After over two months of zero, or at least very restricted lab access, we are delighted to report that we are back in action. Distancing and hygiene rules stay in place, but everyone as able to come to the lab again and continue their projects.
Things have been challenging in many ways since the shutdown, but the team did a fantastic effort to make the best of the situation – kudos to everyone’s patience and resilience!
Huge congrats to the whole team, lead by the terrific and fearless duo of Keith and Iacopo, for putting together a terrific study on protein engineering! Initially not more than a somewhat abstruse idea, the team managed to insert synthetic peptides into a variety of proteins in life cells using what has become internally known as ‘intein magic’. The work is now published at Nature Communications, including a blog post in the Nature Research Bioengineering Community.
Thanks also to our collaborators from the Tampé group in Frankfurt – and to our funders for enabling us to bring this idea to life.
After a big effort from Team NALCN, our first paper on the NALCN complex is now out in Science Advances. We show that NALCN-mediated currents are only observed in the presence of three auxiliary proteins – and that the leak activity is modulated by both extracellular calcium and voltage. Big thanks to Chow, Matthias, Claudia and Lise for all their hard work on this tricky project!
After exactly 6 weeks of shut down, we are excited to report the partial re-opening of the lab! For now, it will only be one person at a time, but it is great to know that we are able to get our projects going again. Big thanks to all lab members for their patience – both over the last few weeks and now during this slow re-opening phase.
We are delighted to announce the formal publication of our latest paper on ASICs in PNAS. The work, lead by postdocs Christian, Nina and Stephanie, shows how a neuropeptide binds to and modulates ASIC1a. The study involved many different technologies and we are hugely grateful for the contributions by our terrific collaborators in the Bennett and Strømgaard labs at KU! Due to its potential implications in pain, the work was featured in a KU press release and on Eurakalert!
Like most other labs around the globe, we are currently shut down. Nobody is allowed in the lab and all scientific activities are limited to online meetings, reading, writing and project planning tasks. This creates a whole new set of challenges for everyone involved, but the team has been fantastic in keeping up the spirit during this unusual time – huge thanks to everyone for their continued efforts and motivation to restart their projects as soon as we are allowed back to the lab!
After half a year in the lab, it’s time for Oskar to move on. He was fortunate enough to be financed by a NNF pre-graduate scholarship and has done a fantastic job working on NALCN – he will be missed!
Nina, Chow and Stephan represented the lab at the annual meeting of the Biophysical Society in San Diego. This was a great opportunity to catch up on the latest science and meet old (and new) friends. Nina presented a very well-received ASIC poster, Chow gave a great talk on NALCN and Stephan took home the Paul F Cranefield award by the Society of General Physiologists (SGP), making for a very successful meeting overall!
Proud to present our first foray into protein semi-synthesis. Using Nav1.5, P2X2R and GFP as examples, we show that tandem protein trans-splicing can used to insert synthetic peptides into proteins in live cells. The project was lead by two fantastic postdocs, Keith Khoo and Iacopo Galleano, with assistance from a number of other lab members, as well as our collaborators from the Tampé group in Frankfurt. Full paper can be found on bioRxiv.
After providing fantastic help and assistance with many projects in the lab, lab technician intern Cristina is moving on to finish her education. Thank you very much for everything, you did extremely well and we wish you all the best for your future studies!
