The American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) has announced that Dr. Virginia Ronchi, post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Arthur Haas, has won the Best Poster Award in the thematic area of "Protein Synthesis and Turnover." The award was made during the recent ASBMB annual meeting held in New Orleans 18-22 April 2009 Awards were made in each of twelve thematic areas and includes a prize of $500. Dr. Ronchi's poster entitled "Functional characterization of UbcH7 interaction with the E6AP ubiquitin ligase" details her recent work on the mechanism of the E6AP ubiquitin ligase, which is responsible for malignant cell transformation in cervical cancer following human papilomavirus infection, Hepatitis C-induced cell transformation triggered by retinoblastoma protein degradation, and vescicular trafficking, among other roles. Dr. Ronchi obtained her doctorate in Biology from the Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata in Argentine and was previously a postdoctoral fellow at the Universidad Miguel Hernandez Eiche in Spain before joining the Haas lab in 2008.
