Elias and Morgan present tomorrow at Duquesne’s GRS!

Earlier this month, the abstracts submitted by Elias and Morgan were selected for ORAL and poster presentations at Duquesne’s Graduate Research Symposium (GRS).

Elias will highlight his recent results highlighting compounds we found, in collaboration with Paul Lummis (Duquesne) that selectively kill Gram-positive bacteria, including the causative agent of MRSA infections. 

Morgan will provide an overview of her work linking a Listeria protein to its role in subverting a cell’s immune response to infection.

Welcome CJ, Ella, and Nathan!

New year, new semester, new students. Today, the lab grew by adding three new students for the coming semester. Today we added CJ Booterbaugh (Jr, PSYC), Ella Jacoby (Fr, Biochem) and Nathan Philips (Soph, Biochem). We are excited to see what they can accomplish on existing and new projects in the lab!

FIRST HEISLER LAB PUBLICATION!

Today, our efforts, in collaboration with Dr. Thomas Montgomery (Duquesne) was published in ACS Organic & Inorganic Au (DOI: 10.1021/acsorginorgau.5c00098). The Montgomery group was interested in a novel synthetic pathway for producing 1,2,4-Triazolidines with multiple different substitutions.

Given the involvement of triazolidines in diverse bioactivities, we found that many of these compound possess antibacterial properties. Led undergraduate Trista Newman, this project has spurred new questions and avenues of research lead by PhD student Elias Griffin.

First Preprint goes live!

Today, the first preprint that the Heisler lab has had the honor contribute their expertise towards has gone live. A collaboration with Rita Mihailescu’s lab here at Duquesne shows the importance of DNA secondary structures in the regulation of the 5′ untranslated region (5’UTR) of a gene implicated in multiple sclerosis. Morgan (PhD student) and Zoe (NSF-REU and NIH-NURE student) contributed all of the molecular and cell biology in the paper!

 

DOI: 10.1101/2025.11.24.690261