We enjoyed Pizza and German goodies (“Stollen” which is a rich fruit cake and traditionally prepared for Christmas) at our Winter Party to celebrate a successful year for the lab! Some new additions who will join the lab in January could also join and mingle with lab members. Cheers! 🙂

Grad student Huiting rocked the boat today and gave a fantastic presentation at the weekly meeting of the Center for Pharmacogenetics! She presented her work on CYP4F11 and another fatty acid metabolizing enzyme and their association with lung cancer. Great job!!!

We gathered to beautify some big pumpkins with our artwork 🙂 It was so much fun and of course we had yummie pizza and German cookies! Next year again!

Postdoc Brisa presents her great work on the CYP4F3 splice variants in the Center for Pharmacogenetics meeting and did a great job!

Fourth year graduate student Huiting received a travel award for attending the International Meeting on Bioactive Lipids in Health and Disease next month in Bethesda! She will be presenting her work on CYP4F11 mediated fatty acid metabolism. Congrats, Huiting! We are so proud of you!

We welcome another amazing undergrad to the Brixius lab! Alexis is a sophomore at Pitt majoring in biochemistry. She has a great interest in how biochemistry is connected to human health and is excited to join our heme team of P450 lover! Welcome Alexis!

The Brixius lab had fun at the annual Center for Pharmacogenetics picnic where we kicked of the Fall semester! Yummie food and great company – what is there not to love? 🙂

We are thrilled to welcome Ema Clark as an undergraduate research assistant to the Brixius lab! Ema is a senior at Pitt with a passion for biochemistry and pharmaceutical sciences. She will work on bacterial and human P450 enzymes with lab manager Bjoern and postdoc Brisa Welcome Ema!!! 🙂

Simone traveled to Chicago to attend the AACP conference. She received the 2025 Bench Research Excellence Award for Junior Investigators from the Biological Sciences Section and met wonderful new and old friends!

Only one week after her comprehensive exam, Huiting delivered an amazing talk in the graduate student seminar. She presented her recent work on the connection between CYP4F11 and another fatty acid metabolizing enzyme. Great job, Huiting!

We welcome yet another undergraduate research assistant to the Brixius lab! Olivia is a rising senior at Pitt with a passion in biochemistry. She will work with lab manager Bjoern on some binding and metabolism assay. Welcome, Olivia! 🙂

The Summer just started, and while the campus is very quiet, the Brixius lab could welcome Adriana Mirtchev as an undergrad research assistant! 🙂 Adriana will learn more about cytochrome P450 enzymology and work on some mycobacterial P450 isoforms. She is a rising pre-med senior at Pitt majoring in Chemistry. Welcome, Adriana!

We visited the Natural History Museum in Oakland to have some well-deserved fun and to say goodbye to exchange PhD student Yichi, who was part of our team for 3 months. We are very sad to see him go! A cool thing in the museum was the crystal section which even had short explanations about crystal spacegroups! So cool!

We attended a fabulous ASPET meeting in beautiful Portland with amazing scientific session, great old and new friends, and much opportunity to network 🙂 Grad student Huiting presented a cool poster on her CYP4F11 work and postdoc Brisa won not only the 1st place in the poster competetion, but also won second place Dolores E. Shockley poster award for minority scientists! She will serve as postdoc rep on the ASPET Drug Metabolism and Disposition Division executice commitee. Congrats, Brisa!!!

Huiting gave a great presentation in our weekly Center meeting and talked about some new findings for her project on CYP4F11 in lung cancer. Great job, Huiting!

Ozha gave a stellar MS defense talk on their project on mycobacterial P450 isoforms and passed with flying colors! We had a yummie carrot cake for celebration with the committee members and the whole lab and also got to enjoyed some homemade Baklava Ozha’s mom prepared for us. CONGRATS OZHA! 🙂

We welcome Yichi to the Brixius lab! Yichi is currently a PhD student in the lab of Dr. Elizabeth Gillam at the University of Queensland (Brisbane, Australia) which is a great P450 lab and well known for their ancestral reconstruction of ancient P450 enzymes. He will stay with us for the next three months to crystallize some ancestral P450 enzymes. Welcome, Yichi!!!

We welcome yet another new lab member to the Brixius lab! Mae is a 2nd year PharmD student at Pitt and will join for a mentored research experience working with grad student Huiting on some cell culture work. Welcome, Mae! 🙂

We welcome our newest addition Elisa Dallo to the lab! Elisa is a first year graduate student in the MBSB program and joins the lab for a Spring rotation. She will be working with lab manager Bjoern on the expression and purification of human CPR. Welcome Elisa! 🙂

Our MS student Ozha gave a stellar talk at the Pitt Pharmacy Graduate Student Seminar! They did a great job presenting their work of the last 1.5 years on a mycobacterial P450 enzyme and will soon graduate with their Master in Pharmaceutical Sciences! Fantastic job, Ozha!

We sent our crystals to the Stanford Synchrotron Light Source (SSRL) and had a little beamtime part with German cookies 🙂 SSRL is our go-to for X-ray diffraction experiments, and we love the supporting staff there!

We celebrated our achievements – small and big ones – and already made plans for a fabulous 2025! Celebrating everything keeps us sane and happy! 🙂 And of course, we had some yummie cake!

Our 2nd year MS student Ozha presents their cool work on Mycobacterium abscessus cytochrome P450 enzyme in the Center for Pharmacogenetics meeting! Fantastic job, Ozha!!!

We had some fun at the Center for Pharmacogenetics Halloween Party! The students did an awesome job of organizing and our very own Ozha won a prize for best costume with her cool Manga character dress-up!

We welcome Kylee Mone to the lab as a new rotation student! Kylee just joined the Pitt MBSB program as a first yeard graduate student. She will work on some pathogen P450 enzymes with postdoc Brisa and lab specialist Bjoern. WELCOME, KYLEE! 🙂

We had some fun with Pumpkin Carving and yummie apple cider and pizza! It turns out scientists also can be pretty talented artists as you can see from our “pumpkin artwork” 🙂
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

We had a fantastic time at the PDC! Postdoc Brisa and grad student Huiting both won travel awards for attendance and Brisa presented a wonderful poster on her work on ancestral P450s. Simone gave a talk and chaired a session. Great science with great people! All you want in life 🙂

We celebrated Postdoc Appreciation week with an appreciation lunch and some cool swag for our amazing Pitt Pharmacy Postdocs! Postdocs are invaluable for research in the US and we should appreciate their contributions 365 days of the year!

The Brixius lab welcomes Emma Bocquillon to the lab! Emma is an undergraduate at Pitt majoring in biochemistry with a keen interest in pharmaceutical research. She is excited to learn about P450 enzymes and their role in health and disease. Welcome, Emma!

We also extend a warm welcome to Ramsha Maheen who joins the lab for a mentored research experience. Ramsha is a P2 PharmD candidate at Pitt and excited to learn more about wet lab research on our favorite enzymes! Welcome, Ramsha!

Our postdoc Brisa gave a fantastic talk about her work on CYP4F3 enzymes at the weekly Center for Pharmacogenetics meeting. Wonderful job! 🙂

We had a wonderful time at our Center for Pharmacogenetics Summer picnic at the Settler’s Cabin in Pittsburgh! Yummie food, excellent company, fun games, and wonderful sunshine made it a perfect occasion to get to know incoming graduate students and kick off the new semester!

The Brixius lab received an NIH R35 MIRA which will support our work for the next 5 years with $1.88M
This is our first major government funding and joy is no expression!
We are obsessed with cytochrome P450 omega hydroxylases and will use the funds to answer three fundamental questions:
What is their cellular function in health and disease?
How is enzyme function regulated?
What is the structural basis for their function?
We do not know yet but we will find out! For this we will use a wild mix of omics, biochemistry, and structural biology to get the whole picture!

We were awarded with the UPMC Competitive Medical Research Fund (CMRF) 2025 for our work on human cytochrome P450 fatty acid omega hydroxylases! The award was made for two years and will be used to gather preliminary data to obtain major government funding.

We had a wonderful time at the meeting and enjoyed great science and mingling with science friends! Grad student Huiting was supported with an ASPET travel award and was excited to present a poster! The Brixius lab will attend next year’s meeting in Portland, and hopefully we will see you there! 🙂

Our wonderful undergraduate student Audrey was awarded with a Carnegie Mellon Career and Professional Development Center’s Summer Internship Funding! She will continue her work on mycobacterial P450 enzymes during the Summer. Congrats, Audrey!!! 🙂

We had a great time at this years Molecular Biophysics and Structural Biology Symposium! Postdoc Brisa and grad student Huiting presented their cool research at the poster session. Former rotation student Ben joned Brisa for a picture because he was also a poster author. All student organized ❤ 🙂

We could not do what we do without our amazing people in administration who are the real wizards! The Center for Pharmacogenetics took our beloved admins to an appreciation lunch just to say THANK YOU!

Postdoc Brisa presented her amazing structural work on the ancestral CYP11A1 isoform at the Pitt Postdoc Symposium! Just 4 months in the lab, she could solve a beautiful structure and showcase her work at the symposium! CONGRATS!!! 🙂

Read more about Huiting’s research and her passion to pursue cancer research here. She was also featured in the monthly ASPET news magazine “The Pharmacologist”. Congratulations, Huiting!!!

2nd year graduate student Huiting won a Travel Award which will support her attendance of the ASPET meeting in Arlington this year! Congratulations, Huiting! 🙂

We welcome Audrey Shao to the Brixius lab who joins as an undergraduate researcher. She is currently and undergrad at Carnegie Mellon and excited to learn all about our favorite enzymes!
Welcome Audrey!!!

We welcome Zelenina Pruitt and Elsa Fura to the Brixius lab! Zelenina is a Pharm.D. candidate and joins for a mentored research experience.

We had great fun at an Escape room! Yes, we were over time but that doesn’t matter 🙂 In a subsequent movie night, we also celebrated Huiting’s publication and Dr. Brisa Alves Chagas joining our team as postdoc!

Second year grad student Huiting published her exciting results about the role of CYP4F11 in lung cancer which can be found here! Congratulations to the whole Brixius lab team, our collaborator Dr. David Koes and high school student Caleb Bocianoski!
P450s just rock! 🙂

We had a great time at the 80th PDC which was held in Pittsburgh this year. Amazing scientific sessions and a fun Karaoke night were some of the highlights. The next PDC 2024 will be held at the CHESS lightsource!

Simone attended the 2023 meeting in Shizuoka (Japan) with a poster presentation. It was a wonderful meeting with a fantastic view at Mt Fuji and amazing scientific sessions! It was great meeting old mentors and friends and making new friends in the P450 field! Sad it was over! The next ICCP450 is in Bern (Switzerland) in 2025!

We celebrated the two year anniversary of our lab with a Pizza party with all the other Center for Pharmacogenetics members! We are incredibly thankful for our amazing colleagues and fellow trainees and their continuous support! Go heme team!!!

“Nonlinear careers through academia are increasingly common, but funding agencies and search committees penalize these paths. Why do scientists stray from the beaten path, how do they contribute to science, and how do we level the playing field?” Published in PLOS Biology!

Our amazing Center for Pharmacogenetics students organized a wonderful picnic located in the beautiful Pittsburgh North Park! We had a lot of fun and could welcome many new students while enjoying the sun and some yummie barbecue!

We had a lot of fun showing high school students around the lab! The RxPlore Summer Camp is organized by Pitt Pharmacy volunteers for high schoolers interested in a career in Pharmacy. The students were excited to look at some cool protein crystals and met our lab mascot Colibert. The organizers did a tremendous job!

Grad student Huiting presented her cool results at the ASPET meeting poster session and did a fantastic job! We met a lot of friends and collaborators and made some new friends on the way. ASPET is our pharmacology home!

#ASPET2023

1st year grad student Huiting presented for the 1st time at the Pitt Pharmaceutical Sciences grad student seminar. The seminar is a great opportunity for our grad students to present their research progress and to get some valuable feedback. Nice job, Huiting!

We had a fantastic time in Ann Arbor! 1st year grad student Huiting presented the very first Brixius lab poster! She did a fantastic job! It was great meeting old Scott lab friends and attending great scientific sessions!

Our very own Rachel Kim graduated with a Bachelor in Pharmaceutical Sciences last Friday! We are so proud of her and so happy she will be coming back after the Summer break as a student research assistant. She will continue earning her PharmD degree at Pitt Pharmacy.
Great job, Rachel!!!

The Pitt Pharmacy Center for Pharmacogenetics hosted a celebratory breakfast for all the amazing women in the Center!
#EmbraceEquity

We welcome our new rotation student Ben Wang to the Brixius lab!
Ben did his BS and MS at UCSD and is now a first year grad student in the Molecular Biophysics & Structural Biology program. He will be working on some drug discovery and X-ray crystallography of ancestral P450s.

Simone will chair the Pittsburgh Diffraction Conference 2023 for its 80th anniversary!

The Pittsburgh Diffraction Society is the oldest crystallographic society in North America with a long standing tradition.

We will have an amazing scientific program with some fun social activities! Stay tuned for updates on registration! Feel free to spread the word and share!

A very warm welcome to Na Yoon Kang who joined the Brixius lab as student research assistant! Na Yoon is a P1 PharmD candidate and will have a mentored research experience in the Brixius lab where she will learn biochemical techniques for lung cancer drug discovery. She is all set with Brixius lab swag! 🙂

The New Investigator Award of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy supports early career faculty to gather preliminary data for major government funding. The award will support our research on fatty acid metabolism in lung cancer. Team P450 for the win!

1st year grad student Huiting gave her very first talk about our #P450 lung cancer project today! She did an amazing job!

Simone gave a talk at the 79th PDC at Argonne Lightsource. The Pittsburgh Diffraction Society is the oldest North American crystallographic society.

Simone was invited to give a talk at the International Conference on Cytochrome P450 2022 in Washington D.C. The conference has a long-standing tradition and many P450 research pioneers like Dr. Richard Auchus and Dr. Fred Guengerich were attending. Science Wonderland!

A very warm welcome to the first Brixius lab postdoc Sutapa! She is a big P450 enthusiast & trained with P450 legend Allan Rettie at UW Pharmacy. We are so happy having her and celebrated with Oreo Mega Cake. Yummie!

We are so happy to welcome our first grad student Huiting today! She got her MS from USC and is so excited to learn P450 x-ray crystallography!

We had a great Pizza & Sticker party to officially welcome her and postdoc Sutapa to the Center of Pharmacogenetics!

Simone gave a seminar talk at the ASPET Focus on Pharmacology Meeting: Current Advances in Drug Metabolism Virtual Series Part 3 (2022).

PharmD candidate Rachel is joining the Brixius lab as a student research assistant! We are excited to work with her!

We are a fully functional lab after months of waiting for equipment! Thanks to our lab manager Bjoern!