News Stories
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Breakthrough Study Advances Quest for a First Hepatitis C Vaccine
A collaborative team of scientists, including researchers from the Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR), has made significant strides in uncovering new insights that could help the development of an effective vaccine against Hepatitis C (HCV). HCV is a serious viral infection known as the “silent epidemic” that can...
New Study Shows Timing of Ebola Booster Shots Key to Stronger, Lasting Protection
Ebola, a rare but life-threatening condition caused by infection with the Ebola virus, can lead to severe outbreaks with high mortality rates and a global health burden. A recent study published in Nature Immunology, entitled “Improved VSV-Ebola-GP booster vaccination approach promotes antibody affinity maturation and durable anti-Ebola immunity in humans,”...
IBBR Ph.D. Student Earns Prestigious 2026 Summer Research Fellowship
IBBR proudly congratulates doctoral student Holly Hemesath on receiving the Graduate Student Summer Research Fellowship for 2026, a competitive award that supports Ph.D. students at critical stages of their training. Holly is a member of Dr. Yanxin Liu’s group at the Institute for Bioscience & Biotechnology Research (IBBR) and in...
About IBBR
IBBR is a joint research enterprise of the University of Maryland, College Park, the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
IBBR leverages state-of-art integrative methods for bioanalytical, biophysical and structural characterization of biomolecules: cryo-electron microscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance, x-ray crystallography, small angle neutron and x-ray scattering and mass spectrometry.
IBBR researchers seek to advance therapeutic development, biomanufacturing, and state-of-the-art measurement technologies, to support accelerated delivery of safe and effective medicines to the public.
IBBR is a major initiative and supported in part by the University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State (MPower) , an initiative designed to achieve innovation and impact through collaboration.
Connecting
IBBR Commons
Sophisticated state-of-the-art instrumentation and facilities, and in-house expertise located in shared space and dedicated to advance research, support collaboration and foster innovation of methods. Instrumentation and facilities include tools for high-resolution structural biology, bioanalytical and biophysical measurement, protein engineering and cell culture, advanced computation including artificial intelligence and deep learning methods, and general laboratory services. These capabilities and advanced training are available to IBBR scientists and collaborators.
IBBR Postdoc Program
The IBBR Postdoc Program (IPP) focuses on collaborative research involving basic science and technology development that advances therapeutic development, vaccine development, and biomanufacturing. IPP Fellow project teams are designed with a combination of the IPP Fellow career goals and priorities of project mentors who can be from academic, government, and/or industrial laboratories throughout the University of Maryland, NIST and the I-270 corridor.
NMRPipe
IBBR is home to NMRPipe, a popular collection of programs and scripts for manipulating multidimensional Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) data. The use of NMRPipe is noted in roughly 40% of all NMR structures accepted into the Protein Data Bank.
Upcoming Events
AT NIST: BMD Staff Seminar K. Kiesler / K. Telu, .06/.04
Seminar: Uri Gophna, Tel Aviv University
Presentation given by
Uri Gophna
Tel Aviv University
BMD Staff Seminar D. Bunk/ Y. Liang, .08/.04
Recent Publications
Harnessing Membrane-Active Peptides for Selective Cancer Targeting: Phosphatidylserine Recognition by Tilapia Piscidin 4.
Membrane-active peptides (MAPs) have garnered significant attention as potential alternatives to conventional cancer therapies, which are frequently limited by severe side effects. Among them,...
Heptad insertion extends the E. coli ROP protein by 50.
Antibody function involves conformational variability, yet their extreme flexibility complicates measurement of their structure and properties. They also have numerous ligands, suggesting that a...
Rhizosphere microbiome influences fruit quality in citrus.
Fruit quality is shaped by both crop genetics and cultivation environments, with soil conditions driving rhizosphere microbiome assembly. While rhizosphere microbes are known to enhance nutrient...
Mastering particle size analysis: lessons, challenges, and future directions from the FDA-CRCG workshop.
UNLABELLED
Particle-size distribution (PSD) measurement is a cornerstone of pharmaceutical development and regulatory assessment, influencing formulation stability, dissolution, product quality,...
Assembly and flexibility of B. burgdorferi periplasmic HtrA hexamers.
The chaperone/protease HtrA from the Lyme disease pathogen Borrelia burgdorferi (BbHtrA) functions in the maturation of the periplasmic protein BB0323 involved in pathogen infectivity and in the...