Starbird Lab Logo sq

New Birdie joining us from CRUEP!

/in /by

The Starbirdaires are excited to be hosting a student from the Cancer Undergraduate Research Education Program (CREUP) this summer. Her name is Zoria Williams and she will be working alongside Camila and Johnna learning about the extra cellular domains of Tyro3. The girls aim to teach Zoria how to do cell culture, protein purification and how to do crystal trays by the end of the summer. Good Luck Zoria, we’re rooting for you!

Stay tuned to our Lab News page to see how she did at the end of the summer 🙂

IMG 8426

Dr. Bingham in the works!

/in /by

We are super excited and proud to announce that our Starbirdaire, Johnna Bingham, HAS PASSED HER ORAL QUALS!!! She killed it and we couldn’t be happier to be celebrating her. If you see her around campus make sure to pause and give her a big congrats. We’ll see you soon future Dr. Bingham!!

m ppbiochemsoctrans 54 5.cover

Peacock Publishes a TAM Paper!

/in /by

You heard that right folks! Our cool Postdoc, Dr. Steven (Peacock) Moran just published a review paper with our lab talking about TAM receptors and their potential link to non-lytic spread with non-eveloped viruses. He really knocked it out of the park with this review. I feel like I know everything about TAM receptors now.

You can find the link here: Steven’s Paper

New Chapter 🎉

/in /by

We have some really awesome (and kind of bittersweet) news. Our wonderful Research Technician, Nicole, will be leaving us soon. But don’t fret everybody because SHE’S GOING TO GRAD SCHOOL 🎉 Our girl accepted an offer from UNC Chapel Hill and will be attending the BBSP program starting this Fall 2026. We are so incredibly proud of our resident Kookaburra. We’re sad to see her go but happy that she’s spreading her wings and leaving the nest. If you see her soaring around campus be sure to say hi!

Screenshot 2026 03 02 at 3.07.59 PM

From the lab bench to the Bay 🧬✨ #SFBiophysics #BPS2026

/in /by

The Starbirdaires had a fantastic time at the Biophysical Society conference this past week in San Francisco. We are so very fortunate to have had the opportunity to present our science to the community! Big shout out to all the cool people we met and all the great ideas we were given while there. Look out soon for updates from us about how presentations went (once I gather all the pictures 👀)!

IMG 5188

Our Starbirdaire goes international!

/in /by
Camila was chosen as one of the participants for the intensive CCP4/CCPEM workshop hosted at the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Chile. CCP4/CCPEM are major collaborative computational projects in structural biology that provide software suites for analyzing structures in crystallography and cryoEM. The 2 week workshop had attendees from Latin American universities, and was a combination of state of the art lectures and hands-on tutorials led primarily by expert members of the CCP4 and CCPEM communities.
Participants from the course were able to gain deep insight into the theory and gain experience in data processing for these techniques, learning tools and methods in macromolecular structure determination.
Camila was given a travel award to attend this workshop AND gave a 3 minute flash talk on her project. Check out this awesome course HERE
IMG 1022

Taking over San Antonio

/in /by

This past November 2025 the Starbird lab had the pleasure of sending some of our members to the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority  Students in San Antonio, TX. Seen in the picture are Alexia Horton (former summer student), Nicole Fournier (our research technician) , Lesley Canseco (our post-bac student) all of whom gave spectacular presentations on their various projects. These wonderful ladies have been working hard and we are proud to be showcasing them. Keep on the lookout for more exciting updates regarding these stellar scientists.

I would also like to give a brief shout-out to Summer Truong who is part of our good friend Tigist Tamir’s lab. She did an excellent job presenting as well. You can learn more about Summer’s work and the research being done in the Tamir lab HERE

News news news!

/in /by

We have a lot of updates for you today! The Starbird lab has been movin and groovin these past couple months. Here’s what you missed since our last update:

  1. Skylar gave a talk for the Pathobiology and Translational Sciences Seminar and of course she did fabulous.
  2. Lesley and Camila both received travel awards to attend the 2026 Biophysical Society conference in San Francisco happening in February 2026!
  3. Skylar received a travel award from the Black in Biophysics (funded via Pfizer) to attend the 2026 Biophysical Society conference in San Francisco happening in February 2026.
  4. Johnna was featured on a podcast called Too Cultured where she discussed science and science policy. Heres the link to check it out: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1CqUjVZtwJUk9IMWdo4Jbs?si=JVQSB_bURNy9pxb-Lc3UVQ
  5. The board for the Science Policy and Advocacy Group (to which Johnna is the president) received funding from their donors to go to the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences conference in Phoenix, AZ this year. Congrats!
Screenshot 2025 11 06 at 12.31.42 PM

She’s crushing it!

/in /by

This fall semester the Starbird Lab had the pleasure of hosting Maria Celeste Lopez Vasquez as a rotation student. She worked with Dr. Starbird on the isolation and expression of a new protein of interest called Feimin, with specificity for the receptor Mer (part of the subfamily of RTKs called TAM receptors), that has been linked to processes like cell survival, migration, differentiation, and the phagocytosis of apoptotic cells. The identification of this new ligand brings up questions like: (1) does Feimin, being a highly disordered protein, bind to Mer in the absence of PtdSer (a phospholipid both Gas6 and Protein S must recognize and bind to for activation of the TAMs); (2) what is the conformational state that allows Feimin to bind to Mer; and (3) what specific role(s) does Feimin play when binding and activating Mer?

 

Maria was a superstar this rotation and took on a project with a lot of risks. We are super proud of the work she did and can’t wait to see what other cool things she gets up to!