“Yeast Genetics and Molecular Biology” meeting in Frankfurt

Bruno André attended and contributed to the programme of the  “Yeast Genetic and Molecular Biology Meeting” (in the “Intracellular traffic and endocytosis” plenary session) held in Francfurt on July 29-August 3.  No less than 700 persons attended this congress annually organized by scientists working on yeast. Among the invited speakers was Professor Randy Schekman who several weeks later will receive the Nobel in Physiology and Medicine 2013 for his work on intracellular traffic in yeast.

“Membrane proteins: structure, function and dynamics” meeting in Copenhagen

 

Kassem Ghaddar was supported by the FNRS to attend a high-interest “Benzon meeting” about “Membrane proteins: structure, function and dynamics” held on August 19-22 in Copenhagen.

A visit we won’t forget


Belgium just celebrated the ascending of King Philippe, after the decision of King Albert II to abdicate. With this event we couldn’t help remembering this very special day of May 2005 where King Albert II visited the lab. Not a joke, see the pictures!

The story is that Albert II scheduled a visit of the town of Charleroi, and at this occasion he came to the Biopark of Gosselies, where he wished to visit a lab and meet scientists. Why our lab was selected for this visit remains a mystery … Anyway, after having been introduced to all members of the lab, the King examined yeast cells under the microscope (“they look like eggs” he said). Then Anna Maria Marini and Sophie Biver presented the work carried out about the role of Rhesus proteins as ammonium transporters. Certainly a big honor and a great souvenir for us …

Abdoulaye BARRY is “Chargé de recherche” of FNRS

 

Abdoulaye Barry, who joined the lab last November after his PhD thesis in Marseille, was informed by the FNRS he got a three-year postdoc grant as “Chargé de Recherche”. He couldn’t get better news indeed, congratulations to him!

The research work of Abdoulaye deals with the ubiquitylation and intracellular traffic of amino acid transporters, in yeast and human cells.

Summer Biopark news

Visit the Biopark web site in English or French

Elie Saliba joined the lab

A new graduate student, Elie Saliba, just joined the lab to accomplish a PhD research work. Elie is Lebanese and has obtained his master in 2011 at University Saint Joseph in Mar Roukos, Lebanon. During his master, Elie did a 6-months internship in the “Biologie du Cancer du Sein” laboratory at ’Institut Curie” of Paris. He was then Research Assistant at the “Molecular Genetics and Biodiversity” lab of Saint-Joseph University in Lebanon.

Elie’s research work deals with the mechanisms stimulating the ubiquitylation and endocytosis of amino acid transporters.

30th anniversary of M Grenson’s paper reporting the first isolation of rsp5 mutants of yeast

In 1983, Marcelle Grenson published her famous paper describing the “inactivation” by ammonium of the yeast Gap1 permease, and the isolation of a mut2 mutant in which this inactivation is defective [1]. Later studies [2] showed that the mut2 mutation (also named npi1) alters the RSP5 gene encoding the HECT-type ubiquitin ligase enzyme [3] responsible for the ubiquitylation of all thus far reported plasma membrane proteins of yeast, including Gap1 [4].

Grenson (1983) – Inactivation-Reactivation Process and Repression of Permease Formation Regulate Several Ammonia-Sensitive Permeases in the Yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Eur J Biochem 133, 135-139.

Marcelle Grenson

Elisa Llinares won a “2012 Solvay award”

The “Solvay Award” is awarded annually by the Solvay group to 2nd and 3rd cycle students who have realized a high-quality work within the Faculty of Science or the Faculty of Applied Sciences of ULB or VUB. This year one of the 3rd cycle awards was attributed to our former PhD student Elisa Llinares for her research work on the yeast Ypq membrane transporters of the yeast S. cerevisiae. Elisa is now employee of Bone therapeutics, a spin-off company of ULB. Congratulations to Elisa for this award !

“Membrane transport proteins” meeting in Louvain-la-Neuve

We have participated and contributed to the “Membrane transport proteins” meeting organized by our colleague François Chaumont in Louvain-la-Neuve (April 26th) with the help of the Belgian Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

“Model organisms” conference in Namur

We have attended the “Model Organisms” conference organized by NARC in Namur on April 19th. The speakers included Pr. Paul Nurse, who received the Nobel prize in 2011 for his work on cell division control (CDC) genes in yeast.