This year the lab holiday party was joint between the Scott and Auchus groups. Hosted by Jorge Iniquez-Lulhi and his amazing wife Cecilia at their home, we had the most amazing giant seafood paella. Delicious! Not to mention the amazing desserts too. Suffice it to say that a good time was had by all!

Biological Chemistry graduate student Alexi Chabez presented her structure/function work on human cytochrome P450 7B1 in the Friday morning UM structural biology seminar series. CYP7B1 is involved the the synthesis of the bile acid chenodeoxycholic acid and defects in this protein cause the neurological disorder spastic paraplegia type 5 (SPG5).

This year former Scott lab postdoc Fernando Estrada won the ASPET Division of Drug Metabolism and Disposition Richard Okita Early Career Award. Following an award talk at the spring ASPET meeting, The Pharmacologist had a great article on Fernando and his career so far.

Biophysics graduate student Autumn Pilarski did her M.S. research in the Meints lab at Missouri State University. Some of her work there looking at the effects of solutions conditions on the conformations of DNA as observed by NMR were just published in Biophysical Chemistry. Congratulations Autumn!

Second year PIBS/Biological Chemistry student Olivia Kohler-Testa gave a really informative literature seminar on a paper with a lot of fun cytochrome P450 engineering. Lots of thought-provoking ideas!

The Scott Lab is happy to host first year PIBS student Alyssa Chow for a rotation learning about cytochrome P450 structure and function. Alyssa completed her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry at Oberlin College before starting at UM this fall.

Biological Chemistry graduate student Alexi Chabez presented her work on bile acid-producing CYP7B1 at the ISSX International Meeting held in Chicago September 21-24, 2025. In addition to presenting a poster, Alexi's work was selected for a flash talk presentation.

Second year Pharmacology graduate student Elise Tahti presented her ongoing research at the annual Pharmacology Retreat, held this year at Fox Hills. Her work on ligand binding to human CYP3A enzymes is moving along really well and quite exciting.

This year the Biological Chemistry Department held their annual retreat at Kellogg Biological Station on Gull Lake. Second year graduate student Olivia Kohler-Testa presented a poster on her evolving project and got to enjoy some lovely fall Michigan weather.

It was a lovely fall day for the Scott Lab to go apple picking and enjoy a cookout and picnic to welcome to the group new postdoctoral fellow Francesca Brunelli and PIBS/Biological Chemistry rotation student Abbey Hanes. Big hits: apples, hammocks, and s'mores (especially those with the secret ingredient: try Reese's peanut butter cups instead of Hershey's chocolate!).

PIBS/Biological Chemistry first year graduate student Abbey Hanes is joining the Scott lab for her first rotation. During this time she'll learn all about human (membrane) cytochrome P450 generation, structure, and function, as well as getting exposure to the lab learning and mentoring environment. Welcome Abbey!

Alexi and Autumn gave tours of the Scott Lab to Summer Bridge students as a part of the College of Pharmacy’s Campus Connections workshops. They presented research in an accessible manner, even when covering complex topics. The professionalism and enthusiasm shown throughout the tour helped highlight the important work happening in our College and our commitment to outreach and education. They even offered to answer questions about starting college after the tours.

Thanks for being such great ambassadors for science, Alexi and Autumn!

Biophysics graduate student Autumn Pilarski was selected as a trainee in the first class of the new Molecular Biophysics Program Training Grant. This training program is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) with support from the University of Michigan.

Summer means that the UM campus is much quieter, so the Scott Lab ventured out from our lab building to the University of Michigan Museum of Art. The exhibits left us thinking about the importance of representing all sides of a story, whether it is history or science.

The 24th International Conference on Cytochrome P450 was held June 30-July 4 in Bern, Switzerland. An amazing amount of awesome P450 research was presented over the five days, ably hosted at the University of Bern by Prof. Dr. Amit Pandey. Francesca Brunelli, a recent Ph.D. from the lab of Gian Cesare Tron, attended and presented a great poster. Francesca also recently obtained her visa and joined the Scott lab in mid July! Francesca is the recipient of a fellowship from the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy Postdoctoral Collegiate Fellows Program. Welcome Francesca!

Biological Chemistry graduate student Olivia Kohler was recently selected as a new trainee on the Pharmacological Sciences Training Program (PSTP). In this program she will benefit from additional mentoring and training in professional development and the field of pharmacology. It's a really nice program that adds substantial firepower to Olivia's Ph.D. training and ultimate goal of a career contributing to the pharmaceutical industry.

Ellie and Michael's wedding was wonderful: the bride was beautiful, the groom handsome, the setting perfect, and the dancing joyous. The reception at the UM Big House gave us all the opportunity to take a group photo on the field, with current and former group members from across the country (and Schuyler just back from Amsterdam).

Pharmacology graduate student Elise Tahti was selected as a new trainee for the NIH-supported Chemistry Biology Interface Training Program. This program includes a student sabbatical, which Elise is very excited to do. Congratulations Elise!

Friday was a beautiful 70 degree day and the peonies at the Arboretum were blooming so we took a walk over to enjoy them.

First year Biological Chemistry graduate student Olivia Kohler married Luke Testa at a beautiful wedding. Not only was the bride gorgeous in her dress, but she also made all these cute whale couples for the tables. So Olivia is talented in science and creative. Olivia and Luke then enjoyed a well-deserved honeymoon at Universal.

Even with crowded schedules, multiple weddings, and graduation and summer activities kicking in, we took time out to have a spring lab dinner. The weather didn't cooperate to do it outdoors this year, but we enjoyed good company and food (and charcuterie) indoors.

Recent Scott lab member Alaina Richard met Tyler Lefevre when they both started in the UM Program in Chemical Biology and now they start another phase of their journey in life together. It was a beautiful ceremony at which we were all delighted to celebrate the two of them.

Biological Chemistry graduate student Olivia Kohler recently passed her prelims to advance to candidacy. Nicely done, Olivia! And introducing us to raspberry chocolate croissants from Cannelle by Matt Knio was a celebration for us all!

Biological Chemistry graduate student Alexi Chabez presented her CYP7B1 project at the Great Lakes Drug Metabolism Discussion Group Meeting held in Purdue this year. First year graduate students Elise Tahti and Olivia Kohler attended as well, showing early interest and investment in careers in the pharmaceutical industry.

Biophysics graduate student Autumn Pilarski traveled to Menlo Park, CA to take part in the awesome week-long X-ray crystallography training that SSRL offers each year. She got to collect data in person, learn about data processing from some of the leading software developers, and meet some of the wonderful, wonderful staff who make SSRL such a great place.

Former Scott lab trainee Lily Kim just graduated with her Pharm.D. from UM College of Pharmacy and is headed into the Ph.D. part of her training. Congratulations Lily!

The Scott lab volunteered to do demos for Science Night at Bishop Elementary School in Yipsilanti. Ellie demonstrated at the silver mirror table, Elise and Alexi showed kids how to make lava lamps from oil, water, food coloring, and Alka-Seltzer, while Autumn and I got to share our crystallization skills. Perfect for an X-ray crystallography lab, right?

Undergraduate student Chelsea Ohaka has been working with graduate student Alexi Chabez this academic year to improve a P450 ligand binding assay. Chelsea did so as part of the UM Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) and presented her final poster at their annual symposium in the Michigan League.

All last year Biophysics graduate student Autumn Pilarski worked steadily to complete her Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Certificate. A ceremony was held to recognize all who successfully completed the program.

On the very same day Biophysics graduate student Autumn Pilarski passed her Checkpoint 2 exam (with flying colors!) and Biological Chemistry graduate student Alexi Chabez presented her departmental seminar (in amazing style!). Great milestone achievements for both of them, we celebrated with a comfort food mac-and-cheese bar back at the lab.

Former Scott Lab postdoc Fernando Estrada (now Associate Professor at University of Buffalo ) won the 2025 Richard Okita Early Career Award from the Drug Metabolism and Disposition Division of ASPET. Fernando presented his award talk sharing highlights from his lab's use of NMR to probe cytochrome P450 structure and function at the ASPET annual meeting in Portland. Congratulations Fernando!

A quick look at the outcome of a get-to-know you exercise that found its way to the lab whiteboards and continued to blossom from there.

Every year the Scott Lab celebrates Pi day with pies from our very favorite Michigan Source: Grand Traverse Pie Company. Whether it's cherry crumb or oreo or key lime, their's is the best. And this year we got to enjoy it on a very nice spring day!

Pharmacology Ph.D. student Ellie Frydendall is a student no more--she's Dr. Frydendall! After an amazing defense presentation, we celebrated with family and friends--and chocolate fondue, of course! Ellie will be off to a high-power consulting job shortly, but until then we're thrilled to have her staying on for a short postdoc. Congratulations, Ellie!

We are thrilled to welcome Biological Chemistry graduate student Olivia Kohler and Pharmacology graduate student Elise Tahti joining the Scott Lab to complete their Ph.D. degrees. It will be fun to see where their journeys in human P450 structure and function take us all!

Our overdue holiday pottery class outing finally got scheduled at Yourist Studio. Owner Kay taught us how to center our clay, throw pots, and pull up the walls on a pottery wheel. We had a lot of fun producing some slumped bowls but also some pretty cool pieces we are looking forward to seeing when they some out of the kiln.

On MLK Day, the Scott Lab spent the morning sorting food for Food Gatherers, a local food rescue/food pantry in North Ann Arbor. While it was disappointing the amount of food that had to be culled, Emily, Ellie, Alexi, Autumn, Olivia, and Sage saved about 1000 pounds of produce, diary, and other foodstuffs that went out the next day to area centers. Nice job ladies!