CBS Lifetime Seminar Series

This year, the Centre of Structural Biochemistry is organizing a series of seminars on topics related to the LifeTime Initiative.

If you want to meet any of the seminarists, make sure you contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Philipp Maass, University of Toronto

Misplaced inter-chromosomal organization causes shortened fingers

September 30th, 2,30 pm, CBS seminar Room, 29 rue de Navacelles

Website

Marcelo Rubinstein, University of Buenos Aires

Molecular and functional genetics of the proopiomelanocortin gene, food intake regulation and obesity

October 3rd, 11am, CBS seminar Room, 29 rue de Navacelles

Website

Jeff Moffitt, Harvard Medical School

Constructing tissue atlases with massively multiplexed RNA imaging

October 17th, 11am, CBS seminar Room, 29 rue de Navacelles

Website

Vera Pancaldi, CRCT Toulouse

Studying chromatin organization using networks: transcription, replication and beyond

December 12ve, 11am, CBS seminar Room, 29 rue de Navacelles

Website

COVID generation: workshop in an elementary school

What is a microbe? What are the differences between a bacteria and a virus? How does soap protect against viruses? Animated debates, experiences ... CM1 students from Jean Moulin school played the apprentice researchers to find answers to these questions during a workshop set up by C. Doucet from the CBS.

In a context where the words "virus", "contagion", "barrier gestures" invaded the daily lives of children, this workshop allowed to exchange with kids and to give scientific explanations to these words that became familiar but yet very mysterious !

High-Res Photonic Force Microscopy Based on Sharp Nanofabricated Tips

The photonic force microscope (PhFM) is better suited than the atomic force microscope (AFM) to the observation of soft tissues, in particular biological cells. But his resolution was still insufficient. Researchers from the Institute of Electronics and Systems and the Center for Structural Biochemistry obtained high resolution images, thanks to a nanofabrication process of the PhFM tips. The results are published in the journal Nano Letters.

journal: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c00729

presse release: https://insis.cnrs.fr/fr/cnrsinfo/un-microscope-force-photonique-haute-resolution-pour-observer-des-cellules-biologiques

Absence of proline cis-conformation in poly-proline tracts

The study of prolines within proteins has been traditionally a challenge, especially in repetitions (poly-proline). By combining site-specific isotopic labeling (SSIL) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), our group has succeeded to accurately analyze the cis-trans conformations of prolines present within the poly-proline tracts of huntingtin protein, the causative agent of Huntington's disease. Our data, recently published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, show a strong influence of the neighboring residues on proline conformation. While the first proline of a poly-proline tract has a normal level of cis-conformation, prolines inside the tract are exclusively found in trans-conformation.