September 16, 2024
“Time moves in one direction, memory in another.” – William Gibson
I believe that the above quote clearly captures the essence of how fast the first year of my doctoral studies flew by along with the creation of countless memories.
From moving into an empty house in a small town in the middle of Germany to being able to call Göttingen “my home”, I have come a long way. From struggling to assemble a bed to actually being able to host my mother at my place for two months, I have come a long way.
It has truly been a pleasure being part of a #European Union consortium and getting to know colleagues who are working on similar (yet different) doctoral projects. Our consortium events at Graz, Groningen and Gothenburg (funny that the names of all these cities start with a “G” 😊) have been very fruitful in terms of knowledge acquisition and building contacts. I also hosted Lilla Gal (DC7) for a secondment in Göttingen where we managed to generate some promising structural data corresponding to her #acyltransferases.
I have been working with an evolved variant of 4-oxalocrotonate tautomerase (4-OT) and was able to successfully solve the structure of this #enzyme in complex with a substrate. (Looking at beautiful deep red protein crystals is surely another amazing aspect of working with this system 😊). I am currently working on #crystallization of this enzyme in order to arrest another intermediate or the final product in the active site of the enzyme. Structural studies of other variants of 4-OT are also underway.
Looking forward to more scientific updates, secondments, conferences and fun events in the next part of my PhD.
Cheers!
(You can see me sitting at my desk with the screensaver of my computer set to a representation of the crystal structure solved by me!!)
#PhDversary #PhDJourney #Anniversary #Biocatalysis #BiodeCCodiNNgDN #MSCA #HorizonEU
