Welcome to the Holub Laboratory!

March 2024: Dhanushka Arachchilage has received a Student Enhancement Award from the Office of the Vice President for Research and Creative Activity at Ohio University to fund his research on “Probing BCL2 protein interactions using scyllatoxin-based BH3 domain mimetics.” Great work Dhanushka!

January 2024: Happy New Year from the Holub Laboratory!

December 2023: Lakma Rahubaddha has officially joined the Holub Laboratory from the Molecular and Cellular Biology (MCB) Program. Welcome to the lab Lakma!

December 2023: Happy Holidays from the Holub Laboratory!

October 2023: The Holub and Kopchick Laboratories have received a collaborative R21 grant from the National Institutes of Health for “Developing helical peptide antagonists of the growth hormone receptor” (Award #1R21AG081962-01). Congratulations to all those involved with the grant writing effort!

October 2023: Khairun Nahar received an invitation to present her award-winning research poster entitled “A novel peptide-based antagonist of the human growth hormone receptor" as part of the Investiture Week celebrating Ohio University’s 23rd President from the Presidential Investiture Committee. The poster was presented to honorable President Dr. Lori Stewart Gonzalez and the board of trustees along with special guests. Great job Khairun!

October 2023: Udani Gamage received an Original Work Grant from Ohio University. Great job Udani!

September 2023: Amenah Bayazid has officially joined the Holub Laboratory as our newest PACE student. Welcome to the lab Amenah!

August 2023: Nathan James has officially joined the Holub Laboratory as our newest Undergraduate Researcher. Welcome to the lab Nathan!

August 2023: Welcome back Bobcats for the 2023-2024 academic year at Ohio University!

July 2023: Joseph Pettis has been accepted into the PhD program at Ohio State University. Congratulations Joe!

July 2023: Austin Couvillon has accepted a job as a phlebotomist at CSL Plasma in Dayton, OH. Congrats Austin!

April 2023: Khairun Nahar’s research poster entitled “A novel peptide-based antagonist of the human growth hormone receptor" was selected as a 1st prize winner from the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and 2nd place from the Graduate Student Senate at the 2023 Ohio University Student Research and Creative Activity Expo. Congratulations Khairun!

April 2023: Dr. Holub presented his research on “Monitoring ligand-mediated helix 12 transitions in the human estrogen receptor using bipartite tetracysteine display” at the 2023 Spring Colloquium Series at Ohio University, Athens, OH.

April 2023: The Holub Laboratory has received PACE funding for the 2023-2024 academic year!

March 2023: Dr. Holub presented his research (virtually) on “Monitoring ligand-mediated helix 12 transitions in the human estrogen receptor using bipartite tetracysteine display” at the 2023 Spring National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Indianapolis, IN.

January 2023: Happy New Year from the Holub Laboratory!

December 2022: Udani Malagoda Gamage has officially joined the Holub Laboratory from the Molecular and Cellular Biology (MCB) Program. Welcome to the lab Udani!

December 2022: Happy Holidays from the Holub Laboratory!

August 2022: Welcome back Bobcats for the 2022-2023 academic year at Ohio University!

July 2022: Matthew Vince’s paper entitled “Synthesis of scyllatoxin-based BH3 domain mimetics with diverse patterns of native disulfide bonds” has been accepted in Current Protocols. Congratulations Matt!

June 2022: Khairun Nahar presented her research entitled “Development of photoaffinity label peptides for mapping therapeutically-relevant protein-protein interactions” at the Central Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Ypsilanti, MI. Great job Khairun!

June 2022: Dr. Holub presented his research on “Monitoring ligand-mediated helix 12 transitions in the human estrogen receptor using bipartite tetracysteine display” at the Central Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society in Ypsilanti, MI.

May 2022: Lasantha Sendanayake and Dhanushka Arachchilage have officially joined the Holub Laboratory as new Ph.D. students. Welcome to the lab Lasantha and Dhanushka!

April 2022: Matthew Vince has successfully defended his Master’s Thesis entitled “Development of novel peptides to study protein-protein interactions” and has become the first member of the Holub Laboratory to earn a dual Master of Science degree from Ohio University and Leipzig University. Congratulations Matt!

April 2022: Matthew Vince has been accepted to the Ph.D. program at Boston University. Way to go Matt!

April 2022: Khairun Nahar has received funding from the Ohio University Graduate Student Research Fund for her research on “Developing photoaffinity label peptides for mapping therapeutically-relevant protein-protein interactions”. Congratulations Khairun!

April 2022: Joseph Pettis’ research poster entitled “Synthesis of a hydrocarbon stapled peptide antagonist of the human growth hormone receptor” was selected as the Center for Entrepreneurship fleet winner (1st place), Center for Entrepreneurship award (2nd place) and Chemistry and Biochemistry Departmental award (2nd place) at the 2022 Ohio University Student Research and Creative Activity Exposition. Great job Joe! 

April 2022: Matthew Vince won second place (divisional) for his poster entitled “Targeting anti-apoptotic BCL2 proteins using re-engineered scorpion toxins” at the 2022 Ohio University Student Research and Creative Activity Exposition. Way to go Matt! 

April 2022: Khairun Nahar presented a poster on her research entitled “Development of photoaffinity label peptides for mapping therapeutically-relevant protein-protein interactions” at the 2022 Ohio University Student Research and Creative Activity Exposition. 

April 2022: Matthew Vince has received funding from the Ohio University Student Enhancement Award for his research on “Development of scyllatoxin-based BH3 domain mimetics to target BCL2 proteins”. Excellent job Matt!

April 2022: Matthew Vince presented a poster entitled “Targeting anti-apoptotic BCL2 proteins using re-engineered scorpion toxins” at the 2022 National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, San Diego, CA.

March 2022: Khairun Nahar has received an Original Work Grant and a Travel Award from Ohio University. Congratulations Khairun!

February 2022: Khairun Nahar presented her research entitled “Development of photoaffinity label peptides for mapping therapeutically-relevant protein-protein interactions” at the Chemistry and Biochemistry Departmental Graduate Student Seminar at Ohio University. Great job Khairun!

January 2022: Happy New Year from the Holub Laboratory!

December 2021: Elaheh Hadi Zadeh has officially joined the Holub Laboratory. Welcome to the lab Ellie!

December 2021: Happy Holidays from the Holub Laboratory!

November 2021: Joseph Pettis has received a grant from the Provost’s Undergraduate Research Fund for his research on “Synthesis of hydrocarbon stapled peptide antagonists of the human growth hormone receptor”. Congratulations Joe!

October 2021: Dr. Holub presented his research (virtually) on “Monitoring ligand-mediated helix 12 transitions in the human estrogen receptor using bipartite tetracysteine display” at the Cleveland State University Department of Chemistry seminar, Cleveland, OH.

October 2021: The Holub Laboratory has received a grant from the John J. Kopchick Molecular and Cellular Biology Translational Biomedical Science Support Fund for research to “Develop helical peptides as antagonists of the human growth hormone receptor.”

August 2021: Austin Couvilon has officially joined the Holub Laboratory as our 2021-22 PACE student. Welcome to the Lab Austin!

August 2021: Welcome back Bobcats for the 2021-2022 academic year at Ohio University!

July 2021: Matthew Vince has traveled to Leipzig, Germany to conduct research toward his dual master’s degree with Prof. Norbert Sträter at Leipzig University. Viel Glück, Matt!

June 2021: Matthew Vince received funding from the Ohio University Graduate Student Research Fund to pursue his research on developing scyllatoxin-based BH3 domain mimetics to target BCL2 proteins. Great job, Matt!

June 2021: Dr. Holub presented a keynote lecture entitled “Monitoring ligand-mediated helix 12 transitions in the human estrogen receptor using bipartite tetracysteine display” at the 2021 Great Lakes Regional Meeting of the ACS (Minneapolis, MN).

June 2021: The Holub Laboratory has received a grant from the Ohio University Baker Fund for a project entitled “Monitoring ligand-mediated helix 12 transitions in constitutively active estrogen receptors”.

June 2021: Chang’s paper on developing gold-coupled Te-carbon dots for quantitative monitoring of superoxide anions has been accepted for publication in Analytical Chemistry. Congratulations Chang!

May 2021: Three new undergraduate researchers have joined the group to work on our collaborative project with the Chertok Laboratory. Welcome to the lab Alicia, Austin and Keely!

April 2021: Matthew Vince presented his work on developing scyllatoxin-based BH3 domain mimetics at the 2021 Student Research and Creative Activity Exposition at Ohio University.

March 2021: Reeto Basu from the Kopchick Laboratory and Khairun Nahar have had their work on developing a novel peptide-based antagonist of the human growth hormone receptor accepted for publication in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Congratulations to everyone involved with this project!

March 2021: The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry has installed a new Bruker AutoFlex Max MALDI-TOF mass spectrometer in the Chemistry Building instrumentation room. The purchase of this instrument was made possible by an MRI Grant (Award # 2018802) from the National Science Foundation.

January 2021: Happy New Year from the Holub Laboratory!

October 2020: Joseph Pettis has joined the Holub Laboratory as our newest Honor’s Tutorial College student. Welcome to the lab, Joe!

September 2020: Matthew Vince has officially joined the laboratory as a Dual Master’s student. Welcome to the lab, Matt!

August 2020: Ryan Cannell graduated with a BS in Chemistry (Pre-Med). Congratulations Ryan!

August 2020: Ranju Pokhrel successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis on “Monitoring ligand-mediated structural dynamics of the human estrogen receptor alpha using bipartite tetracysteine display”. Congratulations Dr. Pokhrel!

July 2020: Chang Xu successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis on “A novel mass spectrometry method to study reaction intermediates and development of AuTeCDs for scavenging ROS in live cells”. Congratulations Dr. Xu!

July 2020: Ranju’s paper on monitoring ligand-mediated helix transitions within the human estrogen receptor using bipartite tetracysteine display has been accepted for publication in Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry. Great job Ranju!

July 2020: The Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry has received funding from the National Science Foundation Major Research Instrumentation Program to purchase a new matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometer for Ohio University. Congratulations to all contributing faculty members and to Dr. Holub for leading the proposal effort!

June 2020: Following a brief hiatus from in-person research, the Holub Laboratory is happy to announce that our Research and Creative Activity restart request has been approved by Ohio University! This will allow our graduate students to return to the laboratory in accordance with University policy. As always, the safety of our students is of paramount importance and the Holub Laboratory strongly affirms its commitment to keeping our members healthy while conducting research by practicing social distancing, wearing masks and participating in contact tracing.

May 2020: Colin Hinton has graduated with a BS in Biochemistry. Congratulations Colin!

March 2020: In accordance with Ohio University policy, the Holub Laboratory announces that it will be temporarily shutting down all non-essential research during the coronavirus pandemic. We extend our deepest condolences to all those directly affected by the virus and hope that everyone is able to endure this unprecedented situation with minimal difficulty. We are looking forward to ramping up our research efforts as soon as it is appropriate to do so. Stay safe out there!

March 2020: The Holub Laboratory has received funding to support a PACE position during the 2020-2021 academic year!

March 2020: Dr. Holub and Dr. Ilana Chertok receive a collaborative grant from the OHIO Diabetes Institute to pursue “comparative analysis of colostral metabolites in women with and without gestational diabetes”. Congratulations to both investigators!

January 2020: Ola Bataineh has joined the Holub Laboratory as our newest graduate student. Welcome to the lab Ola!

January 2020: Happy New Year from the Holub Laboratory!

December 2019: Khairun Nahar successfully defended her Ph.D. candidacy proposal. Congratulations Khairun!

December 2019: Danushka Arachchige successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis on “Targeting anti-apoptotic BCL2 proteins using scyllatoxin-based BH3 domain mimetics”. Congratulations Dr. Arachchige!

August 2019: Dr. Holub’s chapter on “Novel peptide inhibitors of protein kinases” has been accepted to be included in the upcoming Springer textbook: “Next Generation Kinase Inhibitors: Moving Beyond the ATP Binding/Catalytic Sites”.

August 2019: Tang Tang successfully defended her M.S. thesis. Congratulations Tang!

June 2019: Ryan Cannell joined the Holub Laboratory as a PACE student. Welcome to the Lab Ryan!

June 2019: Dr. Holub presented on “Targeting BH3:BCL2 interactions using re-engineered scorpion toxins” at the Central Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Midland, MI.

April 2019: Thank you to everyone in the lab who presented their research at this year’s Student Research and Creative Activity Exposition at Ohio University Congratulations to Danushka for receiving first place in his group!

April 2019: Dr. Holub was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure at Ohio University.

April 2019: Dr. The Holub Lab was awarded an Honors Research Apprenticeship Program grant from the Honors Tutorial College at OHIO to develop peptide-based inhibitors of growth hormone action.

March 2019: The Holub Laboratory received funding for a PACE position during the 2019-2020 academic year!

February 2019: Dr. Holub presented on “Designing synthetic proteins to target biomolecular interactions” at West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV.

January 2019: Happy New Year from the Holub Laboratory!

December 2018: Dr. Holub presented on targeting anti-apoptotic Bcl-2 proteins using ScTx-Bax BH3 domain mimetics at the 10th International Peptide Symposium in Kyoto, Japan.

October 2018: Dr. Holub presented on “Reimagining Nature’s Scaffold: Targeting Bcl2-BH3 interactions using re-engineered scorpion toxins” at Ohio University, Athens, OH.

September 2018: Dr. Holub received a Global Travel Fund Award from Ohio University to present his research at the 10th International Peptide Symposium in Kyoto, Japan.

September 2018: Dr. Holub presented on “Targeting Bcl2-BH3 interactions using re-engineered scorpion toxins” at the Ohio State University, Columbus, OH.

August 2018: Najah presented her research on “Reducing tau phosphorylation using synthetic peptides” at the 256th American Chemical Society National Meeting in Boston, MA.

August 2018: Danushka’s paper on the synthesis and biological activity of ScTx-Bax BH3 domain mimetics containing two disulfide linkages was accepted for publication in The Protein Journal. Great job Danushka!

July 2018: Emily Herrberg joined the Holub Laboratory as a PACE student. Welcome to the Lab Emily!

June 2018: Dr. Holub presented on “Reducing tau phosphorylation using synthetic peptides” at the 2018 Glass City Chemistry Conference, University of Toledo, Toledo, OH.

May 2018: Dr. Robert Colvin (OHIO) presented on our collaborative research project: “Reducing tau phosphorylation using synthetic peptides” at the NYAS Chemical Biology Symposium in New York, NY.

May 2018: Maya Sattler successfully completed her HTC thesis on “Developing synthetic peptide-based inhibitors of human growth hormone receptor”. Great job Maya!

May 2018: The Holub Lab received a sponsored research grant from Immunomic Therapeutics, Inc.

April 2018: Najah Alqaeisoom successfully defended her Ph.D. thesis on “Inhibiting phosphorylation and aggregation of tau protein using R-domain peptide mimetics”. Congratulations Dr. Alqaeisoom!

April 2018: Thank you to everyone in the lab who presented their research at this year’s Student Research and Creative Activity Exposition at Ohio University. Congratulations to Najah for receiving first place in her group! Congratulations to Danushka and Ranju for receiving second place in their groups!

March 2018: Oliva Kerekes was accepted to medical school at Ohio University. Way to go Olivia!

March 2018: The Holub Laboratory received funding for a PACE position during the 2018-2019 academic year!

March 2018: Dr. Holub presented on “Targeting Bcl2-BH3 interactions using re-engineered scorpion toxins” at the University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN.

February 2018: Dr. Holub presented on “Targeting Bcl2-BH3 interactions using re-engineered scorpion toxins” at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, Baltimore, MD.

February 2018: Najah’s paper on inhibiting tau phosphorylation with peptide-based R1 domain mimetics was accepted for publication in The International Journal of Peptide Research and Therapeutics. Way to go Najah!

January 2018: Khairun Nahar and Chang Xu joined the Holub Laboratory. Welcome to the Lab Khairun and Chang!

January 2018: Dr. Holub’s collaborative work with Kira Slepchenko (OHIO) and Dr. Yang Li (OHIO) on the effects of intracellular zinc on PKC delta was accepted for publication in Cellular Signaling.

January 2018: Happy New Year from the Holub Laboratory!