Veronique Miron did her PhD at McGill University in Montreal under the supervision of Dr. Antel and Dr. Kennedy. After graduating in 2009, she continued in the group of Dr. Antel as Postdoctoral Fellow. In 2010 she moved to the Medical Research Council Center for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. She stayed until 2013 in the groups of Prof. Ffrench-Constant and Prof....
Despite similar brain organization mammals present with a variety of neocortex sizes, which are generated during a short developmental window in embryogenesis. The final neuronal output is determined by the initial pool size and proliferative capacity of various cell lineages as well as by the length of the neurogenic period.
In our study we explore the previously proposed link (Lewitus et...
Ágnes Tóth-Petróczy did her PhD, at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel. She studied the paths of evolving protein sequences under the supervision of Prof. Tawfik. In 2014, she moved to Harvard University in Boston to start a postdoctorat in the group of Prof Marks. As postdoctoral research fellow, she studied the structured states of disordered proteins from genomic sequences....
Changes in mammalian genomes reflect the evolution of distinct phenotypic traits. For instance, these phenotypic traits comprise adaptations to different habitats, diets, and morphological changes. Such changes can lead to the loss of protein-coding genes that do not serve advantageous or essential functions for the corresponding species. Our group previously developed a method for accurately...
Tight junctions form a border between the apical and basolateral plasma-membrane domains and are linked to the machinery that controls apicobasal polarization. This achieved by adhesion/polymerization of the claudin protein family and the interactions with the scaffold proteins on the cytoplasmic side. The main proteins family in the scaffold is the MAGUK family, especially the zona occludens...
Epithelial cell polarization is a fundamental organizing principle during early embryonic development, and later differentiation into specific tissues and organs. It is known that epithelial transition involves asymmetry, where cells polarize into apical, lateral, and basal plasma membrane domains. However, how the identity of the polarized membrane is established and communicated to the...
Marc Güell did his PhD in the Group of Dr. Serrano at Center for Genomic Regulation in Spain. In January 2011, he started as a Postdoctoral fellow at “Harvard Molecular Technology Group & Lipper Center for Computational Genetics” under the supervision of Dr. Church. From 2015 to 2016, he was a Wyss Technology Development Fellow at the Wyss Institute, Harvard University. Since spring 2017, Marc...
Alba Diz-Muñoz did her PhD as a joint grad student in the laboratories of Dr. Paluch and Dr. Heisenberg at the MPI-CBG in Dresden. After her PhD, she continued in the group of Dr. Paluch as Postdoctoral Fellow. In 2012, she moved to California and did her postdoctoral studies with the groups of Dr. Weiner at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) and Dr. Fletcher at UC Berkeley....
In the retina, like in most other brain regions, different neuron types are precisely arranged into distinct layers giving the tissue its stratified pattern. Such spatial patterning needs to be highly controlled and orchestrated, as its disorganization leads to impaired retinal function. Yet, how retinal neuron pattern formation emerges remains largely unknown. To understand this, we use the...
DNA is a target of various damaging agents such as reactive oxygen species, ionizing radiation, or abortive topoisomerase activity. These events often result in non-conventional DNA termini, which must be processed before repair of the lesion can be completed. Interestingly, hereditary defects in DNA end processing often result in neuropathological disorders. Polynucleotide kinase phosphatase...
Sebastian van de Linde did his PhD at the Faculty of Physics, Bielefeld University in Germany. He was working on the Photoswitching of Organic Dyes and Single-Molecule Based Super-Resolution Imaging under the supervision of Prof. Sauer. From 2011 to 2016 he was an Associate Researcher in the department of Biotechnology and Biophysics at the university of Würzburg. He did a first stay abroad in...
Timothy Nott did his PhD on molecular structure at the National Institute for Medical Research in London under the supervision of Dr. Smerdon. He graduated in 2009 and moved to Toronto to study the principles of how cells are internally compartmentalised in the group of Professor Pawson. He started as Postdoctoral Research Associate in 2014 (Professor Baldwin) at the university of Oxford...
The processes that contribute to protein expression are subject to stochastic fluctuations and are affected by the environment in which they operate. As a result, concentration of a given protein can vary greatly between organisms, cells, as well as in time. Since many biological processes demand a tight control over protein concentration, cells have evolved various mechanisms to control the...
Neocortical expansion is thought to underlie the cognitive traits that are unique to humans. This evolutionary expansion is accompanied by cortical folding, which starts to form from around gestational weeks (GW) 20. However, what causes it remains largely unknown. Extracellular matrix (ECM) has been previously implicated in neocortical expansion and here we investigate the potential role of...
Carl Modes did a PhD in Physics and Astronomy at the University Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. In 2008 he started as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Theory of Condensed Matter Group at the University of Cambridge. In 2011 he moved back to the United States as a Postdoctoral Associate. He was working at the Center for Studies in Physics and Biology (The Rockfeller University) until 2017....
The RNA world hypothesis remains a hallmark in origin of life research despite very poor robustness and low reactivity of most model replicators studied so far.[1] A frequently used trick to enhance ribozyme activity is the use of high concentration molecular crowders (M to mM) to increase RNA concentrations by excluded volume effects.[2] Here we show, that excluded volume effect is not...
