Vol.Vol. 19 19 / / No. No. 5 4 / / May April 2020 2020 THETHE MEMBERMEMBER MAGAZINEMAGAZINE OFOF THETHE AMERICANAMERICAN SOCIETYSOCIETY FORFOR BIOCHEMISTRYBIOCHEMISTRY ANDAND MOLECULARMOLECULAR BIOLOGYBIOLOGY The COVID-19 issue A new career center Browse jobs, post positions, have your resume critiqued and more. careers.asbmb.org NEWS FEATURES PERSPECTIVES 2 22 50 EDITOR’S NOTE A LEGACY OF TYROSINE ON THE FRONT LINE: Breaking the news PANDEMIC INSIGHT FROM 3 A HEALTH CARE WORKER MEMBER UPDATE COVID19 52 30 A small army of researchers 7 races to build a coronavirus QUARANTINED THOUGHTS IN MEMORIAM interactome 32 Could an old malaria drug 54 10 help fight SARS-COV02? JOURNAL NEWS A NEW CITY, A NEW JOB 10 Yeast as a detective’s assistabt 34 Anatomy of a molecule: what AND A GLOBAL PANDEMIC 12 Cow born in Japan after removal, makes remdesivir promising? replacement of placental cells 13 How is myelin made? 36 Slipping past the proofreader 16 Review delves into 59 44 Scientist uses community proximity proteomics IS MORE SCIENCE THE MEDICINE organizing skills to mobilize 17 From the journals WE NEED TO CURE THE WORLD’S researchers against COVID-19 STRUGGLING ECONOMY? 46 Researchers retool genomics labs to provide virus 2 testing 48 “We are doers. We want to get involved.” 12 22 13 54 MAY 2020 ASBMB TODAY 1 EDITOR’S NOTE THE MEMBER MAGAZINE OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR BIOCHEMISTRY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY Breaking the news OFFICERS COUNCIL MEMBERS By Comfort Dorn Gerald Hart Suzanne Barbour President Joan Broderick Toni M. Antalis Matt Gentry President-elect Blake Hill Audrey Lamb Wei Yang James M. Ntambi Secretary Takita Felder Sumter Joan Conaway Kelly Ten–Hagen Treasurer JoAnn Trejo EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS ASBMB TODAY EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Robert S. Haltiwanger ON UNSPLASH MIKA BAUMEISTER BY PHOTO Rajini Rao Carla Koehler Chair Co-chairs, 2020 Annual Ana Maria Barral Protective masks, normally used for surgery, are now in use to fight the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-19. Meeting Program Committee Natasha Brooks Cheryl Bailey Kelly Chacón Chair, Education and Beronda Montgomery his month marks my third an- aware of an insidious new disease that Professional Development Bill Sullivan niversary as managing editor of was sickening people in China. We Committee Melissa Vaught ASBMB Today. If COVID-19 posted our first article about research Daniel Raben Binks Wattenberg T Chair, Meetings Committee restrictions continue, I’ll probably related to chloroquine and “the new Sonia Flores ASBMB TODAY celebrate privately with an extra cup coronavirus” on Feb. 6, covering a Chair, Minority Affairs Angela Hopp Committee Executive Editor of coffee at my kitchen table/desk. paper published two days earlier. Nicole Woitowich [email protected] Maybe even a doughnut. Since then, this job and my old Chair, Science Outreach and Comfort Dorn As I’ve mentioned in this space jobs have felt increasingly similar as Communication Committee Managing Editor Terri Goss Kinzy [email protected] before, I worked for about 20 years we race to share news of COVID-19 Chair, Public Affairs Lisa Schnabel at daily and weekly newspapers research and how our members are Advisory Committee Graphic Designer before I came to the ASBMB to edit helping and coping. Our staff writ- Ed Eisenstein [email protected] Chair, Membership Committee John Arnst a monthly magazine. The change was ers, contributors and members have Susan Baserga Science Writer stark, mostly in terms of pacing. I churned out articles and essays at [email protected] Chair, Women in Biochemistry spent much of my career hounding what, for us, is an astonishing pace. and Molecular Biology Laurel Oldach Committee Science Writter reporters to turn around daily stories Why am I telling you this? [email protected] Sandra Weller in a matter of hours. Here, I found This issue of ASBMB Today Chair, Publications Ed Marklin Committee Web Editor that we had the luxury of working for reflects these recent changes. Here [email protected] Lila M. Gierasch weeks, even months, on articles and we have collected the best of the Editor-in-chief, JBC Allison Frick Multimedia and Social Media essays to get them exactly right for COVID-19 writing that we’ve posted A. L. Burlingame Content Manager this magazine. Very little was urgent. on our website since February. We Editor, MCP [email protected] We moved at a stately and thoughtful tried to update articles wherever Nicholas O. Davidson Barbara Gordon Editor-in-chief, JLR Executive Director pace, rather like an ocean liner or a possible, but the story is evolving [email protected] Kerry-Anne Rye dowager countess. quickly. This is a snapshot, from the Editor-in-chief, JLR That changed this year. And it viewpoint of this magazine and this changed fast. society, of a moment that comes once For information on advertising, contact Pharmaceutical Media Inc. at 212-904-0374 or [email protected]. First, we moved to daily pub- in a century. lishing on our website in January, Stay well and stay safe. meaning we were posting fresh stories every morning — often several a day. This had been a longtime goal of the Comfort Dorn www.asbmb.org/asbmbtoday ASBMB Today staff, and we were ([email protected]) is the PRINT ISSN 2372-0409 managing editor of ASBMB delighted with our fresh new website, Today. Follow her on Twitter @cdorn56. Articles published in ASBMB Today reflect solely the authors’ views and not even though it meant major pivots in the official positions of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular our workflow. Biology or the institutions with which the authors are affiliated. Mentions of products or services are not endorsements. Later that month, we became 2 ASBMB TODAY MAY 2020 MEMBER UPDATE Three ASBMB members win Protein Society awards Pictured, from left, are Protein Society award winners Catherine Drennan, Stephen Sligar and Karen Fleming. The Protein Society has honored three members of lipid-membrane patches stabilized by a belt of mem- the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular brane-scaffolding proteins. For that work, he also won Biology with 2020 awards. Karen Fleming of Johns the ASBMB’s 2016 Herbert A. Sober Lectureship, Hopkins University, Stephen Sligar of the University of recognizing outstanding biochemical and molecular Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and Catherine Dren- biology research, with a special emphasis on the devel- nan of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were opment of methods and research techniques. set to receive their awards at the World Conference on The Anfinsen award is sponsored by the Protein Protein Science in June, which was canceled in response Society. ASBMB members who have won it in the past to the COVID-19 pandemic. include Anthony Kossiakoff, University of Chicago Karen Fleming, a professor of biophysics at Hop- (2019); Sachdev Sidhu, University of Toronto (2015); kins and a pioneer in the study of membrane-protein and Barry Honig, Columbia University (2012). folding, won the Carl Brändén Award, which honors Catherine Drennan, a professor at MIT and a a protein scientist who has contributed significantly to Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, won science, education and/or service. the Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin Award for solving Fleming is an associate editor for the Journal of high-resolution structures of proteins and protein Biological Chemistry, served on the ASBMB Council complexes that enhance understanding of the biology of from 2014 through 2017 and co-founded the Gordon metalloproteins. Research Conference on Membrane Protein Folding. Hodgkin used X-ray crystallography to determine She recently received the Society of General Physiolo- the structure of vitamin B12 and won the 1964 Nobel gists’ inaugural Sharona Gordon Award. Prize in chemistry. The Brändén award is sponsored by Rigaku Corp. The Protein Society, in its announcement, pointed ASBMB members who have won it in past years to Drennan’s determination of the first structure of co- include Billy Hudson, Vanderbilt (2017); C. Robert balamin-dependent ribonucleotide reductase, one of the Matthews, University of Massachusetts (2015); Stephen three enzymes that catalyze the final step in production White, University of California, Irvine (2014); Sheena of deoxyribonucleotides in all organisms. Radford, University of Leeds (2013); Helen Berman, Drennan is a former member of the ASBMB Rutgers University (2012); Michael Summers, Univer- Education and Professional Development Committee, sity of Maryland, Baltimore County (2011); and Bruce a past ASBMB annual meeting session organizer, and a Alberts, University of California, San Francisco (2010). past winner of the ASBMB–Schering–Plough Research Stephen Sligar, who chairs the biochemistry depart- Institute Award. ment at UIUC, won the Christian Anfinsen Award for The Hodgkin award is sponsored by Genentech. methodological advances in the field of protein sciences. ASBMB members who have won it include Hao Wu, Anfinsen received the Nobel Prize in chemistry in Harvard Medical School (2019); Susan Marqusee, 1972 for his work on enzyme structure. His namesake University of California, Berkeley (2018); Manajit Hay- award recognizes “a technological achievement or sig- er–Hartl, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry (2017); nificant methodological advances in the field of protein Rachel Klevit, University of Washington (2016); Judith sciences.” Frydman, Stanford University (2014). Sligar discovered and developed nanodiscs, MAY 2020 ASBMB TODAY 3 MEMBER UPDATE University of Vermont names interrogate the protein