ExpBio 2015: Day 3 - Reppin the Blue and Gold

Happy Monday!
Today is Day 3 of the Experimental Biology 2015 conference here in Boston, MA, and it is getting good!
I woke up early today to head to a Post Translational Modifications Session on Arginine Modifications, and it was great! I learned a lot about the research that is going on in my field, and I got to meet another professor who I have collaborated with/tested some enzyme activity. The session was 2.5 hours long, but it seemed to fly by. Each talk was about 20ish minutes I believe, and there are some really interesting things going on in the arginine modification world! One of the most interesting things I learned is about Arginine Phosphorylation in bacteria! If you are knowledgable about the eukaryotic proteasome degradation system, you know that proteins get marked for degradation by ubiquitination, which then signals shuttling/entrance into the proteasome and then the protein will get degraded.
Apparently, some bacteria, specifically Bacillus subtilis have an arginine kinase, that originally was identified as a tyrosine kinase. First off, I didn't know that arginine could get phosphorylated. Second, this phosphorylation is thought to work as a degradation marker for the proteasome in these bacteria! I did not know about this. The fact that arginine, which is positively charged, can become a bulky entity with now a large negative charge, I guess it just never crossed my mind!
After this session, I attended a bioinformatics session on how to find proteins with unknown function through online database searches and groupings. I learned how to use new online tools that I will check out to learn more about my enzyme and its orthologs!

Experimental Biology 2015 Conference - Day 1 Fashion and Recap

Hello!
I am reporting to you live from Boston, MA, where I am attending the Experimental Biology 2015 Conference, as a member of the ASBMB! I am going to be blogging about the conference daily, so be on the look out for new posts from now until Wednesday! This is different than my regular posting schedule where I post twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays, so I hope I don't overwhelm you with my posts! And I will be talking about some science, but I will try to integrate conference fashion as a relevant topic!

My Conference and blogging essentials: My camera, my conference badge, my iPad to take notes and update social media, and a staple, a statement necklace!

Statement Dress to Impress - Spring has sprung!

Spring has sprung, and tomorrow marks the first day of spring (for all of you who aren't in SoCal, for us here in LA, its been summer since the weekend!)! 

On Saturday I headed to a fashion event in Beverly Hills with Samira, a fashion blogger from Stylemesamira.com! Post coming up to recap the event next week! It was a rather hot day (90 degrees F!), and so I busted out my favorite black dress shorts that I have had for years, I believe since I was 16! 

I really wanted to wear my new Midnight Waters Necklace from the Yayoi Collection at Boyajian Trend Gallery, so I tried to come up with an outfit that it would be the centerpiece! I love figuring out outfits to go with statement jewelry pieces, and this was a great opportunity since it was a nice day out! I wore a plain white tank top from Forever21 that I got for $2! and a gray mini vest that I have had for some years, probably since high school as well!

I wanted to wear heels to the event but I knew I would be standing/walking around so I wanted to be comfortable. I wore these heeled sandals that were super comfortable that I bought in Hawaii, from a local store in Waikiki called Island Fever.

I then quickly curled the ends of my hair, which came out nice and took me only 10 minutes! I was amazed at how fast I have become at curling my hair. It also helps that I hadn't washed my hair in a couple of days -- this makes for easier to curl hair! I wore it half up so I could get some of the attention on the necklace!