Molecular Physiology of the Cell

Minos Evangelinos obtained an FNRS postodc grant for joining the lab

We are very glad to welcome Dr Minos Evangelinos as a new FNRS postdoc (“Chargé de recherche”) in the lab. Minos obtained his PhD this year, after a research in the excellent lab of Pr. George Diallinas (University of Athens, Greece). Among other contributions, Minos reported an interesting case of degradation by selective autophagy of a membrane transporter stacked in the endoplasmic reticulum in the model fungus Aspergillus nidulans (Evangelinos et al. 2016). He also set up a novel mutagenesis tool based on a transposon (named .. Minos) for functional genomic analysis in A. nidulans (Evangelinos et al. 2014). Welcome to him !

A visit of Kassem Ghaddar to the lab

Kassem GHADDAR with Catherine JAUNIAUX

Kassem Ghaddar very recently made a surprise visit to the lab. It was so nice to see him again, after such a long time 🙂

Since October 2016, Kassem is Clinical Research Associate at the INC company. Before this, he did his master at ULB (2006-2009), a PhD in our lab thanks to a FRIA fellowship (2010-2014), and then a postdoc in the lab of Miriam Cnop and Decio Eizirik (ULB, Center for Diabetes Research (2014-2016). It was great to see him very happy in his new job, and we of course remembered the great moments he spent in the lab.

During his PhD work, Kassem buit the first 3D models of the yeast Can1 arginine transporter in collaboration with Martine Prevost and Eva-Maria Krammer (ULB), and succeeded in converting the protein into a lysine transporter (Ghaddar et al. 2014a). He then found that the conformational changes undergone by the protein during catalysis of transport promotes its ubiquitylation and endocytosis (Ghaddar et al. 2014b).

“Molecular and Cell Biology of Membranes” EMBO conference

Christos Gournas attended the “Molecular and Cell Biology of membranes” EMBO symposium held in Heidelberg (Germany) 21-13 May.

13th Yeast Lipid Conference

Christos Gournas and Bruno André attended the 13th Yeast Lipid Conference held in Paris (17-19 May 2017).

Interuniversity PhD Student Day

Céline Barthélemy was one of the PhD students invited to present a brief oral communication at the Interuniversity PhD Student Day organized in Liège on May 11, 2017

“Cystinosis” workshop in Dublin

Melody Cools and Bruno André were invited to contribute to the Second Annual Dublin Cystinosis Family Workshop organized by “Cystinosis Ireland” February 23-25th 2017 in Dublin. This was a novel opportunity to meet colleagues involved in research focusing on cystinosis, a rare genetic disease caused by the dysfunctioning of a lysosomal cystine transporter.

Winter Biopark News

Visit the Biopark web site in English or French

Meeting and seminar at de Duve Institute

Elie Saliba was invited to present his work at the one-day STUNNING (Structure and Function in Signaling) meeting of the SFMBBM doctoral school of the FRS-FNRS, that has been organized on November 18 at the de Duve institute (Woluwe, Brussels) by PhD students. At the end of the meeting, Elie’s talk was elected by participants as the 2nd best presentation by a PhD student. A few days before, B. André was invited at the de Duve Institute to give a seminar about the “Lateral segregation, ubiquitylation and endocytosis of amino acid transporters in yeast”.

Congratulations to Dr. Ohsumi

We are delighted to congratulate Dr. Yoshinori Ohsumi on being awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for his superb work on the genetic and biochemical dissection of autophagy in the model yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. See the very interesting interview of Dr. Ohsumi published in 2012 by The Journal of Cell Biology.

“Smyte” meeting in Crete

C. Gournas and B. André attended the 34th “Small Meeting on Yeast Transport and Energetics” (Smyte) which was organized by our colleague George Diallinas in Crete (August 29 – September 1). The Smyte annually gathers scientists from all countries who are interested in diverse aspects yeast membrane transporters: structure-function relationships, regulation of intracellular traffic, signalling properties, … B. André was invited to present the opening “Marcelle Grenson Lecture” of the meeting, and C. Gournas gave a presentation on the lateral segregation of the yeast arginine permease, Can1, at the plasma membrane. We all enjoyed the top-quality science presented at the meeting … as well as the many nice aspects of life in Crete, including a memorable music concert by Ross Daly & Kelly Thoma. See also the Facebook page of the meeting.