News

·         May 15, 2015.  
The 2015 PennState Plant Biology Symposium on “Plant Stress Omics in a Changing Climate” is going be held in state college from May 13 to May 16, 2015. Several of the Chen members will attend the symposium. Dr. Chen is going to give talk on “Unraveling the molecular basis of CO₂ effect on stomatal movement”.

·         March 9, 2015.  
A group of IDP students have toured the Chen lab and the Cancer and Genetics Research Complex. They are here to visit University of Florida graduate faculty, research facilities and infrastructure.

·         February 24, 2015.  
Dr. Chen hosted a group of freshman undergraduate students in their tour of the Proteomics and Mass Spectrometry Facility, Interdisciplinary Center for Biotechnology Research. The students had this technology tour as part of their Biology Colloquium course (BSC 1920).

·         February 1, 2015.  
The Chen lab welcomes Dr. Bing Yu, an Associate Professor from Heilongjiang University. She will be visiting for one year for proteomics research.

·         January 26, 2015.  
Dr. Chen has hosted the visit of 25 high school students, who are here to attend the 52th Junior Science Fair. Dr. Chen introduced the Chen lab research projects and discussed the future of plant biology research. The students then visited the laboratory and the Genetics Institute facilities.

·         January 5, 2015.  
The Chen lab welcomes Mr. Juan M. Gonzales for starting his one-month undergraduate research experience. Juan is a junior from the New College of Florida at Sarasota, and he will be involved in the carbon dioxide project and study how plant cells respond to elevated carbon dioxide.

·         December 30, 2014.  
As part of the NSF collaborative project, Dr. Chen is involved in organizing the 2015 PennState Plant Biology Symposium on “Plant Stress Omics in a Changing Climate”. Please check out this exciting conference for the new year.

·         December 25, 2014.  
Congratulations to the following new Ph.D. scientists, who graduated in 2014. Dr. Chen has proudly served on their committee during their graduate students. They are Aparna Krishnamurthy, Huizhuan Yan, Yanglan Tan, Jiyoung Park, Jonathan Martin, Long Yu, Nathaniel L. Hepowit, Candice Lavelle, and Jason Ferrante.

·         December 6, 2014.  
Dr. Chen was invited to three scientific events in Mumbai, India. He attended the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum on Proteomics and gave a talk. He then attended the 6th Annual International Conference of Proteomics Society India “Proteomics from Discovery to Function” and gave a talk on “Redox and phosphorylation/dephosphorylation switches in plant stomatal signaling”. At the end of the conference, he co-organized a 2D gel mass spectrometry workshop at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India. There were about 50 workshop participants.

·         November 3, 2014.  
Two more papers have been published from the Chen lab. Congratulations to the authors! Here please also find a commentary on the cysTMTRAQ paper, “Want to monitor global redox response? Try cysTMTRAQ”.

-  Zhang, T., Zhu, M., Song, W., Harmon, A., Chen, S. (2014) Oxidation and phosphorylation of MAP kinase 4 causes protein aggregation. BBA - Proteins and Proteomics (in press).

- Parker, J., Balmant, K., Zhu, F., Zhu, N., Chen, S. (2014) cysTMTRAQ - An integrated proteomics method for identification of thiol-based redox proteins. Molecular and Cellular Proteomics (in press).

·         November 3, 2014.  
The following papers have recently been accepted for publication. Congratulations to the authors!

     - Zhang, C., Pang, Q., Xue, M., Long, J., Chen, S., He, Y. (2014) Dihydroxyacid dehydratase is crucial for gametophyte development and the disruption causes increased susceptibility to salinity stress in Arabidopsis. Journal of Experimental Botany (in press).

    - Silva-Sanchez, C., Li, H., Chen, S. (2014) Recent advances and challenges in plant phosphoproteomics. Proteomics (in press).

·         October 29, 2014.  
Florida Genetics was held successfully. Chen lab had four poster presentations by Kelly Balmant, Sisi Geng, Tong Zhang and Islam Mostafa. Dr. Chen is one of the organizers and he hosted Drs. Roger Beachy (the keynote speaker) and Tom Michell-Olds. Click here for Dr. Chen’s introduction and Dr. Beachy’s keynote speech.

·         October 26, 2014.  
Two visiting Ph.D. students Tianyi Ma and Zepeng Yin have started their two-year training in the Chen lab. Tianyi will work together with Dr. Mi-Jeong Yoo, and Zepeng will work together with Dr. Biswa Misra. Welcome! Both are supported by China Scholarship Council and will work on NSF funded projects in the lab.

·         October 3, 2014.  
After a successful two years in Chen lab, Ms. Lihong Liu is going back to Zhejiang University. The Chen lab held a farewell party in her honor, wishing her the best in the future.

·         October 1, 2014

      Congratulations to Lisa David! Lisa has secured a biological scientist job at University of Florida Horticulture Department after one-month training in the Chen lab. She has worked mostly with Tong Zhang on the MPK project.

·         September 16, 2014.  
Congratulations to Huizhuan, Mi-jeong, Jin, Lihong and co-authors for an excellent paper accepted by Journal of Proteome Research!

-          Yan, H., Yoo, M.J., Koh, J., Liu, L., Chen, Y., Acikgoz, D., Wang, Q., Chen, S. (2014) Systems analysis of transcriptomic and metabolic reprograming of Arabidopsis in response to perturbation of jasmonate signaling. Journal of Proteome Research (in press).

·         September 1, 2014.  
Congratulations to Drs Chen, Alice Harmon, and Sally Assmann (Pennsylvania State University), who were awarded on their new NSF grant entitled “Redox Regulation of Protein Kinase Functions in Guard Cell Signaling”. 

·         August 15, 2014.  
Today is Florida Core Network Event. Dr. Chen gave a presentation on UF proteomics and mass spectrometry capabilities, and also led a lab tour for the conference participants.

·         August 11, 2014.  
Three graduate students (two minority students) and their supervisor Dr. Ramesh Katam from Florida A & M University have come to learn iTRAQ quantitative protemics workflow this week in the Chen lab. This activity is sponsored by the participant support from Dr. Chen’s NSF award. In addition, a high school student Daniel Dufresne from Palm Beach Central High School, West Palm, Florida has come back for his summer research in the Chen lab.

·         July 26, 2014.  
During the summer, Drs. Biswa Misra and Jennifer Parker were both married. Biswa went back to his hometown in India for the big event, and Jennifer had her ceremony in North Carolina. Several lab members went to the wedding and celebration. Congratulations to Biswa and Jennifer for the big milestone in life !

·         July 25, 2014.  
A high school student, Kevin Cusack from Vanguard High School, Ocala, Florida has successfully completed his summer research in the Chen lab. Kevin is sponsored by the UF Student Science Training Program (http://www.cpet.ufl.edu/sstp/) and Dr. Chen’s awards from the National Science Foundation. He has gained hands-on research experience as a scientist for six weeks, working on an important kinase in oilseed rape guard cells.

·         July 24, 2014.  
Dr. Chen interacted with undergraduate and graduate students, many of whom are minority students at the 3rd Annual Conference on Functional Biology Research at the Florida A&M University, Tallahassee, Florida. He also judged the poster presentation and gave a lecture.

·         July 1, 2014.  
Congratulations to Biswa, Tong and their co-authors for the publication of two well-written manuscripts!

-          Misra, B.B., Assmann, S.M., Chen, S. (2014) Plant single cell and single cell-type metabolomics. Trends in Plant Science 19, 637-646 (invited review).

-          Zhang, T., Chen, S., Harmon, A. (2014) Protein phosphorylation in stomatal movement. Plant Signaling & Behavior (in press).

·         June 30, 2014.  
Welcome Sheldon Lawrence to the Chen lab! Sheldon is a PMCB graduate student and has decided to do his Ph.D. research in the Chen lab.

·         June 23, 2014.  
From June 23 to 28^th, Dr. Chen has co-organized the 6th International Symposium on Frontiers in Agricultural Proteome Research, the 1st AOAPO conference & the 5th Plant Proteomics Conference in China, Harbin, China.

·         June 2, 2014.  
Dr. Chen has held a proteomics workshop for about 60 graduate students in College of Life Sciences, Heilongjiang University. 

·         May 25, 2014.  
The 2014 Metabolomics Workshop & Symposium held on May 20-23 was a big success. There were 50 students attending the technical workshop and approximately 180 participants for the symposium. With the participant support, three female minority Florida A&M students (Kedra Brown, Sydney Lyda and Krista LaBelle), two minority Claflin University students (Jacqueline B. Pleasant and Edwin Simpson), two minority students from University of Florida (Hamadi McIntosh and Sheldon Lawrence), and an Assistant Professor from a minority school Florida A&M (Dr. Ramesh Katam) were sponsored to attend the workshop and symposium.

Dr. Jean-Luc Wolfender from University of Geneva, Switzerland talks about metabolomics theory and practice at the Metabolomics Workshop and Symposium, Gainesville, Florida.

Dr. Chen introduces Dr. Oliven Fiehn from UC Davis, a leading expert in metabolomics.

·         December 20, 2013.  
The Chen lab had a farewell party to honor Dr. Jennifer Parker. It was sad to say farewell, but it was great she will move on in her career and life with all the best wishes.

·         December 13, 2013.  
Congratulations to Dr. Jennifer Parker! Today Jennifer has officially become a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.). Here is a short-video to mark the event. Jennifer is going to leave the Chen lab on December 20^th for her new job at Department of Chemistry, North Carolina State University. Here is a short-video to mark the event.

·         December 9, 2013.  
Dr. Chen and Ning worked with a group of high school students from Palm Beach Lakes High School led by their teacher Ms. Rachel Sterner, who participated in ICORE this past summer. The students learned gel electrophoresis of bacterial proteins and how to use peptide mass fingerprinting to identify unknown proteins.

·         December 2, 2013.  
Drs. Xiaofen Jin and Mengmeng Zhu’s work on guard cell metabolomics has been officially accepted in the Plant Cell. Congratulations to the authors! - Jin, X., Wang, R., Zhu M, Jeon BW, Albert, R., Chen, S., Assmann, S. (2013) Guard cell metabolomes of Arabidopsis wild-type and gpa1 G-protein mutants: evidence for a multi-hormone response to abscisic acid. The Plant Cell (in press).

·         November 15, 2013.  
Jennifer Parker has passed her Ph.D. defense, well-done! Congratulations! Following her defense, the Chen lab held a party in her honor.

·         November 5, 2013.  
Dr. Oliver Fiehn from UC Davis (http://fiehnlab.ucdavis.edu/) is visiting the Chen lab and UF Genetics Institute today. He is one of the top leaders in metabolomics. His seminar title is “Integrating metabolomic data with genomic information”.

·         October 29, 2013.  
Dr. Biswa Misra in the Chen lab served as a judge for the 2013 Graduate Research Day poster competition. He was invited to be the judge by the UF Office of Postdoctoral Affairs (http://postdoc.aa.ufl.edu/). Thanks Biswa for the service.

·         October 19, 2013.  
Tong Zhang and Yang Wang were married at UF. Chen lab had a wedding party to celebrate this significant event. Approximately 50 people have attended the celebration. Congratulations to Tong and Yang!

·         October 9-10, 2013.  
Chen lab attended the Florida Genetics 2013 and presented four posters by Joe Collins, Mi-Jeong Yoo, Tong Zhang and Sixue Chen. Dr. Chen also chaired the metabolomics section and gave the last talk entitled “Functional Genomics of Plant Glucosinolate Metabolic Networks”.

·         October 4, 2013.  
Dr. Chen was invited to give a seminar at Department of Biology, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI on October 4, 2013. His title of the seminar is “Toward Systems Biology of Plant Metabolic Networks”.

·         October 2, 2013.  
The Eastside High School in Gainesville, Florida became the first high school to loan the portable mass spectrometer for students to use in their high school laboratories. The mass spectrometer, which weighs about 70 lbs, was funded by the National Science Foundation for Drs. Chen, Polfer and CPET to train high school students and teachers in modern analytical technologies and ‘omics’ sciences. Several other high schools in Florida are in the queue to host this instruments for the projects that they have developed in the summer.

·         September 27, 2013.  
By the invitation from Dr. Taishi Umezawa, Dr. Chen visited Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Koganei, Tokyo, Japan and gave a lecture on utilizing the plant biochemical factory: Lessons from Plant Glucosinolate Metabolism.

·         September 25, 2013.  
Dr. Chen give a talk at the RIKEN Center for Renewable Resource Science, Yokohama, Japan. His talk title is “Characterization of plant glucosinolate metabolic networks”.

·         September 1, 2013.  
Dr. Chen has departed for his sabbatical trip to Japan. He is invited to give a talk at the 12th Human Proteome Organization World Congress (HUPO 2013) to be held in Yokohama, Japan, September 14-19, 2013.

·         August 30, 2013.  
Welcome Dr. Yan He back to home! Yan is the first Ph.D. graduate from the Chen lab. He has already secured a full professor position in China Agricultural University. Congratulations! Before moving back, he and his family stopped by for short visit. Yan gave a PMCB seminar entitled “The Ins and Outs of Meiotic Recombination Hotspots in Maize”.

·         August 29, 2013.  
How time flies! It is Huizhuan Yan’s last day at UF. The Chen lab held a farewell party in her honor and gave her best wishes.

·         August 5, 2013.  
Dr. Chen visited Shanghai Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China. He gave a seminar entitled “Molecular Networks of Plant Glucosinolate Metabolism”.

·         July 25, 2013.  
William Jun has successfully completed his project in the Chen lab. He summarized his findings during the seven week research and gave a nice presentation at the final SSTP seminar. He plans to take his result to the Junior Science, Engineering and Humanities Symposium (JSEHS) in January 2014 at the University of Florida.

·         July 6, 2013.  
Dr. Chen was invited to give a talk on proteomics and metabolomics of molecular networks regulating glucosinolate metabolism at the 2013 International Scientific Forum on Plant Secondary Metabolism and Natural Product Biosynthesis, Wuhan, Hubei, China.

·         July 1, 2013.  
Another high school student Daniel Dufresne from Palm Beach Central High School, West Palm, Florida has started his summer research in the Chen lab. He will work on a proteomics project on jasmonate regulation of plant growth. He will work closely with Huizhuan Yan, a Ph.D. student in the lab.

·         June 17-21, 2013.  
Together with UF Center for Precollegiate Education and Training (http://www.cpet.ufl.edu), Dr. Chen and Dr. Nick Polfer from Department of Chemistry have organized the fourth proteomics and mass spectrometry content knowledge workshop for 25 high school teachers from the state of Florida from June 17 to 19. Graduate students from the two laboratories have been actively involved in the workshop. In addition, a 2-day teacher workshop on the portable mass spectrometer was held, in which 7 teachers and 1 former school administrator participated.

·         June 11, 2013.  
A high school student William Jun from Suncoast Community High School, Jupiter, Florida has started summer research in the Chen lab. William is sponsored by the UF Student Science Training Program (http://www.cpet.ufl.edu/sstp/sstpdates.html) and Dr. Chen’s grant from the National Science Foundation. He will work under the direct supervision of Lihong Liu, a PhD student in the lab on a research project of his own. He will be involved in studying stomatal movements regulated by brassinosteroids to prevent drought damage in tomato plants.

·         June 15, 2013.  
A group of minority students from Florida A&M University visited the Chen lab today. Dr. Chen and his lab members talked with the students and showed them the laboratories and facilities.

·         June 9-14, 2013.  
Drs. Biswa Misra and Sixue Chen have attended the 61st American Society for Mass Spectrometry Conference in Minneapolis, MN. They presented a poster on “Mass Spectrometry Analysis of Redox Proteins in Guard Cell Hormone Signaling.” They updated the lab on new technologies for phosphoproteomics, isotope based quantification, data independent acquision, parallel reaction monitoring, MS/MSall and SWATH etc.

·         June 6, 2013.  
Congratulations to Jennifer Parker, who has been awarded a Graduate Student Council travel grant for her travel to the 2013 Plant Biology Conference. She will present her work on tomato pathogen proteomics.

·         May 29, 2013.  
Dr. Biswapriya B. Misra, a new postdoctoral associate has arrived at UF. He is going to work on the guard cell metabolomics project. The Chen lab welcomes Biswa on board.

·         May 10-11, 2013.  
The Chen lab attended the 2013 Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Annual Conference at Daytona Beach, Florida. Four lab members gave the following presentations: - Sisi Geng: CO2 signaling in Brassica napus guard cells - a metabolomics view; - Huizhuan Yan: Systems analysis of transcriptomic and metabolic reprograming of Arabidopsis in response to perturbation of jasmonate signal pathway; - Tong Zhang: Phosphorylation of MAP kinase 4 causes protein aggregation; Jennifer Parker: Examining proteome regulation in tomato defense against Pseudomonas.

·         April 18, 2013.  
Dr. Kathryn Kehoe and her class from Ponte Vedra High School, St. Johns, Florida took a day trip to the Chen lab. The lab members talked about their research and had lunch with the guests. The students brought protein samples from their class for mass spectrometry analysis.

·         March 25, 2013.  
Dr. Chen has received a travel award from the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, University of Florida.

·         March 18, 2013.  
Mr. Jon Benskin from Boca Raton Community High School conducted a proteomics experiments with assistance from the Chen lab. Twenty-five students have participated in the experiments and their samples will be analyzed for peptide mass fingerprinting.

·         February 5, 2013.  
Michelle Chin, a high school student worked in the Chen lab has won the Best of Show in Senior Biological division and received third place award at the Junior Science, Engineering and Humanities Symposium (JSEHS). She has advanced to the Florida State Fair in the Botany category, and will compete at the International Science and Engineering Fair in May. Congratulations! 

·         January 28, 2013.  
Chen lab has hosted the visit of 16 high school students, who are here to attend the 50th Junior Science Fair. Dr. Chen has introduced Chen lab research projects and discussed the future of plant biology research and human life.  Then, the students visited the state-of-the-art equipment in the Proteomics lab of ICBR.

·         January 7, 2013.  
Dr. Mengmeng Zhu has completed her research in the Chen lab. She will move to Dr. Sally Assmann’s lab at the Pennsylvania State University (http://bio.psu.edu/directory/mxz22). The Chen lab held a farewell party for her to wish her all the best in her future endeavors. 

·         January 2, 2013.  
Let’s welcome 2013 with a good start! Jennifer Parker’s paper on quantitative proteomics of tomato pathogen responses has been published by Proteomics. Congratulations to all the authors! - Parker, J., Koh, J., Yoo, M., Zhu, N., Feole, M., Yi, S., Chen, S. (2013) Quantitative proteomics of tomato defense against Pseudomonas syringae infection. Proteomics 13, 1934-1946.

·         December 17, 2012.  
Dr. Chen’s grant “Acquisition of a Portable Mass Spectrometer for Education and Training of ‘Omics’ Sciences in High Schools” has been funded by the National Science Foundation. This is a collaborative project with Dr. Nick Polfer in Chemistry Department and UF Center for Precollegiate Education and Training (http://www.cpet.ufl.edu). The two professors, who have each participated in multiple UF CPET programs, both for students and teachers, developed this proposal based on their proteomics modules (http://www.cpet.ufl.edu/teachers/icore/). Teachers frequently expressed interest in using the mass spec with their students, but few have had that opportunity. The instrument will greatly enhance the high school “omics” training activities.

·         December 04, 2012.  
Dr. Mike Sussman visited the Chen lab and UF genetics institute. Dr. Sussman is currently Kellett Professor of Biochemistry and Director of University of Wisconsin Biotechnology Center (http://www.biotech.wisc.edu/sussmanlab/home). He was here as our Genetics seminar speaker hosted by Dr. Chen. His seminar was “Heavy-isotope assisted quantitative phosphoproteomics analysis of drought and ABA signaling in higher plants”. During his visit, Chen lab members Dogukan Acikgoz and Tong Zhang played basketball with him at the southwest recreation center.

·         November 8-11, 2012.  
Dr. Chen was invited to attend the 4th International Symposium on Frontiers in Agriculture Proteome Research in Wuhan, China. He gave a talk on guard cell signaling and metabolic networks revealed by proteomics and metabolomics.

·         October 25-28, 2012.  
Jennifer Parker, Tong Zhang and Dr. Chen attended the 2012 Plant Phosphorylation Workshop in Keystone, Colorado. Dr. Chen was invited to give a talk on redox regulation and protein phosphorylation in guard cell hormonal signaling.

·         October 23, 2012.  
Dr. Chen has hosted a seminar visit by Dr. Susheng Gan from the Cornell University (http://hort.cals.cornell.edu/people/susheng-gan). His visit was sponsored by the Department of Biology and Interdisciplinary Center for Biotechnology Research.

·         September 21, 2012.  
Dr Wei Ji, a visiting professor from Northeast Agricultural University has arrived. Welcome to Chen lab, UF and the U.S.

·         August 12-14, 2012.  
Tong Zhang and Dr. Chen were invited to the NSF Beacon Workshop at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg and they presented the ABA signaling networks in guard cells.

·         July 25-26, 2012.  
Dr. Chen was invited to give a talk at Department of Biology, Florida A&M University. Tallahassee, Florida. His seminar title was “Proteomic Approaches to Elucidating Guard Cell Signaling Networks”. He has also visited the Proteomics and Genomics Facilities at the Florida State University.

·         July 20-24, 2012.  
Drs. Mengmeng Zhu and Chen attended the Plant Biology 2012-the Annual Meeting of American Society of Plant Biologists at Austin, Texas. Dr. Chen has given a workshop on proteomics and mass spectrometry on behalf of the International Plant Proteome Organization (INPPO). Over 50 participants registered for the workshop. In addition, Drs. Zhu and Chen presented two posters: - Chen, Y., Pang, Q., He, Y., Zhu, N., Branstrom, I., Yan, X., Chen, S. (2012) Arabidopsis responses to glucosinolate perturbation; - Zhu, M., Zhu, N., Booy, A., Simons, B., Yi, S., Harmon, A., Chen, S. (2012) Novel Regulatory mechanism of stress hormone signaling in guard cells.

·         July 15, 2012.  
Dr. Chen attended the Plant Molecular Biology Gordon Conference held at Holderness, New Hampshire, and gave a talk on redox regulatory mechanisms in guard cell hormone signaling.

·         June 13-14, 2012.  
Together with UF Center for Precollegiate Education and Training (http://www.cpet.ufl.edu), Dr. Chen and Dr. Nick Polfer from Department of Chemistry will organize the third proteomics and mass spectrometry content knowledge workshop for 30 high school teachers from the state of Florida from June 15 to 17. Graduate students from the two laboratories will be actively involved in the workshop. This annual workshop is funded by the National Science Foundation.

·         June 1, 2012.  
Chen lab welcomes the following members: Dr. Mi-Jeong Yoo (postdoctoral scientist), Huizhuan Yan (Ph.D. student), Sisi Geng (Ph.D. student), Kelly Balmant (Ph.D. student), and Dogukan Acikgoz (undergraduate student).

·         May 28, 2012.  
Congratulations to Drs. Mengmeng Zhu, Shaojun Dai and co-authors for their MeJA proteomics paper in Journal of Proteome Research! America believes hard work. Here is the paper: Zhu, M., Dai, S., Zhu, N., Booy, A., Simons, B., Yi, S., Chen, S. (2012) Methyl jasmonate responsive proteins in Brassica napus guard cells revealed by iTRAQ based quantitative proteomics. Journal of Proteome Research (in press).

·         May 18, 2012.  
Congratulations to Michelle Chin! She has recently been awarded as one of the 2012 Ying's scholars. Please see the link (http://www.osc.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=38&Itemid=42). Michelle is from from West Shore High School in Melbourne, Florida. Michelle has worked in Chen lab last year and early this year, and she will be back to work in the Chen lab this summer.

·         May 11, 2012.  
Several Members of the Chen lab have attended the 2012 PMCB workshop and retreat. They are Dr. Shaojun Dai, Dr. Mi-Jeong Yoo, Dr. Jin Kon, Jennifer Parker, Joe Collins, Huizhuan Yan, Michelle Feole, Sisi Geng, Tong Zhang and Dr. Chen. Dr. Jin Koh, Jennifer Parker and Joe Collins have given great talks on their research. It was a great workshop on the Daytona Beach.

·         April 27, 2012.  
Congratulations to Dr. Mengmeng Zhu! She has passed her Ph.D. defense last fall. Now she has been through the official Ph.D. degree commencement. This is a big achievement.

·         April 9, 2012.  
With the support of I-Cubed Award to Jennifer Parker (a 3rd year Ph.D. student in my lab) and Dr. Chen’s CAREER Award, the Chen lab has completed protein training workshop for 15 high school students in the Gainesville, Florida. Jennifer has traveled to different high schools and recruited these highly motivated students. During this one-week period, the students have learned basics of protein structure, expression, functional characterization, proteomics and mass spectrometry. They have spent most of the time doing experiments and analyzing results with lab mates. On the last day of the workshop, the students have visited different research labs on campus and learned on-going research projects using the tools they learned in the workshop. The goals are to expose exciting modern biology concepts and technologies to the students and to attract them to the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) areas when they get in college. Graduate students, undergraduates and other personnel in my lab have participated and helped with this workshop.

·          

·         April 2, 2012.  
Dr. Chen’s proposal on guard cell metabolomics has been recommended for funding by the National Science Foundation. This $1.5 million project will support research on metabolite functions in stomatal guard cell light and CO2 signaling as well as training of postdoctoral associates, graduate students, undergraduates and high school students in the area of metabolomics, functional genomics and systems biology. The Chen lab will collaborate closely with Dr. Assmann’s lab at PennState and Dr. Hirai’s lab at RIKEN.

·         March 30, 2012.  
Antonio Clara Asnen Afonso Lourenco has completed his proteomics work. Chen lab had a farewell party for him, wishing him all the best.

·         March 05, 2012.  
Chen lab’s first video publication has just been out. Please click on the link below to watch our show doing proteomics.

- Parker, J. et al. (2012) Profiling thiol redox proteome using isotope tagging mass spectrometry. Journal of Visual Experiments (http://www.jove.com/details.php?id=3766&status=a5772k).

·         February 27, 2012.  
Michelle Feole, an undergraduate from Chemical Engineering, has been selected as a SCI Scholar by the American Chemical Society! Michelle joined Chen lab a couple of years ago and has been working on a plant pathogen interaction project with Jennifer Parker, a third year Ph.D. student. Congratulations for this great achievement!

·         February 22, 2012.  
Michelle Chin, from West Shore High School in Melbourne, Florida has competed at the Brevard Mainland Regional Science fair on Saturday, February 18.  She has received first place in the Plant Sciences Category and also the Senior Biological Best of Show Grand Award!  She will be competing at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from May 13-18. Michelle has worked in Chen lab last year and in January this year with Ning Zhu, Drs. Dai and Chen. Congratulations for this great achievement!

·         February 9, 2012.  
Dr. Gang Chen has successfully completed his research projects in the Chen lab and has departed for China. The lab has a farewell party in his honor.

·         January 30, 2012.  
Chen lab has hosted the visit of 26 high school students, who are here to attend the 49th Junior Science Fair on the next day. Dr. Chen has introduced Chen lab research projects and discussed the future of plant biology research and human life.  Then, the students visited the state-of-the-art equipment in the Proteomics lab of ICBR.

·         January 19, 2012.  
Chen lab’s first video publication has just finished production today. Jennifer Parker, Mengmeng Zhu, Ning Zhu and Dr. Sixue Chen have experienced being “actors” in front of professional video cameras. Congratulations!

- Parker, J., Zhu, N., Zhu, M., Chen, S. (2012) Profiling thiol redox proteome using isotope tagging mass spectrometry. Journal of Visual Experiments (in press).

·         January 10, 2012.  
Chen lab welcomes a Ph.D. student Mr. Antonio Clara Asnen Afonso Lourenco from Lisbon, Portugal. He is going to work some 2D-DIGE proteomics work for his Ph.D. research.

·         January 2, 2012.  
Let’s welcome 2012 with a good start! Dr. Dai’s review paper on plant salt response proteomics has been accepted by the Journal of Proteome Research. Congratulations to all the authors!

- Zhang, H., Han, B., Wang, T., Chen, S., Li, H., Zhang, Y., Dai, S. (2011) Mechanisms of plant salt response: insights from proteomics. Journal of Proteome Research (in press).

·         December 22, 2011.  
Dr. Chen has completed his two-week research trip to China. During the trip, he has visited several universities, talked with a lot of scientists and students about collaboration opportunities, University of Florida, US academics and culture. He has given the following seminars on behalf of Chen lab. Happy holidays!

- Guard cell proteomics reveals novel gene functions in glucosinolate metabolism. College of Horticulture, Northeast Agricultural University, Harbin, China, December 16, 2011.
- Proteomics and metabolomics of molecular networks towards rationale plant biotechnology. College of Biological Sciences, Qiqihaer University, Qiqihaer, China, December 14, 2011.
-  Application of proteomics and metabolomics in agricultural research. Institute of Nuclear-Agricultural Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, December 7, 2011.
- The power of proteomics and metabolomics in agricultural research. Department of Horticulture, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, December 6, 2011.

·         December 2, 2011.  
Congratulations to Jennifer Parker, Mengmeng Zhu, Ning Zhu and Sixue Chen for their paper entitled “Profiling thiol redox proteome using isotope tagging mass spectrometry”. It will be published in Journal of Visual Experiments.

Congratulations to Mengmeng Zhu, Shaojun Dai and Sixue Chen for their review paper entitled “The stomata frontline of plant interaction with the environment-perspectives from hormone regulation” It has been accepted for publication in the journal of Frontiers in Biology as a cover paper. 

·         November 29, 2011.  
Mengmeng Zhu has successfully passed her Ph.D. defense. Congratulations, a job well done! She is now the happy Miss Dr. Mengmeng Zhu. Of course, Chen lab has a celebration for her with a lot of bottom-ups.

·         November 19, 2011.  
Yazhou Chen is going to leave Chen lab for his new position at Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena, Deutschland. The Chen lab has a farewell party to thank him for his contribution and wish him all the best.

·         October 28, 2011.  
Congratulations to Mr. Jon Benskin (a high school teacher from Boca Raton Community High School) for his paper "Proteomics in the Classroom: An Investigative Study of Proteins in Microorganisms". It has been accepted for publication in The American Biology Teacher. This is probably the first high school proteomics laboratory report in the nation. Thanks to Chen lab members and UF CPET, who have helped him in achieving this. Support from Dr. Chen’s NSF CAREER Award is acknowledged.

·         October 6, 2011.  
Michelle Chin, a high school student from West Shore Jr./Sr. High School (science teacher Ms. Paula Ladd), has worked in the Chen lab on her project. She won 2nd place at the Florida State Science Fair in the Botany category. Also, this past summer, she won a scholarship sponsored by the French Embassy, and traveled to Paris and LaRochelle to learn about protecting the environment and the importance of biodiversity.

·         September 29, 2011.  
Dr. Chen and Mengmeng Zhu were invited to attend a plant phosphorylation workshop in Granlibakken, Lake Tahoe, California. They presented a poster entitled “Functional Characterization of a Serine/Threonine Protein Kinase in Brassica napus Guard Cells”.

·         September 26, 2011.  
Chen lab welcomes the visit of Prof. Haiying Li, Associate Dean of College of Life Sciences from Heilongjiang University.  

·         September 16, 2011.  
As the fall semester has already started, the Chen lab welcomes several new members including Tong Zhang (Biology Ph.D. student), Sisi Geng (Rotation Ph.D. student), Joe Collins (PMCB Ph.D. student), Huizhuan Yan (Visiting Ph.D. student), and Dr. Shaojun Dai (Visiting Professor). Dr. Chen has held a welcome barbecue party at his house, with the help from everyone from the lab. 

·         August 16, 2011.  
Mr. Jon Benskin, a high school teacher from Boca Raton Community High School, has returned to the Chen lab for summer research. He has collected peptide mass fingerprints of the protein samples prepared by his science class students in their proteomics lab. Jon’s paper entitled “Proteomics in the Classroom: An Investigative Study of Proteins in Microorganisms” has been submitted to a peer review journal for publication. This is probably the first high school proteomics laboratory report in the nation. Congratulations, and thanks to the support from the UF Center for Precollegiate Education and Training (http://www.cpet.ufl.edu), and the CAREER Awards from Drs. Chen and Polfer.

·         July 29, 2011.  
Two high school students, Nisha Ramchander from Spruce Creek High School and Vedant Acharya from C Leon King High School  have  successfully completed their summer research in the Chen lab. Both Nisha and Vedant are sponsored by the UF Student Science Training Program (http://www.cpet.ufl.edu/sstp/sstpdates.html) and the National Science Foundation. They have gained hands-on research experience as scientists for six weeks. Nisha has worked on plant glucosinolate metabolism with Yazhou Chen, a fourth year Ph.D. student, and Vedant has worked on plant pathogen infection with Jennifer Parker, a third year Ph.D. student. The Chen lab had a celebration of their achievements at the Chopstix restaurant.

·          June 30, 2011.  
Dr. Chen has attended the 2nd International Conference on Plant Metabolism in Qingdao, China. He was invited to present a lecture on “Towards systems biology of guard cell signaling and glucosinolate networks”.

·         June 22, 2011.  
Yazhou Chen has registered to attend the 22nd International Conference on Arabidopsis Research in Madison, Wisconsin. He will present his work on "Exploring the molecular network of glucosinolate biosynthesis using bioinformatic tools". He will give a lab presentation about the conference when he comes back.

·         June 15, 2011.  
Together with UF Center for Precollegiate Education and Training (http://www.cpet.ufl.edu), Dr. Chen and Dr. Nick Polfer from Department of Chemistry will organize a second proteomics and mass spectrometry content knowledge workshop for 30 high school teachers from the state of Florida from June 15 to 17. Graduate students from the two laboratories will be actively involved in the workshop. This annual workshop is funded by the National Science Foundation.

·         June 1, 2011.  
Jennifer Parker, a second year Ph.D. student in Dr. Sixue Chen’s lab, has received an I-Cubed Award sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF). This award is intended to: 1) encourage graduate students in the STEM, including SBE, disciplines to propose, develop and participate in interdisciplinary research projects; 2) provide graduate students with experience working in an interdisciplinary team environment; 3) encourage graduate students to involve undergraduate students in research activities. Congratulations !

·         May 16, 2011.  
Congratulations to Dr. Chen for receiving the Excellence Award for Assistant Professor from the Provost's Office. This award focuses on junior faculty and recognizes excellence in research.

(Photo: President Machen and Dr. Chen at the award ceremony

at the backyard of the President's house)

·         May 6, 2011.  
Congratulations to Justin Goldsmith for graduating with honor. He will move to Chicago to continue his graduate study in medical school.

·         April 15, 2011.  
Dr. Chen has receive the 2011 HHMI Science for Life Distinguished Mentor Award (http://sfl.aa.ufl.edu/index.php?link=dm). Congratulations to Dr. Chen and his lab!

·         April 5, 2011.  
Two more papers have been published from the Chen lab. Yazhou Chen is the first author on both papers. Congratulations to all the authors! - Chen, Y., Yan, X., Chen, S. (2011) Bioinformatic analysis of molecular network of glucosinolate biosynthesis. Computational Biology and Chemistry 35, 10-18.
- Chen, Y., Pang, Q., Dai, S., Wang, Y., Chen, S., Yan, X. (2011) Proteomic identification of differentially expressed proteins in Arabidopsis in response to methyl jasmonate. Journal of Plant Physiology 168, 995-1008.

·         March 17, 2011.  
Dr. Chen was invited to give a seminar at the Biology Department, University of Pennsylvania (http://www.bio.upenn.edu/events/). His title of his talk is: "Toward Systems Biology of Plant Signaling and Metabolic Networks". He is hosted by Dr. Fevzi Daldal.

·         March 1, 2011.  
Great news came from Michelle Chin, a high school student who did HPLC analysis in the Chen lab. She was place the first place in the Brevard Mainland Regional Science Fair. She will be advanced to participate in the Florida State Science Fair in Orlando. This is a great achievement. Congratulations to Michelle Chin.

·         February 24, 2011.  
Drs. Equar Taka, Hernan Flores-Rozas and Ramesh Katam from Florida A&M University, a minority school visited the Chen lab and the Interdisciplinary Center for Biotechnology Research. They are collaborating with Dr. Chen on training underrepresented undergraduate students and early career scientists in collaborative research. They have put together a P20 proposal on a proteomics project.

·         February 14, 2011.  
Welcome Dr. Gang Chen to join the Chen lab as a visiting scholar. Dr. Chen is an Associate Professor at Yazhou University, China. His research project in the Chen lab will be on proteomics of canola stress responses. Chen lab has organized a dinner party to welcome Gang and to celebrate Joe’s rotation!

·         February 11, 2011.  
Joe Collins has completed his rotation project on redox regulation of myrosinase proteins in the Chen lab. He has given a great rotation seminar. It was great to have Joe working in the lab.

·         January 28, 2011.  
A high school student Michelle Chin from West Shore High school in Melbourne Florida has joined the Chen lab to learn and use the HPLC for separating and quantification of isoflavones in control and transgenic soybean plants.  Welcome Michelle!

·         January 22, 2011.
Mengmeng Zhu has attended a Keystone Symposium on Plant Abiotic Stress Tolerance Mechanisms, Water and Global Agriculture at Keystone, Colorado. She has presented a poster:  Identification of redox sensitive proteins in Brassica napus guard cells. She has also presented a lab meeting summarizing the new developments and knowledge that she learned in the meeting. Thanks Mengmeng!

·         January 5, 2011.  
Let’s welcome 2011 with a good start! Yan’s paper on the functional analysis of AtIPMDHs in gametophyte development was published in the New Phytologist. Congratulations to all the authors! - He, Y., Chen, L., Zhou, Y., Mawhinney, T.P., Chen, B., Kang, B-H., Hauser, B.A., Chen, S. (2011) Functional characterization of Arabidopsis isopropylmalate dehydrogenases reveals their important roles in gametophyte development. New Phytologist 189, 160-175

·         December  15, 2010.
Dr. Chen has received a teaching award from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (http://www.clas.ufl.edu/faculty/teaching-advising.html). Congratulations!

·         November  26, 2010.
Yan He has taken a postdoctoral position in Cornell. The Chen lab had a farewell party in his hornor. Congratulations to Dr. Yan He for his achievement in the Chen lab.

·        

November  15, 2010.
Joe Collins, a PMCB graduate student has joined Chen lab for his second rotation in the PMCB program. Joe will work on redox regulation of myrosinases. Welcome Joe!

·         November  4, 2010.
Yihfeng Hsieh and Kevin Cooper have completed their rotation projects in the Chen lab and presented their results at the PMCB rotation seminars. Yihfeng Hsieh’s title is: Redox regulation of SnRK2 from Brassica napus, a putative OST1 functional homolog, and  Kevin Cooper’s title is: Characterization of metabolon formation in glucosinolate biosynthesis. The Chen lab had a pizza party to congratulate the good work!

·         October 1, 2010.
Sarah Yi, a first year Microbiology undergraduate has joined Chen lab. She will be working primarily with Yazhou Chen on the glucosinolate network project. Welcome Sarah!

·         September 15, 2010.
Two PMCB graduate students, Yihfeng Hsieh and Kevin Cooper have join the Chen lab for research rotation. Yihfeng will work on characterizing the Brassica napus OST1 kinase with Mengmeng Zhu. Kevin will work on AtIPMDH interacting proteins in glucosinolate biosynthesis with Dr. Yan He. Wecome Yihfeng and Kevin.

·         September 1, 2010
Michelle Foele, a second year Chemical Engineering undergraduate has joined Chen lab. She will be working with Jennifer Parker on the tomato pathogen project. Welcome Michelle!

·         August 31, 2010.
The high school teacher workshop held in July has turned out to be a big success. The teachers have significantly improved their knowledge in proteins and “omics” based on our post-test evaluations. In addition, five high school teachers have designed protein and proteomics related science labs. They are Ms. Claudia Ochatt from Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, Ms. Kane more from West Boca Raton High School, Ms. Valerie Ruwe from Fort Lauderdale High School, Ms. Kristen Russell from Academy of Environmental Science, and Mr. Joe Benskin from Boca Raton Community High School. Thanks to everybody who has participated, contributed to the workshop and made it a big success.

·         August 4, 2010.
Dr. Chen was invited to give a talk at the Plant Biology 2010 - the Annual Meeting of American Society of Plant Biologists. Montreal, Canada. The title is: Identification of redox sensitive proteins in Brassica napus guard cells: new evidence for crosstalk between ABA and MeJA signaling pathways.

·         August 1, 2010.
Chen lab has two more papers accepted for publication. One is on functional specification of Arabidopsis isopropylmalate isomerases by He, Y., Chen, B., Pang, Q., Strul J.M., Chen, S. (2010) Functional specification of Arabidopsis isopropylmalate isomerases in glucosinolate and leucine biosynthesis. Plant and Cell Physiology 51, 1480-1487. Johanna Strul is a HHMI undergraduate who started working in the Chen lab when she was a freshman. She has received an undergraduate research award and a publication award from HHMI. The other is a quantitative review paper by Wang, Y., Li, H., Chen, S. (2010) Advances in quantitative proteomics. Frontiers in Biology 5, 195-203. Congratulations to the authors!

·         July 15, 2010.  
Together with UF Center for Precollegiate Education and Training (http://www.cpet.ufl.edu), Dr. Chen and Dr. Nick Polfer from Department of Chemistry have organized a proteomics content knowledge workshop for 30 high school teachers from the state of Florida. Graduate students from the two laboratories were actively involved in the workshop. Teachers have not only learned basic theory and principles of mass spectrometry and proteomics technologies, but also gained hands-on experience of protein extraction from tissues, gel electrophoresis, image analysis, protein trypsin digestion and peptide mass fingerprinting technology. This annual workshop is funded by the National Science Foundation. Please click here for workshop pictures.

·         July 1, 2010.  
Jennifer Parker has officially joined Chen lab as a Ph.D. student. Welcome Jennifer! Jennifer is from Gastonia, North Carolina and received her B.S. in Plant Biology with a minor in Genetics from North Carolina State University.

A new high-end mass spectrometer LTQ-Orbitrap system including a front-end ultra performance nanoflow HPLC has been purchased and will be set up in July in the Proteomics Facility of ICBR. This instrument will enable many capabilities including label-free protein quantification, high resolution mass spec, posttranslational modification analysis and top-down proteomics.

·         June 15, 2010.  
Welcome Kiva Ebert and Isabel Branstrom (both from A.W. Dreyfoos Jr. High School of Arts at Palm Beach, Florida) to Chen lab for summer research. Both Kiva and Isabel are sponsored by the UF Student Science Training Program (http://www.cpet.ufl.edu/sstp/sstpdates.html) and the National Science Foundation. They will gain hands-on research experience as scientists for six weeks. Kiva will work on Guard cell gene cloning and functional analysis under the direct supervision of Mengmeng Zhu, a third year Ph.D. student. Isabel will work on glucosinolate metabolism under the direct supervision of Yazhou Chen, a second-year Ph.D. student.

·         June 1, 2010.  
Welcome Yazhou Chen, Khader Ghneim and Dr. Cecilia Silva-Sanchez to the Chen lab! Yazhou Chen is a Ph.D. student coming from Northeast Forestry University, China. He has been awarded a graduate fellowship from the Chinese Scholarship Council for conducting Ph.D. thesis research overseas. Khader Ghneim is an undergraduate student from Georgetown University in Washington DC. He will do summer research in the Proteomics Facility. Dr. Silva-Sanchez came from Mexico City. She will work on protein posttranslational modifications using mass spectrometry based technologies.

·         May 7, 2010.  
Congratulations to Yan He for passing his Ph.D. defense! He has been officially awarded the Ph.D. degree.

·         April 15, 2010.  
Jin Koh has joined the Chen lab to conduct some proteomics work of Tragpogon as part of his Ph.D. project.

·         March 9, 2010.  
Congratulations to Mengmeng Zhu for passing her proposal defense! She is officially a Ph.D. candidate.

·         February 2, 2010.  
Jennifer Parker has completed her rotation project on redox regulation of Arabidopsis AtIPMDH proteins in the Chen lab. She has given a great rotation seminar.

·         January 5, 2010.  
Welcome 2010! Another paper from the Chen lab has been accepted for publication. It is a proteomic analysis of salt tolerance by Pang Q, Chen S, Dai S, Chen Y, Wang Y, Yan X. Comparative proteomics of salt tolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana and Thellungiella halophila. Journal of Proteome Research, in press.

Congratulations to the authors!

·         November 27, 2009.  
The Chen lab has two new papers accepted for publication. One is a report of AtIPMDH1 gene function by He Y, Mawhinney TP, Preuss ML, Schroeder AC, Chen B, Abraham L, Jez JM, Chen S. A redox-active isopropylmalate dehydrogenase functions in the biosynthesis of glucosinolates and leucine in Arabidopsis. The Plant Journal, in press.

The other is the proteomics work of ABA signaling in guard cells by Zhu M, Simons B, Zhu N, Oppenheimer DG, Chen S. Analysis of abscisic acid responsive proteins in Brassica napus guard cells by multiplexed isobaric tagging. Journal of Proteomics, in press.

Congratulations to the authors and keep up the good work!

·         October 15, 2009.  
Mengmeng Zhu has presented her recent results on guard cell hormone signaling at the NSF Research Day Meeting.

·         September 8, 2009.  
A high-end mass spectrometer QSTAR Elite LC-MS/MS system (AB Sciex Inc.) funded by Dr. Chen's NIH grant has been set up and running samples. High quality iTRAQ quantification data can be expected from this system.

·         August 5, 2009.  
Chen lab together with Dr. Sally Assmann lab organized a three-day National Proteomics Workshop and Symposium. Over 100 participants from the United States and other countries have attended the workshop and symposium, which was partly supported by the US National Science Foundation (NSF). Please see http://proteomics.centers.ufl.edu for more information about the event.

·         July 16, 2009.  
Dr. Chen has received the National Science Foundation's most prestigious award for junior faculty: the NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award. The award is for “Understanding Molecular Networks Controlling Plant Glucosinolate Metabolism”.

The CAREER award supports junior faculty who "exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations. CAREER teacher-scholars are selected on the basis of creative, career-development plans that effectively integrate innovative research and education."

·         June 11, 2009.  
Dr. Xiaofen Jin, from Dr. Sarah Assmann's lab at the Pennsylvania State University, arrives today to collaborate on the guard cell metabolomics project. She will work closely with Qiuying Pang and Mengmeng Zhu from the Chen lab on guard cell metabolite analysis, using LC-MS technology. They will also test protocols for the upcoming Proteomics Workshop, to be held in early August.

·         May 15, 2009. 
Dr. Chen's lab welcomes four bright undergraduate students who will work in the lab throughout the summer. Jennifer Sanford is supported by a fellowship from the South East Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (SEAGEP). Kwami Gyimah, Justin Goldsmith and Bryno Guy are all supported by the Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) award from the National Science Foundation.

Jennifer Sanford

Kwami Gyimah & Justin Goldsmith

Bryno Gay

·         March 10, 2009. 
Ms. Johanna M. Strul, an undergraduate majoring in chemical engineering at the University of Florida, has won the HHMI Science for Life undergraduate research award. Johanna's research project in Chen lab is on the characterization of chloroplast thioredoxin regulated redox proteins. She is supervised by a third year graduate student Yan He and Dr. Chen.

For more information on this award, visit UF's Science for Life website.

·         August 15, 2008. 
High school students Gordon Wilson, Sau-Hyon Cho and Alec Fufidio have successfully completed their summer research in our lab.
Everyone was greatly inspired by the experience. Each student gave a presentation explaining their project and the work they accomplished.
The Chen lab held a farewell party for them.