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Luke successfully defended his Masters thesis in which he described his generation of a B12-triggered radical SAM enzyme. We wish him all the best in his new ventures.

Prof. Bryan Hunter and his team synthesized and characterized a cool square-planar Co(II) complex that will bind axial ligands under certain conditions. We think the EPR spectroscopy is pretty sweet.

Jenna is a rising senior at Salem College, but thanks to Prof. Dos Santos’ NSF grant, Jenna was able to come to Wake Forest for the summer and work with us. Her project involves expanding the types of substrates radical SAM enzymes can effect. Look for this one amongst your grad school applicants in a year.

Rising senior James Chacharone’s summer research proposal was funded by the Center for Molecular Signaling. During James’ fellowship, he will use site-directed mutagenesis to broaden the kinds of substrates that radical SAM enzymes can activate for dramatic carbon-skeleton rearrangements. Great work, James!

We are excited to announce the beginning of a two-year effort to engineer O2-tolerant adenosyl radical enzymes. Thanks to NIGMS and the R21 mechanism for funding this exploration.

Callie Smith successfully defended her Master’s thesis entitled, “Progress Towards Reprogramming the Nucleotide-Transforming Radical SAM Enzyme ThiC.” Callie was instrumental in setting up the lab and in getting the group’s research effort going. She will be greatly missed.

My colleague Patricia Dos Santos herded many cats to get this volume of Methods in Molecular Biology out. Please enjoy our contribution on how to obtain EPR spectra of [Fe-S] clusters and their interpretation.

https://link.springer.com/protocol/10.1007/978-1-0716-1605-5_14

Things have gotten crazy since we last celebrated a major research accomplishment. Please make sure you can vote safely this November to help ensure the place of science, sanity, safety, and kindness in the setting of policy. https://votesaveamerica.com/

With creative choice of substrate analogues, Rick Sayler (@RicktheSayler) was able to trap the hottest reactive intermediate in radical SAM chemistry. Read about it in ACS Central Science.

Some beautiful spectroscopy by Guodong Rao to probe metal-metal bonding in actinide-containing complexes. Now in Inorganic Chemistry.