The new year has just started and already there are some great news: Andreas Horn joined the lab as a PhD student! His PhD project will focus on a novel strategy that we have recently developed which allows to map protein-RNA interaction with high resolution in a parallel fashion. Welcome to the lab!
With christmas time approaching, we would like to thank our colleagues and collaborators for a wonderful and productive year! Also we would like to specifically thank the funding agencies for their very generous support that helps us to pursue our scientific goals!
Merry Christmas, a relaxing holiday season and a happy and successful New Year!
We are very happy to announce that Stefan Reich was awarded a fellowship from the Joachim Herz Stiftung!
‘I am very happy that my application for an Add-on Fellowship for Interdisciplinary Science from the Joachim Herz Stiftung was successful. This now gives me the opportunity to attend conferences and additional courses in bioinformatics which will support our work. Personally, I hope to gain further insight into data analysis which will pave the way to success in my doctoral thesis. For this reason I want to thank the Joachim Herz Stiftung very much for the generous support and I am looking forward to the first meeting with the other fellows in March 2016.’
-Stefan Reich, PhD student
The Section Cellular Biochemistry and Biophysics (CBB) of the Regensburg International Graduate School of Life Sciences (RIGeL) has a new coordinator: Jan Medenbach. I am happy to take up my new duties within the graduate school and to help the PhD students wherever possible. Feel free to contact me any time by Email or phone or just visit me in my office in VKL 1 1.05!
We are very much looking forward to a visit from Dr. Fillip Port from the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the MRC in Cambridge. Leading the CRISPR project in the lab of Simon Bullock, Fillip has pioneered the use of the Cas9 endonuclease in genomic engineering of Drosophila. This technique now allows the introduction of mutations at single nucleotide resolution and to integrate exogenous sequences at predefined loci. Today a Drosophila toolbox is available that consists of transgenic cas9 strains and versatile gRNA expression plasmids for various applications, including germ line mutagenesis, precise knock-ins and tissue specific genetic screens. Further information about this can be found on the CRISPR fly design webpage and in the Blog.
In his talk Fillip will present how he is using CRISPR/cas-mediated genome engineering to gain novel insights into the mechanism and functional relevance of mRNA localisation in the nervous system. Feel free to join us for some exciting science on November 3rd at 5p.m. in H53!
Time to announce another speaker for this year’s SFB960 seminar series: Dr. Arold Grünweller from the Philipps-University Marburg. On December 3rd 2015 at 2p.m. Arnold will share with us the latest research on novel inhibitors and RNA-based therapeutic strategies to target the Pim-1 kinase, an important regulator in a number of aggressive tumors. Pim-1 inhibitors also exhibit substantial antiviral activity by interfering with translation initiation and Arnold will also elude on the latest acitivities to treat Ebola-infected cells with the inhibitors.
The EMBO Meeting on Protein Synthesis and Translational Control: Not only great resarch and exciting science, but also great fun! Cool idea to have a photobooth and costumes available on the last day!
It was a great conference where I learned a lot. Also the atmosphere was very nice, I really enjoyed the meeting!
– Rebecca Moschall, PhD student
That was the first conference for me and it was a really exciting experience! Great talks, great people and lots of science… Can’t wait for the next one!
– Simona Palusci, visiting scientist
In sum: a great conference with great talks and good posters! It was also about meeting really friendly people and learning a lot about this research field. Also I am very happy that from our lab Becki had the opportunity to give a talk on her work.
– Stefan Reich, PhD student
It was exciting to get new insights into translational control and to discuss with other people! Particularly, the combination of structural biology and functional analyses is really great!
– Daniela Strauss, Research technician
Two weeks more to go! The EMBO Conference on Protein Synthesis and Translational Control at EMBL (Heidelberg, Germany) is coming up! And for most of us it’s going to be the first time participating in that meeting. We are all looking forward to five days of exciting talks, stimulating discussions and meeting old and new friends.
Furthermore, Rebecca will present her findings on Drosophila Sister of Sex Lethal during the Poster Session. Looking forward to seeing you there!
-Dominik Conrad, PostDoc
The Collaborative Research Centre 960 (SFB960) – Ribosome formation: principles of RNP biogenesis and control of their function has been extended for another funding period! We are now part of the SFB960 and we are very grateful for the financial support by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) that allows us to address exciting scientific questions (see project B11).
Pictured above: the principal investigators of the SFB 960
We just returned from wonderful Wildbad Kreuth in the Alps (see picture below) where we had a BioSysNet meeting. This time it was not only participants from the BioSysNet and BayGene networks, but also additional collagues from various places in Bavaria working on a variety of facinating topics. Becki had the chance to present her latest findings in a talk and Dominik had a poster depicting his research. We would like to thank the organizers for this wonderful meeting and our colleagues and friends for the stimulating discussions!
On july 7th Dr. Christain Preusser from the Justus-Liebig-University Giessen will visit us in Regensburg and give a talk entitled: Characterization of the polyadenylation complex in the human parasite Trypanosoma brucei.
For RNA biologists Trypanosmes are a very interesting model system as they use many unusual mechanisms to produce mature mRNAs. This includes extensive editing of transcripts (in the single Trypanosome mitochondrion a substantial number of Uracil residues is not genetically encoded but rather introduced after transcription) and a unique splicing mechanism that involves the joining of sequences from different RNA molecules: trans splicing.
Christian has worked extensively on the identification and characterization of factors that are involved in in RNA processing in trypanosomes and in his talk he will present the latest findings regarding the 3′ end processing and polydenylation machinery.
The E:med webpage has just become live! E:med aims to combine life-sciences and informatics to create systems-wide approaches to address important questions in disease. We are very grateful that our SUPR-G junior consortium was selected to become part of this great initiative!
We are very happy that Simona Palusci came all the way from sunny Italy to join our lab here in Regensburg! Simona has received a fellowship from our local graduate school RIGeL to work on the translational repression of the Drosophila RNA nanos by the RNA-binding protein Sex Lethal. Thanks to the generous support from the Graduate Research Academy RNA Biology we can now welcome a new labmember!
Unfortunately, three days of a stimulating meeting have now come to an end… I had a wonderful time in the beautiful town of Pottenstein and enjoyed not only the familiar atmosphere and the stunning surroundings, but also the research that covered many different and interesting fields in molecular biology. I am very happy for the invitation and I would like to thank the organizers for giving me the opportunity to share my research by giving a talk.
– Rebecca Moschall, PhD student
(Picture courtesy of Gesine Domin, Mörl lab, Leipzig)
We have a new colleague in the lab! We are very happy to announce that beginning of the month Stefan Reich has joined the lab as a PhD student! Stefan will work on deciphering the cellular reprogramming of translation during the unfolded protein response. Within the BMBF-funded SUPR-G network (Systems Biology of the Unfolded Protein Responsse in Glioma) he will collaborate with the groups of Christiane Knobbe-Thomsen (Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf), Robert Ahrends (Leibniz Institute for Analytical Biosciences, ISAS, Dortmund), Grischa Tödt (European Molecular Biology Laboratory, EMBL, Heidelberg), and Björn Tews (German Cancer Research Center, DKFZ, Heidelberg). Welcome to Regensburg and welcome to the lab!
