year students) who are interested in research and would like to learn more about it in the context of crystallography and therapeutic drug design.

We organize workshops and club meetings that promote the learning of crystallography research, providing students the opportunity to:

Learn how to micropipette and set up their own protein crystallization experiments
Learn how to solve protein crystal structures from electron density maps
Learn about the importance of crystallography and structural biology for therapeutic drug design
Practice making and giving presentations as well as engaging with the audience
Learn about structural biology research from faculty and post-doctoral associates at Georgia Tech
Speak and engage with faculty about academia and research

Programs organized

We have organized four crystallography workshops so far, helped host the 2024 Crystal-Growing Summer Camp, organized the fall 2024 skills-building series, organized the fall 2024 lecture series, and had the opportunity to tour Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the world leader in neutron diffraction experiments for determining macromolecular structure and function.

ORNL trip video highlights: https://youtu.be/5fsg_eGrtG4?si=3zdJJSQ7kwjAzHT4

We thank Georgia Tech and Oak Ridge National Laboratory again for the outstanding collaboration and trip.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Trip video

Officers

We have an amazing team of officers that helps run and operate this branch. It is thanks to them that we perform so well at our club meetings and outreach events.

Susanna Huang, President

3rd year Biochemistry Major. She is dedicated to research, especially therapeutic drug discovery and structural biology. In the Oyelere Lab, she performs organic chemistry research, synthesizing chemicals aimed for anticancer protein targets. In the STARS club, she loves to grow protein and (hopefully one day) nucleic acid crystals. Outside of school, she really enjoys playing piano and sketching.

Addie Kindler, Vice President

3rd year Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Major. She currently works in the Georgia Tech Garg Lab studying metabolomics of corals infected with Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease.

Caty Lue, Media Chair

5th year Neuroscience Major with computer science minor in intelligence. Operates the Instagram and photography portions of the club. She is a pre-med student whose research interests are in neurodegerative diseases and AI models used in medicine.

Maya Leveille, Secretary/Treasurer

2nd year Biomedical Engineering Major. She is interested in tissue engineering and biomaterials, and she recently got into a lab this semester which she is very excited about. She is also in Afrodance at GT. Her other interests include travel and fitness!

Sara Hunihan, Long-term member

3rd year Biochemistry Major. Has experience in a biochemistry lab, specifically in protein purification. Her research interests are protein (bio)chemistry, organic synthesis, and drug design/development. Outside of academics, she likes cooking, climbing, or gaming on her PC.

Past Events

From Jan 2024 to now:

Jan. 2024 Crystallography Workshop (Event organizers and faculty guests from left to right (Susanna Huang, Caty Lue, Dr. Xu Liu, Dr. Angus Wilkinson, Gabe Hood, and Addie Kindler)

Jan. 2024 Crystallography Workshop, Dr. Liu teaching the students how to grow protein crystals

Apr. 2024 Crystallography Workshop, group photo

Apr. 2024 crystallography workshop, STARS members (left to right: Sunny Xu, Diego Gonzalez, and Siffah Bonsu) getting the lab ready for the event attendees

May 2024 STARS crystallography workshop event organizers and Walton HS AP Biology teacher collaborator (left to right: Sunny Xu, Diego Gonzalez, Mr. Douglas Wolfe, Susanna Huang, Siffah Bonsu, and Sara Hunihan

May 2024 STARS crystallography workshop, group photo with high school event attendees

2024 STARS Crystal-Growing Summer Camp, with Addie (STARS Atlanta branch) teaching the K-12th students how to record their observations using the Crystal Journal provided by Adrew Fang (STARS high school branch) for the crystal-growing experiments that the students had just set up

2024 STARS Crystal-Growing Summer Camp, with Siffah (STARS Atlanta branch) guiding the students on the final day mega Kahoot! of the summer camp

Aug. 2024 STARS Crystallography workshop, event organizers and lunch guests (from left to right: Caty Lue, Dr. Dipak Walunj, Susanna Huang, Dr. Debanjan Kundu, Addie Kindler, Ryan Kern, Maya Leveille, Dr. Max Bernbeck, Sara Hunihan

Aug. 2024 STARS Crystallography workshop, having lunch with Dr. Bernbeck during the guest lunch session

Aug. 2024 STARS Crystallography workshop, group photo

2024 Oak Ridge National Laboratory Trip, group photo with Macromolecular Neutron Diffractometer (MaNDi); left to right: Susanna Huang, Ruthie Fowler, Gurnoor Hayer, Nishadh Naik, Sara Hunihan, Dr. Angus Wilkinson, Caty Lue, Dr. Max Bernbeck, Carlos Marrufo

2024 Oak Ridge National Laboratory Trip, group photo at the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) left to right: Caty Lue, Sara Hunihan, Gurnoor Hayer, Ruthie Fowler, Carlos Marrufo, Nishadh Naik, Susanna Huang, Dr. Angus Wilkinson (GaTech), Dr. Dean Myles (ORNL), Dr. Max Bernbeck (GaTech)

Fall 2024 STARS Skills-building series, teaching students how to cold-email professors, how to prepare and polish their resumes, and how to prepare and practice for an interview, so that students will be better equipped for landing the research or internship position they want to have

Upcoming Events

2024 Fall Lecture series, showcasing structural biology-related research on campus at 12:30pm-1:20pm in the Instructional Center room 115:

October 30th, 2024: Dr. Andrew McShan
November 6th, 2024: Dr. Dustin Huard
November 20th, 2024: Dr. Kunal Datta
RSVP here: https://forms.office.com/r/m5t18iuj26

Nov. 23rd, 2024 Crystallography workshop, featuring a presentation on nucleic acid crystallography and the selenium derivatization technique (Susanna Huang), a lunch with faculty to talk about research and academia, and a guided protein crystallization workshop by STARS
- November 23rd, 2024
- RSVP here: https://forms.office.com/r/qFzpmBLwY6

Club meetings

Spring 2024

Crystallizing lysozyme protein crystals, learning how to find Table 1 on research papers and how to identify their crystallization procedures, learning about crystallization theories, and attempting to learn how to operate PHENIX and Coot.

Coot, ca protein visualization software for model building and refinement

Fall 2024

The four-step process in crystallography is (1) Protein expression and purification, (2) crystal-growth and optimization, (3) diffraction data collection and processing, and (4) model building and refinement. This last step, building your protein and/or nucleic acid complex is crucial for solving your structure, which can be used to understand any active sites and mechanisms of the macromolecule(s), which will provide insight to their function and the development of therapeutics for the target. That is what the STARS Atlanta branch is currently working on right now: learning how to use research-grade programs, PHENIX and Coot, to build and refine models.

Here are the previous handouts teaching STARS members about PHENIX and Coot:

How to join the club

If you are a Georgia Tech student and would like to join the STARS branch, make sure to register officially as a STARS member here: https://forms.office.com/r/3B34fSjW4F and to submit your membership fee.

Or if you are not sure yet, feel free to sit in at one of our club meetings. They are weekly on Mondays 12:30pm-1:20pm at the glass Chemistry/Biochemistry lounge on the second floor of the Boggs Chemistry Building. We hope to see you there!

Fall 2024 STARS Atlanta branch meeting, photo of attendees