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Lab Alumni


 

​Jennifer Pfingsten, Ph.D.

  • Completed Post-doc in the Lab of Tom Cech, UC Boulder
  • Currently at SomaLogic, Inc., Boulder, Co

Publications while in the Kieft Lab:

Pfingsten, J.S., D.A. Costantino, and J.S. Kieft, Structural basis for ribosome recruitment and manipulation by a viral IRES RNA. Science, 2006. 314(5804): p. 1450-1454.

Pfingsten, J.S., D.A. Costantino, and J.S. Kieft, Conservation and divers ity among the three-dimensional folds of the Dicistroviridae intergenic region IRESes. J Mol Biol, 2007. 370(5): p. 856-869.

Kieft, J.S., Costantino, D.A., Filbin, M.E., Hammond J., and Pfingsten, J.S. (2007) Structural methods for studying IRES function. Methods Enzymol., 430, 333-371.

Costantino, D.A., Pfingsten, J.S., Rambo, R.P. and J.S. Kieft, tRNA-mRNA mimicry drives translation initiation from a viral IRES. Nat Struct Mol Biol, 2008. 15(1): p. 57-64.

Review : Pfingsten, J.S. and J.S. Kieft, RNA structure-based ribosome recruitment: lessons from the Dicistroviridae intergenic region IRESes. RNA, 2008. 14(7): p. 1255-1263.

Pfingsten, J.S., A.E. Castile, and J.S. Kieft, Mechanistic role of structurally dynamic regions in Dicistroviridae IGR IRESs. J Mol Biol, 2010. 395(1): p. 205-217.


​John (J) Hammond, Ph.D.

  • Currently Post-doc in the lab of Jamie Williamson, Scripps, La Jolla, CA

Publications while in the Kieft Lab:

Kieft, J.S., Costantino, D.A., Filbin, M.E., Hammond J., and Pfingsten, J.S. (2007) Structural methods for studying IRES function. Methods Enzymol., 430, 333-371.

Hammond, J.A., et al., Comparison and functional implications of the 3D architectures of viral tRNA-like structures. RNA, 2009. 15(2): p. 294-307.

Hammond, J.A., R.P. Rambo, and J.S. Kieft, Multi-domain packing in the aminoacylatable 3' end of a plant viral RNA. J Mol Biol, 2010. 399(3): p. 450-463.


​Amanda (Aimee) Keel, Ph.D.

  • Completed a Post-doc in the lab of Nick Seeds, UC Denver School of Medicine, Aurora, CO

Publications while in the Kieft Lab:

Keel, A.Y., Rambo. R.P., Batey, R.T., & Kieft, J.S. (2007) A general method to solve the phase problem in RNA crystallography. Structure 15: 761-772.

Keel, A.Y. Easton, L.E., Lukavsky, P.J., & Kieft, J.S. (2009) Large-scale native preparation of in vitro transcribed RNA, Methods Enzymol, 469: 3-25.

Keel, A.Y., Jha, B.K., and Kieft, J.S. (2011) Structural architecture of an RNA that competitively inhibits RNase L. RNA 18: 88-99.


​Megan Filbin, Ph.D.
  • Currently a Visiting Scientist/Postdoctoral Fellow at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Farm Research Campus.
Publications while in the Kieft Lab:
 
Kieft, J.S., Costantino, D.A., Filbin, M.E., Hammond J., and Pfingsten, J.S.  
          (2007) Structural methods for studying IRES function. Methods
          Enzymol., 430, 333-371.
 
Hammond, J.A., Rambo, R.P., Filbin, M.E., & Kieft, J.S. (2009) Comparison and functional 
         implications of the 3-D architectures of viral tRNA-like structures. RNA, 15, 294-307.
 
Review: Filbin, M.E. & Kieft, J.S. (2009) Towards a structural understanding of IRES RNA
         function. Curr Opin Struct Biol, 19, 267-276.
 
Wallace, A., Filbin, M.E., Veo, B., McFarland, C., Stepinski, J., Jankowska-Anyszka, M.,
         Darzynkiewicz, E., Davis, R.E. (2010) The nematode eukaryotic translation initiation factor 
         4E/G complex works with a trans-spliced leaer stem-loop to enable efficient translation of
         trimethylguanosine-capped RNAs. Mol Cell Biol, 30, 1958-1970.
 
Filbin, M.E. and Kieft, J.S. (2011) HCV IRES domain IIb affects the configuration of coding RNA in
         the 40S subunit's decoding groove. RNA, 17, 1258-1273.

Filbin, M.E. Vollmar, B. S., Shi, D., Gonen, T., Kieft, J.S. (2013) HCV IRES manipulates the   
         ribosome to promote the switch from translation to elongation. Nat Struct Mol Biol
         20, 150-158.
 
 

 
​James Whitehurst, Ph.D.
  • Back to Medical School!
Publications while in the Kieft Lab:
 
Plank, T-D.M., Whitehurst, J.T., & Kieft, J.S. (2013) Cell type specificity and
         structural determinants of IRES activity from the 5’UTRs of different 
         HIV-1 transcripts. Nucleic Acids Res. In press 

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