“2015 Cell Biology of Yeast” meeting at Cold Spring Harbor


Elie Saliba, Christos Gournas and Bruno André attended the “Cell Biology of Yeasts” meeting organized at the Cold Spring Harbour Lab congress center (Nov 3-7, 2015). Christos was invited to present a talk at the “Membrane traffic” session about his work on the role of arrestin-like adaptors in ubiquitylation of membrane transporters. We could enjoy top science and the beautiful Fall colors of the campus (see pictures below). This year the Cold Spring Harbor lab celebrated its 125th anniversary.

Stelios Gionis joined the lab

We are pleased to welcome a new pregraduate student, Stelios GIONIS, from the University of Athens (Greece). During his master thesis work, Stelios will investigate the mechanisms of ubiquitylation and endocytosis of the Can1 permease and the links between these mechanisms and the lateral segregation of the protein in the plasma membrane.

The lab has hired Simon Lissoir as a new technician

SLissoir
We are pleased to announce that the lab has hired Simon LISSOIR as a new technician. Simon obtained his diploma in 2011 at the “Haute Ecole de Louvain en Hainaut” (Fleurus). After an internship at GSK, he was then hired by the “Agence Régionale de Santé et d’Identification Animale”. Simon now joined the lab thanks to a new four-year grant from the FNRS.

 

 

Fall 2015 Biopark News

BioparkNews27cover

Martin Van Vlasselaer joined the lab

We are pleased to welcome a new pregraduate student, Martin Van Vlasselaer, who will  carry out his master thesis in the lab. During his thesis, Martin will use yeast as a model system to address specific questions relevant for the study of cystinosis, a rare genetic disease caused by mutations in the gene encoding the lysosomal cystine exporter.

Practical course on “In vivo analysis of ubiquitylation and sumoylation in yeast”

COST Ub workshop
Elie Saliba attended a practical course organized by Dr. Sébastien Léon and collaborators (Jacques Monod Institute, Paris) on techniques for “In vivo analysis of ubiquitylation and sumoylation in yeast” (7-11 Sept.). Elie was supported by a grant of the PROTEOSTASIS Cost Action network.

“Membrane Compartmentalization” meeting in Münster

Muensterjpg
Christos Gournas attended a top-level meeting organized in Münster (Germany) by Roland Wedlich-Söldner and Joost Holthuis on “Mechanisms and Functions of Membrane Compartmentalization” (6-10 September). Christos presented a poster reporting his recent data about the regulation of heterogenous distribution of the Can1 permease at the plasma membrane.

“SMYTE” meeting in Lisbon

Florent Corrillon and Bruno André attended the 33rd SMYTE, the annual meeting on yeast membrane transporters, organized this year in Lisbon (Portugal). Florent gave a presentation about the yeast Ssy1 sensor of amino acids (he studied during his master thesis work) and Bruno gave a general talk about the role of arrestins in transporter ubiquitylation.

 

News about students who joined the lab for internship or master thesis work

Lab_2015_bar
Some news about students who joined or will soon join the lab :

Nathan Fraikin (ULB, master in Biochemistry and Molecular and Cellular Biology), who did his master thesis work in the lab, defended his “mémoire” in early April before moving to the group of Pr. Claudio De Virgilio (University of Fribourg, Switzerland) for an internship. During his master thesis work, Nathan studied the role of Gap1 phosphorylation.

Gabriel Rocha is a PhD student working in the group of Sandra Paiva (Braga, Portugal), he recently spent a few weeks in the lab to carry out experiments on proteins playing a key role in endocytosis of the Jen1 lactate permease.

Alyn Alkan is 3rd year student in Molecular Biology and Genetics Department at Izmir Institute of Technology(Turkey). She joined the lab for a summer internship and works in collaboration with Celine Barthelemy on a human amino acid transporter.

We will soon welcome two new pregraduate students, Martin Van Vlasselaer (ULB, master in Biochemistry and Molecular and Cellular Biology, 2nd year) and Stelios Gionis (University of Athens, Greece). The team grows up !

Kassem Ghaddar is a laureate of the “2015 Solvay awards”

KGhaddar_jpg
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 Kassem Ghaddar for his research work on the yeast Can1 and Gap1 transporters of the yeast S. cerevisiae. Kassem is currently postdoc in the group of Decio Laks Eizirik of ULB. Congratulations to Kassem for this award !