ERC Consolidator Grant 2016 for Christophe Moreau
The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded a "Consolidator Grant" to Christophe Moreau for a project aiming at developing the Ion Channel-Coupled Receptor (ICCR) technology for in vitro diagnostic applications.
Christophe Moreau is a CNRS Researcher in the CHANNELS group of the Institut de Biologie Structurale (IBS - mixed research unit operated by CEA, CNRS and UGA). His project entitled ’NANOZ-ONIC’ will receive € 1.77 million financial support from the ERC over 5 years. Scientific excellence at European level is one of the main criteria for the selection of these awards which are designed to support researchers at the stage at which they are consolidating their own independent research team or programme. The scheme strengthens independent and excellent new individual research teams that have been recently created.
What is this project about?
This ICCR technology will be interfaced with nano-electronic devices in partnership with Prof. Tai Hyun PARK and Prof. Seunghun HONG from the National University of Seoul. ICCRs were created in our group by linking membrane receptors, belonging to the G Protein Coupled Receptors (GPCRs) family, to an ion channel. When the receptor recognizes a specific molecule (ligand), the ion channel generates an electrical signal which is independent of intracellular signaling pathways and easily detectable by standard electrophysiological techniques or micro/nano-electronic devices.
Sigrid Milles awarded the SFB Young Scientist Research Prize
Sigrid Milles was awarded the the SFB Young Scientist Research Prize on December 16. Every year, this prize is given by the Société Française de Biophysique to a young PhD biophysicist, for its past and present research, its quality and originality.
During her PhD at the EMBL in Heidelberg, Sigrid developed an integrated chemical biology/single molecule fluorescence approach to study the intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) of the human nuclear pore complex. In her postdoc, in Martin Blackledge’s group at the IBS, she’s now analyzing IDPs by NMR. Using NMR data in addition to fluorescence, she could determine the characteristics of the molecular interactions that make nucleocytoplasmic transport at the time fast and specific.
UGA prize awarded to Yann Fichou
Yann Fichou won the PhD thesis prize of the Doctoral School in Physics at the Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA). This prize honours PhD students who published their work as first authors in high-profile journals. During his PhD thesis in the DYNAMOP group, Yann studied Hydration water dynamics of the tau protein in its native and amyloid states