Molecular Physiology of the Cell

Winter Biopark News

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Elie Saliba and Melody Cools got their FRIA fellowship

Good news! Elie Saliba and Melody Cools, two graduate students, got their FRIA fellowships and can thus undertake a PhD thesis work in the lab. Elie (who joined the lab last June) investigates the role of arrestin-like proteins in ubiquitylation and endocytosis of the yeast Gap1 permease, and Melody will study a novel amino acid transporter of the vacuole/lysosome.

7th annual SFMBBM doctoral school meeting in Liège

Kassem Ghaddar (graduate student our the lab) gave a talk on the structure-function relationships of yeast amino acid permeases at the 7th annual “Structure et fonction des macromolécules biologiques, bioinformatique et modélisation (SFMBBM)” doctoral school organized on November 15th at the Université de Liège (Ulg).

“Cell Biology of Yeasts” meeting at Cold Spring Harbor

We attended to and contributed to the “Membranes, Organelles and Traffic” session of the “Cell Biology of Yeasts” meeting which was held on November 5-9. This meeting is organized every two years at the Cold Spring Harbor Lab congress center. Among other things we enjoyed the beautiful autumn colors of the campus (see pictures below).

Autumn Biopark News

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“SMYTE” meeting in Antalya

Bruno André attended and contributed to the 31st “Small Meeting on Yeast Transport and Energetics” which was held in Turkey (Antalya) on September 24-27. The opening “Marcelle Grenson” lecture was given this year by Pr. Georges Diallinas (Athens university, Greece).

Two pregraduate students, C Barthélemy and F Corrillon, joined the lab

We are glad to welcome two new pregraduate students in lab, Céline Barthélemy and Florent Corrllon. Céline will work on endocytosis of amino acid transporters. Florent will work part-time in the group of Martine Prévost (ULB, Structure et Fonction des Membranes Biologiques) and part-time in our lab and will analyze the structure-function relationships of the transporter-like Ssy1 sensor of amino acids. Good luck and much success to both of them.

“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 …