42 EMBL December 2007 &cetera Newsletter of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory

New faces at 2007’s Winter Council meeting Octavie Modert, Secretary of State for Culture, Higher Education and Research in Luxembourg, was present at EMBL’s Winter Council meeting in Heidelberg on 20-21 November to mark the official rati- fication of her country as EMBL’s newest member state. During the meeting, Council agreed to the appoint a working group to review the social security benefit situation for EMBL fellows. They also heard that the EC will attend EMBL Council meetings as observers in the future, and there were favourable SAC reviews of EMBL Hamburg, EBI Services and Developmental Biology. page 2

EBI hosts VIPs at official opening of new building The EBI celebrated the official opening of its new East Wing on 23 October with an opening ceremo- ny held in the Conference Centre and tours of the new facilities for VIP guests. Ian Pearson (pictured right), UK Minister of State for Science and Innovation, was one of them, and he addressed the audience about the progress of the EBI since the institute opened in 1995 and its position as the main provider of biological data resources in Europe. page 4

“We try to encourage the children to find their talents” What must it feel like to be a foreign child new to EMBL Heidelberg’s Kindergarten? You don't know a single word of English or German; nobody understands what you’re saying and you don’t have a clue what people are talking about. Luckily there are teachers like Janin Topaloglu, who take care of these lost little poppets with a safe, daily routine. In the latest of our “Behind the Scences” interviews, Janin talks about day-to-day life in the Kindergarten, and how the teachers need great patience and not a little cre- ativity to encourage the children to find where their talents lie. page 5

PETRA-III gets her top on A pattern Staff members from EMBL Hamburg, the German Synchrotron Research Centre (DESY) and a select group of VIPs braved the cold on 26 November to witness the ‘topping-out’ emerges: of the experimental hall of PETRA-III, symposium Hamburg’s new source of brilliant X-ray light. A team from EMBL Hamburg will operate success three beamlines when it opens in 2009. The traditional ‘Richtfest’ welcomed German Research Minister Dr. Annette Schavan and Hamburg’s First Mayor Ole von Beust to the DESY campus, where the new roof was cele- 133 participants from over 40 countries brated with speeches and schnaps. page 4 enjoyed the valuable insights into ‘Patterns in Biology’ offered at the 9th International EMBL PhD Student Symposium on 24 October. Leading sci- Overwhelming What the heck is Monte researchers entists from very diverse fields disclosed response for first systems biology, in new science and the patterns and models that lie behind 2 round of EIPODs 3 anyway? 4 society network any great scientific discovery. page 7 EMBL&cetera • December 2007 • page 2

here was a special guest at EMBL’s Winter to amend EMBL’s Staff Rules and Regulations ceeding according to plan; the EMBL TCouncil meeting in Heidelberg on 20-21 so fellows are now classified as established Interdisciplinary Postdocs (EIPOD) pro- November. Octavie Modert, Secretary of State members of personnel. Currently, EMBL fel- gramme has just offered its first positions (see for Culture, Higher Education and Research in lows have very limited access to social security story, below); and the rectors of the universities Luxembourg, was present to mark the official benefits, and a solution must be found that in Oslo, Helsinki and Umeå signed an agree- ratification of her country as EMBL’s newest ensures equal treatment vis-à-vis social bene- ment to establish the Nordic EMBL and twentieth member state. She gave a speech fits for all EMBL sites, while improving the Partnership for Molecular Medicine. to the assembled delegates about research present situation and complying with the EU’s Delegates also heard that the EC would like developments in Luxembourg and then European Researchers Charter. Council also to have closer interactions with EMBL and accompanied EMBL DG on a tour appointed a working group on terms and con- other intergovernmental research organisa- of the laboratory. dition of employment to review the situation. tions, and as a result will attend EMBL Council The Council delegates managed to finish a They will bring their recommendations to next meetings as observers in the future. year’s summer meeting, after which Council busy meeting in the record time of one day – a With the EU’s Seventh Framework will decide which measures to implement. day, however, that was more than 10 hours Programme (FP7) underway, the EC granting long. Of pressing interest to EMBL pre- and In addition to the financial news, Council authorities have already approved 11 projects, postdocs will be the news that Council agreed delegates heard that the ATC project is pro- three of them coordinated by EMBL scientists, and many more are still pending. Please notify the grants office about any grant applications that you have in preparation or are planning to New faces join 2007’s submit. The Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) reviews of the Hamburg outstation, EBI Services and Heidelberg’s Developmental Winter Council meeting Biology were presented by the SAC chair Paul Nurse. Many of their recommendations have already been implemented: a technical steering group for the PETRA-III project in Hamburg has been appointed, for example, and a new Dean of Graduate Studies will replace Anne Ephrussi early next year. The introduction of the PANDA joint team (led by and ) in EBI Services will deal with databases founded on nucleic acid and protein sequence information in an integrated way. The next SAC reviews will be of EMBL

Photo: Christine Panagiotidis Christine Photo: Monterotondo in February and the Gene Expression Unit in Heidelberg in May. Finally, in a expression of satisfaction at the way the lab has been developing, Council extended Iain’s contract until the end of October 2017. “I’m very grateful for this expression of confidence in my work, and to all Iain Mattaj with visitors Octavie of you for the ongoing support that you give Modert (left) and Josiane Entringer, the Council me and the rest of the EMBL leadership,” he representative for Luxembourg said.

Overwhelming response for first round of EIPODs

ixteen new interdisciplinary postdocs will pilot of the project-proposing procedure, in been involved in some very successful research Sstart work at EMBL in the coming months which group and team leaders were encour- for their PhDs ” thanks to the pleasing response to the first aged to get into twos or threes to come up with More information can be found on the post- round of applications for the EMBL interdisciplinary project ideas and hand them doc pages of the EMBL website. You can also Interdisciplinary Postdocs (EIPOD) pro- in to their Head of Units. 32 projects were pro- contact Katalin ([email protected]) Detlev gramme. posed by teams of faculty from all the EMBL ([email protected]) or Matthias Haury The new programme for postdoctoral fellow- sites and units, of which 24 were selected to be ([email protected]) for more details. ships attracted 124 applicants, of which 30 were advertised. invited for interview. The programme provides Detlev Arendt, EMBL faculty member A very successful annual selection has also internal funding for three years for up to 16 responsible for postdoc issues, was chuffed to been made for the Ministerio de Educación y postdocs per year working across at least two bits with the result. “We couldn’t have wished Ciencia-funded Spanish Postdoc programme. labs on an interdisciplinary project. for anything better,” he said. “The groups and Of 25 good-quality applicants to the initiative As well as being the first round of applica- team leaders were really happy with the many aimed at Spain-based young researchers, 8 tions, this year’s result was also a successful excellent candidates we got, most of which had have been offered a place in a lab at EMBL. EMBL&cetera • December 2007 • page 3

Flex your artistic muscle – and you could win The EMBO Journal cover prize 2008

The EMBO Journal – one of the most-read sci- molecular biology research. Images may be entific journals on molecular biology – has a light or electron micrographs, 3D reconstruc- tradition of publishing beautiful and evocative tions or models of biological specimen or mol- photography and artwork on its front cover. ecules, spectacular artefacts collected in the They’ve just announced their contest for the lab, innovative views of lab equipment, or best cover images for 2008. other images encountered in research activity and which may appeal to molecular biologists. As in the previous years, one winner will be selected from each of two categories: Best The Best Non-Scientific Cover award will be assigned to the most interesting and beautiful Scientific Cover and Best Non-Scientific image made outside the lab. Contestants may Cover. The prize for both winners will be a free submit photos or artistic impressions of one-year print- and online subscription to wildlife, plants or landscapes. Particularly wel- The deadline is 18 January 2008. See both The EMBO Journal and EMBO reports. come will be hand-drawn or computer-gener- www.embo.org/cover_contest08.html for fur- The Scientific Cover prize will be awarded to ated artwork relating to a biological or molec- ther details and more examples of previous the most captivating contribution depicting ular biology topic. covers (in colour!).

But what the heck is systems biology, anyway?

n page 20 of the EMBL Programme 2007- think about biology,” Professor Noble says. At EMBL, we have those data resources, the O2011, it is stated that “The synthesis of... Molecular biologists, in particular, have long computer know-how and the research tech- diverse approaches is systems biology. This worked according to the principles of reduc- niques. We’ve also been supplementing these approach is the natural next step for EMBL to tionism – that things are best understood by with cross-disciplinary approaches, in particu- take and will form the heart of the next five- stripping them down to their smallest compo- lar the EMBL Centres for functional genomics, year Programme”. nents and studying them in isolation. imaging and . Now it’s just a case of putting it all together to under- So that’s what we’ll be doing, then. But what But, as Professor Noble says as he lists his ten stand whole processes and organ function. is systems biology, actually? How does it fit principles of systems biology, “Biological func- “EMBL has gathered much of the expertise into EMBL’s current research, and what does it tionality is multi-level. Transmission of infor- required to take a systems approach over the mean for you? mation isn’t just one-way; there’s downward past ten years,” says DG Iain Mattaj. “Now we causation from all levels. Neither is there a Denis Noble, often mistakenly dubbed the want to combine and extend these efforts for a father of systems biology (he insists that hon- privileged level of causality.” deeper understanding of complex biological our should go to Claude Bernard, who in his So, a full understanding of biology demands phenomena.” 1865 book Introduction à l'étude de la médecine an holistic approach – putting everything back expérimentale championed a systems In early October, EMBL and the EBI pre- together again. In his work in the Oxford sented their activities in systems biology for approach) came to EMBL on 5 November to Cardiac Electrophysiology Group, Professor the first time, with a stand at this year's try to explain it. Noble uses data resources and software along- International Conference on Systems Biology “Something is exploding in systems biology,” side traditional experimentation to recreate in Long Beach, California. Looking at the big- confirmed the Oxford University professor and working models of whole organs, in particular ger picture, expansion into systems biology can cardiac specialist. “The trouble is, no-one real- the heart. But even at a level further down the improve drug development and research into ly knows what it is.” scale, a systems biology approach can be essen- disease, with testing to such organ models pre- The first step in understanding the field is to tial: understanding a by dicting effects on the entire organism, and the undo years of conditioning. “Systems biology analysing the collective behaviour of amino interplay of genetic and environmental factors requires a big paradigm shift in the way we acids, for example. revealing new causes of disease. EMBL&cetera • December 2007 • page 4

Shaken not stirred: a global research cocktail served in Hinxton

he first joint Cold Spring Harbor wide RNAi screens in human cell lines using live of catabolism and analbolism can be gained by TLaboratory/Wellcome Trust Conference timelapse imaging to automatically screened cell integrated the metabolic network with both on Functional Genomics and Systems Biology cultures for cell cycle-related phenotypes. direct and indirect regulatory networks. These was held at the home of EMBL-EBI, the Eileen Furlong, a group leader at EMBL direct and indirect control mechanisms, involv- Wellcome Trust Genome Campus in Hinxton, Heidelberg, followed the binding of Twist, ing the rapid control of enzyme activity or much on 10-13 October. It was the result of 15 years of Tinman, Mef2, and other developmental tran- slower control of enzyme concentration respec- BITS workshops (‘Beyond the Identification of scription factors during the development and tively, selectively regulate catabolism and Transcribed Sequences’) and was organised by differentiation of mesodermal fly cells. The anabolism by coordinating reaction time scales, EBI group leaders Alvis Brazma and Nick specificities and concentrations. Luscombe, alongside Tom Freeman from the timecourse data allowed deconvolution of the Alvis Brazma presented ongoing efforts to University of Edinburgh and Katheleen changes in target sites bound by various fac- build a gene expression atlas to mine combined Gardiner of the University of Colorado. tors, showing that the same transcription fac- tor binds different subsets of genes, in coordi- microarray data sets available in public reposi- It covered many aspects of global and systems nation with changing target gene expression tories. Combining experiments from different biological approaches and functional genomics, array platforms is challenging and relies on a areas which are rapidly evolving and diverging in and cellular status. qualitative assessment of gene expression. unpredictable and exciting directions. In a ses- On the topic of computational approaches, sion about cellular screening, the EBI’s Wolfgang Nick Luscombe talked about metabolic network The next conference is scheduled for 2009. Huber presented the analyses of two genome- regulation in E. coli. Insights into the regulation – Louisa Wright

Monte scientists celebrate launch of ‘neuroscience and society’ initiative

n 12 November a conference in London and the BIOS Centre of the London School of sciences. Despite evidence that advances in this Omarked the launch of the European Economics, was instrumental in setting up and branch of experimentation are having a signif- Neuroscience and Society Network (ENSN), seeking support for this initiative, which is fund- icant impact on the lives of individuals across the first network in Europe serving as multidis- ed by the European Science Foundation. The lab Europe, there has been little formal engage- ment within the European social sciences with ciplinary forum for timely and necessary of Cornelius Gross, who is an advisory expert in the ethical, social and legal implications of engagement with social issues surrounding the the network steering committee, will be involved recent developments in this branch of scientif- neurosciences. in the network. ic experimentation. Branco Weiss fellow Giovanni Frazzetto, with The last twenty years have seen unprece- The ENSN aims to change this through the his double affiliations at EMBL Monterotondo dented progress and innovations in the neuro- development of research strategies, confer- ences, exchange visits and workshops that will bring together leading European neuroscien- tists and social scientists for sustained discus- sions and cross-disciplinary exchanges. The recent conference, entitled ‘Neurosocieties: the rise and impact of the new brain sciences’ was the first event for the net- work. The event went extremely well and host- ed engaged dialogues on public health and the politics of neuroscience, neuroeconomics, con- sciousness, behaviours and the sources of a neurochemical self. Convenors of the network Photo: Marietta Schupp Marietta Photo: and participants in the conference tried to set up the agenda for neuroscience and society research for the next five years. Giovanni and Cornelius, together with their colleagues from BIOS, are very enthusiastic about the outcome of the conference and the Above: Head of EBI Administration Mark Green future of the initiative. EBI spreads its Wing explains the EBI’s new East Wing to visiting The next dates in the programme include a dignitaries at the official opening on 23 October. workshop at Harvard for members of the From left: Robert-Jan Smits of the European Commission; EBI Director Janet Thornton; Mark Green; Iztok Mirosic, Ambassador for the Republic of Slovenia in London; EMBL DG Iain Mattaj; Amanda European network to meet their US colleagues Collis, Head of Tools and Resources, Biomolecular Sciences, Engineering & Biological Systems, and a ‘Neuro-school’ to bring young neurosci- Science & Technology Group of the BBSRC; John Cooper, MD of the Wellcome Trust Genome entists and social scientists together for a week Campus. The day included tours of the new facilities and the opening ceremony held in the Wellcome of interdisciplinary exchange. Trust Conference Centre for the VIP guests and EBI staff. Ian Pearson, the UK Minister of State for Science and Innovation, was also there. “This major boost to the facilities at EBI will strengthen the For further details about these and other institute’s world-leading role in . This is an important area for the UK and Europe. upcoming events, please consult the network Bioinformatics is expanding rapidly and the data and tools it provides is generating innovative new website, www.neurosocieties.eu. discoveries and future business opportunities,” he said during his address. The event was followed by the EBI’s first alumni symposium (see page 10). – Giovanni Frazzetto EMBL&cetera • December 2007 • page 5

PETRA-III gets her top on

n a freezing 26 November, DESY, EMBL a poem and raised several toasts. OHamburg and a select group of VIPs When DESY’s PETRA-III synchrotron radi- braved the cold to witness the “topping-out” of ation facility opens in 2009, a team at EMBL the experimental hall of PETRA-III, Hamburg’s Hamburg will operate three beamlines, of new source of brilliant X-ray light. which two will be dedicated to macromolecu- The traditional ‘Richtfest’ welcomed German lar X-ray crystallography and one to small Research Minister Dr. Annette Schavan and angle X-ray scattering applications of biologi- Hamburg’s First Mayor Ole von Beust to the cal material. DESY campus, where the new roof was celebrat- The next big event in the construction of ed with speeches and schnaps. PETRA-III will be on 15 December, when an As part of the tradition, a ribbon-festooned incredible 8,000 lorries of concrete – that’s one evergreen was raised ceremoniously to the top every three minutes – will dump their load at of the building while journeymen (right) read the site to provide the floor. behindthescenes “We try to encourage the children to find their talents”

magine your mother is Japanese, your father Iis Swedish and you don't know a single word of English or German. Suddenly, you’re in Germany: nobody understands what you’re saying and you don’t have a clue what people are talking about. This is what it must feel like to be a foreign child at EMBL Heidelberg’s Kindergarten.

Luckily there are teachers like Janin Panagiotidis Christine Photo: Topaloglu, who take care of these lost little pop- pets with a safe, daily routine that lets them “The kids are so learn German step by step. “When the kids open-minded about leave the Kindergarten they will speak two, everything new” three or even four languages; it’s unbelievable!” she says. Janin Topaloglu Janin, who grew up near Heidelberg, discov- ered her passion for childcare during summer holidays. “I helped out in an understaffed Day with songs and finger rhymes, and on film the children or take pictures while they kindergarten, and instead for a week I stayed for Thursdays the children get to try out musical draw or play. “It’s a long day, and they can't tell four, because it was so much fun,” she says. She instruments. Anything that makes a noise is their parents everything they did, because they graduated from the Vocational School for Social very popular.” don't remember,” Janin says. “The kids don't Pedagogy in Lampertheim, Hessen, and later The teachers have established a daily routine even realise the camera is there anymore, and completed her education as a licensed educator the parents can actually see that their children in Schwetzingen. “Most kindergartens are with matching songs for every event to help orientate the children. “They know exactly are enjoying themselves. Sometimes the chil- catholic here, so it was hard for me to find a job, dren have the funniest conversations.” as I’m not baptised,” she explains. “In EMBL when they have to wash their hands before a religions don't play a role, as people from many meal or go to sleep after lunch, but they also Her colleagues at the Kindergarten take care different countries come together.” know when it’s time to play,” explains Janin. of her own four-year-old in another group. “I “The routine helps them with self-confidence have the perfect job. I can have a career and Seventy children have to be watched at the and gives them a little independence.” bring my son to work,” she says. Is there any- same time, so the Head, Eva Puhm-van Vugt, thing she doesn’t like? “During the winter, has divided her protégés into six groups The life of a kindergarten teacher demands patience and a lot of creativity. “In the afternoon when the children are sick and cranky, it's according to their age. Two of the 25 teachers sometimes hard,” she says. Nonetheless, she’s are responsible for one group, so ten kids aged the children are full of energy and need lots of exercise in our garden. But we also want them to always amazed what she can learn from them. from 18 months to three years old enjoy the “These kids don't have prejudices like we have. absolute attention of Janin, colleague Ines learn how to concentrate, so we have to create activities to catch their attention,” she says. They’re so honest and open-minded about Steinhauser and trainee Victoria Derksen in everything new.” – Sabrina Grass the Green Group. The colours makes it easy for The children’s art is displayed in the kinder- the children to know where they belong. garten, or they take it home with them. “That Eva Puhm-van Vugt, Head of the EMBL “Green is the colour for hope,” says Janin. way they realise that their work is acknowl- Kindergarten, is leaving at the end of this “We try to encourage the children to find their edged. That’s better motivation than if it’s lost year after seven years. Best of luck and talents and foster them. Every morning we in a drawer.” good wishes to Eva for the future. have different activities; Wednesday is English The teachers also came up with the idea to EMBL&cetera • December 2007 • page 6

EMBL scientists unite... to take over Nature

MBL researchers have been busy doing bilities to study other individual proteins in Egreat science lately – so much so that the their native contexts within a cell.” first couple of issues of Nature in December The new insights into the cadherin system, are just full of EMBL stuff. too, broaden the understanding of the struc- Firstly, Achilleas Frangakis’s group, using tural aspects of cell adhesion and shed light on cryo-electron tomography, has revealed visu- other crucial processes such as cell prolifera- ally distinguishable proteins in their natural tion. position – and interacting – inside human In another breakthrough, Thomas Surrey cells for the first time. and Damian Brunner’s groups, also at EMBL With their unprecedented, finely-detailed Heidelberg, have developed the first method 3D imaging of human skin tissue, they’ve to allow the simultaneous study of multiple identified a sophisticated, Velcro-like arrange- plus-end tracking molecules, +TIPs, in a test ment of cadherin proteins anchored in the tube. membranes of skin cells, bringing them together, interlinking them tightly and giving With the help of the Institute for Atomic skin the strength to withstand physical stress. and Molecular Physics (AMOLF) in the Netherlands, the researchers have tackled the In cryo-electron tomography, sections of a long-standing puzzle of how plus-end tracking cell instantly frozen in its natural state are observed with an electron microscope with- proteins – those which interact specifically out the usual treatment with chemicals or with the dynamic growing ends of micro- metal coating which can disturb its native tubules to govern the spatial organisation of a conditions. Images are taken from different cell – recognise their destinations. “They act as a plus-end label so that other proteins know angles and then assembled into a 3D repre- From top: PhD sentation. where to bind to regulate the filament's stabil- symposium ity,” says Thomas. “For years it has been speakers “With this we could directly see the interac- impossible to reconstitute this behaviour in a Laurent- tion between two cadherins,” says Ashraf Al- Bernard Fay, Amoudi, who carried out the work. “They test tube. Our new method has revealed which Janet Thornton form rigid grids by binding twice: once to a proteins need to be present for plus-end track- and Jules molecule from the juxtaposed cell, and once to ing and what the underlying mechanisms are.” Hoffmann its next-door neighbour. The system works a In developing the new method they used bit like Velcro.” three end-tracking proteins from yeast cells. “This is a real breakthrough that opens up The proteins were labelled with fluorescence, new perspectives for exploring the inside of revealing that one was able to recognise the cells,” says Achilleas. “The technical advances specific structure of the growing microtubule achieved in cryo-electron tomography of tip, bind to it and act as a loading platform for frozen, hydrated sections open up new possi- the other two. Photos: Christine Panagiotidis

Sporting news: EMBL team victorious in cross-institute friendly

n 12 November a football match between Solon Jerome & Oddone Anna Photos: Odowntown Heidelberg’s German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and EMBL kicked off despite the freezing conditions. The first half was initially characterised by cautious play on both sides. However, the Above: in the thick of game developed pace quickly. The DKFZ the nail-biting action; played a passing game, moving slowly up the right, the opposing pitch taking control of the centre of the field. teams unite for a beer But they were often left exposed to fast coun- terattacks from the EMBL team. on valiantly, looking for an equaliser. EMBL football club plays on Mondays in At the 30 minute mark, EMBL’s patience However, their fight was in vain, as in the Boxberg. Interested players (male or female) 62nd minute the EMBL midfield broke paid off as the ball drifted towards the 18 should contact Meikel ([email protected]) through the DKFZ defense slotting a second yard box. An EMBL striker chipped it to an or Guillaume ([email protected]). Any for- magnificent goal past the keeper. This unmarked team-mate who struck a searing mer players now gainfully employed in a turned out to be the decider, and the pace of major company could consider providing a volley, from just inside the box, through a sea the game dropped off until the final whistle. of DKFZ defenders. Afterwards, despite the fatigue – and the 2-0 sponsorship deal! In the second half, the DKFZ team fought thrashing – everyone joined in for a beer. – Guillaume Valentin & Niall Haslam EMBL&cetera • December 2007 • page 7

PhD students ask “What came first: the pattern or the egg?”

f there is a single highly-coveted gift this of biological organisation, from molecules to The winner of the second EMBO/EMBL IChristmas, it will be without any doubt a ecosystems. We learned from Janet Thornton Science Writing Prize, Chiara Valentina zebra toy. 133 participants from over 40 coun- (EBI) how structural patterns in proteins can Segre, from the European Institute of tries concurred in declaring our black-and- be used to determine their function; Jules A. Oncology in Milan, ended the formal part of white symposium mascot the best ever. Hoffmann (CNRS) guided us through the the symposium by reading her winning entry world of Toll-like receptors and their defensive But the 9th International EMBL PhD in front of the audience. The story, “Mandarin functions; and former EMBL group leader and Student Symposium was not only a success in orange juice”, which was awarded with €1000 Nobel Laureate Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard terms of merchandising. Starting in and a year’s subscription to EMBO Reports, (MPI of Developmental Biology) presented a Heidelberg on the evening of 24 October, can be found at www.embo.org/scisoc/ writ- whole set of mutants with different pigmenta- ‘Patterns in Biology’ offered, as promised, ing_prize.html together with details for next tion patterns in zebra-fish. valuable insights into the ‘organisation of life year’s competition. in space and time’. For three and a half days Interaction between lecturers and partici- From then on all that was left was to party, biologists met chemists, physicians sat with pants was a primary goal of the symposium. and the organisers joined in celebrating a To encourage this, a panel discussion explor- physicists, and shared outstanding research: symposium that could hardly have been ing the many facets of scientific publication 18 leading scientists from very diverse fields smoother and more rewarding for us. Now we and reviewing was conducted. PhD students disclosed the patterns and models that lie look forward to the next symposium, organ- also had their space: two short-talks sessions behind any great scientific discovery. ised by this year’s new PhD students. They were organised, in which the participants pre- will also receive the generous support of the Faithful to the spirit of the EMBL PhD stu- sented studies ranging from the origin of life dent symposia, the sessions were characterised to mathematical models of cancer prolifera- Marie Curie Actions grant, EMBO, EMBL, by their interdisciplinarity. The exploration of tion. Gesine Pufal from Victoria University of group leaders and rest of people without new cutting-edge computational tools to Wellington won the short-talk prize for her whom this and previous editions of the sym- detect and analyse patterns was combined study on the dispersion of alpine cushion posium would not have been possible. with examples of these patterns at every level plants in New Zealand. – The Organising Committee science&society The science and the fiction Photos: Christine Panagiotidis Christine Photos: ill we soon have chips implanted in our ence's undoubtedly most controversial session, Wbrain to help us remember our spouse’s “Treatment and Enhancement”. Mavilio, a birthday? The 8th annual EMBO/EMBL worldwide gene therapy pioneer, has already Science and Society conference on 2-3 used stem cells to cure inherited diseases. “I am November, ‘The Future of Our Species’, gave a personally in favour of genetic stem cell thera- glimpse into the future of humankind. py,” he said. “In a hundred years, people will Life scientists like to use art to illustrate their wonder why we didn’t get rid of cancer, even presentations, but they usually go for radiant though we had the means to do so.” Renaissance beauties like Botticelli's Venus or Sarah Chan from the University of Cranach's Adam and Eve. This time, much Manchester took the same line and recom- bleaker figures populated the screen in EMBL's mended the engagement of enhancement tech- Large Operon – like Pieter Brueghel's armies of nologies. Why not even have brain chips or skeletons from his 1562 painting The Triumph implants to improve our memory? This view of Death. Canadian microbiologist Julian raised criticism, particularly among the ethi- Davies used this to get the audience in the cists in the audience, which this year consisted mood for his rather gloomy perspective of the of a colourful mixture of biologists, doctors, global problem of antibiotic resistance. At the philosophers, journalists and even geogra- same time, the outbreak of infectious disease on phers. There’s a huge difference between a a global scale is only a matter of time, argued standard medical cure and human enhance- Dutch virologist Albert Osterhaus. It may be ment, when new technologies are literally just like the Spanish Flu in 1918 that killed incorporated into our bodies, argued Eva- some 50 million people – but it may also come Marie Engels, professor of ethics at the in the guise of a corona virus like SARS that University of Tübingen. cost the lives of 800 people. Above all, one should be aware that the goals The two-day conference, which gathered behind all these new developments have not around 250 guests from near and far, also gave actually changed much in the history of some more optimistic glimpses into our species' humankind, added Canadian anthropologist Jerome Barkow. We are still mainly interested From top: the packed Operon; speakers future. Our fate lays principally in our hands, Elaine Dzeirzak and Hans-Georg Kräusslich; believes Fulvio Mavilio from the university of in the same old things: getting healthier, look- Julian Davies, Albert Osterhaus and Peter Modena, one of the key speakers in the confer- ing better and being slimmer. – Yvonne Kaul Fonkwo on the panel EMBL&cetera • December 2007 • page 8

First port-of-call for SET-Routes ambassadors Cute Corner he SET-Routes university ambassador pro- make such a trip. Goga and Stefan Samardzic, a Photos: Christine Panagiotidis Christine Photos: Tgramme got off to a flying start in October law student at the University of Novi Sad, with its first visit – and the destination was organised an afternoon-long conference there, Serbia. ‘How to fund and manage your career in SET’, Gordana (Goga) Apic, who is affiliated to the where the ambassadors addressed an eager Russell group at EMBL Heidelberg and crowd of around 200 about life in science. Chairman of the Board of Camcellnet Ltd, a Other speakers at the conference, both local Cambridge-based biotechnology company, and and from further afield, talked about such top- Eleanor Hayes, editor of the EIROforum’s ics as the challenges faced by Balkan women in EMBL-based journal Science in School, signed up science and gender analysis at universities in as ambassadors with the SET-Routes project last Serbia. year. A FP7-funded collaboration between “This was such a big event for the university EMBL, CERN and EMBO, SET-Routes aims to that the press and even TV companies came encourage girls and young women to pursue a along,” says Goga. “It was really rewarding; career in Science, Engineering and Technology there were so many interesting questions. They Aaah! EMBL Heidelberg was overrun (SET). In the Ambassador Programme, young have so little money for science and equipment with roving reporters in the shape of female graduates visit schools across Europe, and in Serbia, but many students still seemed inter- adorable Russian eight-year-olds Maria established women scientists go into universities, ested in pursuing science as a career.” Golea, Alice Rogausch, Alexander Rogausch, Kirill Himin and Anna to share their experiences of working in science. “I felt truly honoured to be there,” says Hildebrandt on 30 October. The kids’ On 20 October, Goga and Eleanor were the Eleanor. “Students, research scientists and first SET-Routes university ambassadors to other, more experienced people had come from all over Serbia to hear us talk.” There have been two other university ambassador trips since this inaugural SET- Routes event. Programme Administrator Philipp Gebhardt and three EMBL alumni ambassadors organised a conference at the University College Cork, ‘Showcasing Careers in Science: the lab and beyond’ on 14 November. On 26 November, SET-Routes ambassador Prof. Dr. Annemarie Frischauf, vice-chair of EMBL Council, ran a session at visit was thanks to local TV channel the University of Salzburg. Offenes Kanal Ludwigshafen, which reg- If you’d like to know more about SET- ularly organises “Reporter Kids” work- shops for youngsters. As a final test, the Goga spreads the word Routes, contact Philipp at [email protected] or visit www.set-routes.org/. particpants have to conduct interviews

A one-stop-shop for everything you need

MBL predocs have come up with a great Evangelia and Claudia also plan for the site Eidea – an interactive online “forum” to to become a forum for frequently asked ques- answer all the needs of students and other tions and a ‘marketplace’ where leavers and EMBL staff across all sites. newcomers can find out about cars, furniture and flats for sale. “There’ll be a internal inter- “We were originally thinking about the sur- face where people can log in and post messages, vival guide for newcomers that needs updating information, questions and things for sale. Each every year, and how great it would be to have outstation will have its own needs, so the new- something that can be updated constantly by comers’ information, for example, will be tai- and put together a news item. Unit secre- the community,” explains Evangelia Petsalaki lored to each site,” explains Evangelia. tary Tatiana Golea, mother of Maria of the Russell group in EMBL Heidelberg, who (above middle), suggested EMBL as a “Initially, it will be of most use to new and developed the idea with the help of Claudia good place to cover in their reportage. existing predocs, but we hope that we can Chica of the Gibson team. They were original- expand it to be of interest to everyone. It will The kids stayed half a day and inter- ly inspired by Konrad Förstner of the Bork also be open to predocs who have left EMBL, viewed EMBL scientists including Iryna group giving a lecture on wikis last year. “With so it will be a great way of keeping touch with Charapitsa (middle picture), Vadim wiki sites, the user community itself provides alumni as well as outstation people,” she adds. Sidorovitch and Anthony Millet about the information and keeps it up-to-date.” why they became scientists and why their The system is currently being designed and work is important. In addition to the survival guide, there’ll be developed by Francesco Sottile from OIPA, information about applying for funding, job and it is expected to go live early next year. “The kids were absolutely fascinated by opportunities, TACs, organising symposia, and Look out for e-mails about the launch or con- the complicated microscopes and all the so on; everything a predoc might need, in fact, tact Evangelia ([email protected]) or Claudia mysterious machines,” says Tatiana. both socially and for their careers. ([email protected]) with any ideas or suggestions. EMBL&cetera • December 2007 • page 9

EMBL’s structural biologists strengthen outstation links

erkel and Sarkozy may be finding it diffi- term. Instruments developed at Grenoble will be experiments per year. Common data manage- Mcult to see eye-to-eye these days, but for used at Hamburg, one of these being the MD2 ment systems and remote interfaces would ben- EMBL’s German and French outstations, inter- Diffractometer that will be customised accord- efit the user community and optimise the devel- national relations couldn’t be better. ing to the requirements of PETRA-III. In addi- opment and support efforts. A three-way collab- So much so, in fact, that when 18 members of tion, using the expertise gained with the devel- oration between Grenoble, Hamburg and the Hamburg outstation joined Grenoble for the opment of the SC3 sample changer and the Heidelberg is proposed to develop a common 4th EMBL Bilateral Meeting on 21-22 October, Hamburg transfer robotics, a future solution for laboratory information management system Florent Cipriani of the Grenoble instrumenta- sample handling will be developed. Crystal cen- (LIMS) for high-throughput crystallisation. A tion group was invited to join the Executive tring software packages XREC and C3D have new method developed at Hamburg for identify- Committee of the EMBL@PETRA-III project at reached a good level of maturity, and creating a ing protein crystals using a fluorescent dye will EMBL Hamburg. common annotated crystal image database and be evaluated, and new projects aimed at improv- In mind of the new PETRA-III beamlines at developing comparison tools could improve the ing the diffraction quality of crystals already Hamburg, the two days of presentations and dis- success rate even further. Hamburg SAXS grown were presented, as well as preliminary cussions focused on MX beamline instrumenta- experts will also advise Grenoble on the con- experiments for crystal shape determination by tion, followed by visits to the jointly-operated struction of the new ESRF/EMBL SAXS beam- x-ray tomography. Updates on ISpyB EMBL-ESRF beamline, all of which was line dedicated to biological samples. (MRC/ESRF-BM14) and AutoRickshaw, impor- extremely useful for the PETRA-III team. The high-throughput crystallisation facilities tant software packages for data storage, project Plans were established to start concrete collab- at both outstations serve a large community of tracking and data processing, were provided. orations between the outstations in the short users and perform hundreds of thousands of – The Organising Committee

Heidelberg’s idea of a great Saturday night out Keeping those

hen Gene Expression head Jan “We finished the last experiment at five to ideas flowing WEllenberg and his family decided to two in the morning, but only because the drop by at the EMBL stand at Heidelberg’s DKFZ people closed the doors,” says Yvonne f flow cytometry’s your game, be sure first “Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften” on 10 Kaul, OIPA administrator, who was one of Ito check out the great-looking and November, they didn’t expect to be trapped the EMBL volunteers who bravely manned easy-to-use new website created by there until midnight. the stand. “Several hundreds of people visit- EMBL Heidelberg’s Flow Cytometry core ed; I can’t say exactly how many.” facility. The opening hours were from 6pm until 2am, but the visitors had already stormed the It was the latest in the region’s series of cul- As well as general information about stand at the DKFZ half an hour before, not tural events to get people out and about on a the facility, its services and equipment, even letting the attendants finish setting up. Saturday night; other “Long Nights” include the site boasts an extensive Education the Lange Nacht der Museen (museums) and and Tutorials section. This includes sim- While Jan was stuck at the posters answer- the Lange Nacht des Einkaufens (shops). ple step-by-step guidelines and even ing questions and explaining the function of Over 23,000 tickets were sold. video tutorials for users of the flow DNA, amino acids and the transcription cytometry equipment and software, process over and over again, there were sever- including dummies’ guides to alignment, al activities for visitors to the “Long Night of laser safety and so on. Sciences” to get their teeth into. Isolating the “The site aims to be a content rich DNA from bananas was one; teens, adults, resource for staff at EMBL and else- children and even grandparents got stuck in where,” says Andy Riddell, head of the to pureeing the fruit, taking away their own FCCF, who developed the website with Eppendorf tubes of visible DNA as souvenirs. the help of his flow cytometrist Alexis Another activity was the EBI’s DeCode, Perez Gonzalez. They plan that the web- which translates people’s names into DNA site will encourage the expansion of a code. This supplies the pattern for colourful Europe-wide network to facilitate the bead bracelets where each bead correspond- sharing of flow cytometry equipment and ed to one of the four DNA nucleotides. expertise. Another challenge was to fold coloured paper Andy says there’s a couple of things Jan, Lena Raditsch and Silke into an origami DNA double helix. Schumacher deal with the rush EMBL staff, alumni and core facility users can do to help with the develop- ment of the site. “First, please send in your protocols,” he says. “We’re trying to from the Staff Association by Catherine Floyd compile an exhaustive archive. “Secondly, if you’re in flow cytometry, Start dusting off your kilts again in time for The EMBL Staff Association would like to  please register on the site and join the the 2008 Burns Night on 16 February. wish all EMBL staff, pensioners and alumni a club!” wonderful Christmas season. Looking for-  Keep up-to-date with the SA website: Check out the site at http://fccfweb. www.embl-heidelberg.de/~staff/ (and ward to seeing you all at the upcoming events embl-heidelberg.de/fccfweb/. www.embl-heidelberg.de/~staff/pensioners/). in 2008! EMBL&cetera • December 2007 • page 10 Alumni facts... After Germany, the second largest body of News from the Alumni Association www.embl.org/aboutus/alumni/ EMBL's 4,019 alumni comes from the UK (499) and reside there Winners of the first John Kendrew Young Scientist Award (290)

he EMBL Alumni Association Board is Giovanni Frazzetto was selected for his munication. Both will receive their awards Tdelighted to announce the winners of inspirational and creative achievements: and present a public lecture describing their the inaugural John Kendrew Young Scientist incorporating societal needs in his research work on EMBL Heidelberg’s lab day on 10 Award. The extremely high standard of as a “Society in Science” Branco Weiss fellow June 2008. at the BIOS Centre (London School of applications made the task of selecting a sin- More information on the candidates can Economics and Political Sciences); establish- gle winner at the Alumni Association Board be found in the EMBL Alumni Association ing the European Neuroscience and Society meeting on 23 October extremely difficult. Network (ENSN); and creating a science-art Members’ Directory at www.embl.org/ After careful consideration, the Board unan- exhibition in neuroscience. aboutus/alumni/members_directory.html. imously decided to select joint winners. There are also photos at www.embl.org/ Antonio and Giovanni were both former aboutus/alumni/news/oct07-3.html. We Antonio Giraldez was selected for his PhD students of the EMBL International would like to congratulate both winners, as major contributions to science in studying PhD Programme, and the Board recognises microRNAs, both as a postdoctoral fellow their remarkable performances since leaving well as the other applicants who made our and as an Assistant Professor at Yale EMBL as well as their complementary selection task so difficult! University. achievements in research and science com- – Angus Lamond

Alumni Day at the EBI EBI opportunities

fter the ceremony to mark the opening of Schupp Marietta Photo: for alumni EMBL alumnus Athe new site extension on 24 October Professor , (see page 4), the EBI hosted an on-campus Director of the he EBI holds an unrivalled collec- symposium for all EMBL alumni and EBI Computational Biology Ttion of freely available data staff. The event attracted 116 participants and Centre in New York resources for life scientists. You can do was a great opportunity to meet friends and an integrated search of the EBI’s main enjoy an excellent programme of talks by the data resources using the EBI’s search EBI’s directors, scientific staff and alumni. engine, EB-eye, at www.ebi.ac.uk or EBI Associate Director Graham Cameron from any page of the EBI website. illustrated the bioinformatics contribution The EBI’s user-training courses are made by the EBI over the last 25 years with available to all EMBL alumni. It coordi- material from his personal archive of photo- nates both a hands-on programme at its graphs and journal extracts. His humorous Hinxton site (www.ebi.ac.uk/training/ account chronicled the scientific and struc- handson) and a bioinformatics road- format online career development resource. tural development and achievements of the show in collaboration with its partners This will be available to EMBL staff and EBI, referring to key personalities and the from the FELICS Integrated alumni by the second half of 2008, and will political and scientific hurdles they faced. Infrastructures Initiative offer a major new resource for career devel- (www.ebi.ac.uk/training/roadshow/). EBI Director Janet Thornton complement- opment in Europe. He also invited all alumni Both programmes are designed to help ed this with an account of the EBI’s mission, to consider nominating themselves or others experimental biologists make the most services and goals, inviting alumni not only to stand for the Board elections in September of Europe’s main biological data to use these resources, but also to raise 2008. In particular, he encouraged nomina- resources. awareness among their national funding tions from female candidates and alumni The EBI also hosts an EU-funded bodies that their support will be essential in from the EMBL outstations, to maintain a Marie Curie training fellowship scheme building a stable bioinformatics infrastruc- representative balance of gender and EMBL (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/training/ ture for Europe – a point strongly endorsed units on the Board. by EMBL’s DG Iain Mattaj. MarieCurie/), with which early-stage The event was concluded with a discus- researchers can visit the EBI for 3-6 EBI faculty Ewan Birney and Nicolas Le sion, chaired by the UK Local Chapter head months to pursue a bioinformatics proj- Novère presented their research areas togeth- Annalisa Pastore (Group Leader, National ect under the supervision of an EBI er with former EBI staff Chris Sander, Des Institute of Medical Research, London), dur- group or team leader. Higgins, Anton Enright, Liisa Holm and Tom ing which Janet and Graham invited EMBL's – Cath Brooksbank Flores, all of which reflected the cutting-edge alumni to use the EBI for regular meetings in science carried out at the EBI and continued conjunction with EBI conferences and user- by its alumni. training courses in the future. This was wel- Alumni Association chair Angus Lamond comed by all participants. We want to hear from you! Tell us about outlined the role of the Association in sup- The Alumni Association would like to your personal or scientific achieve- porting EMBL alumni and staff through its thank the EBI for hosting this special event, ments, an interesting event in which you careers services, awards and local chapters, all attendees for their participation and Cath are involved or give us feedback on amongst other things. In particular, he Brooksbank and her team for making it such alumni matters at [email protected]. referred to its most recent initiative, a wiki- a success! – Mehrnoosh Rayner EMBL&cetera • December 2007 • page 11 newsinbrief

 Free courses in the EMBL Non-Scientific sequences. These tools can provide valuable and cultural aspects into their scientific Training and Development Programme for insights into potential structure/function research. For more details or to apply, visit the new year include Excel, Access, relationships that may provide a basis for www.society-in-science.ethz.ch. The dead- Powerpoint and Photoshop courses; novel experiments. Contact Aidan Budd line for applications for the 2008 fellowship Presentation skills (one-to-one and group ([email protected]) or Toby Gibson is 1 February. sessions); How to have a career after EMBL; ([email protected]) for more information.  On 22 November Anne Baly, the Minister- Effective Team Leader; Strategic Thinking;  The EMBL International PhD Programme Counsellor of the Australian Department of Negotiation Skills; and Introduction to is delighted to add the University of Zagreb, Science, Education and Training and the organising meetings, events and confer- Croatia, to its list of distinguished partner highest ranking official in Europe, visited ences. Visit the website at www.embl.org/ universities. EMBL to establish contact between the staffonly/personnel/training_dev/index. Australian government and the institute. In German council delegate Eckhart Curtius html or e-mail [email protected] for more details.  another important visit, Sir Michael Arthur, and EMBL DG Iain Mattaj joined a tour of the newly appointed ambassador of the UK  Work has begun on two more new build- the ATC building site on 25 October, during in Germany came to his inaugural visit to ings for EMBL Heidelberg. The first will be which they trod future corridors and stair- EMBL on 19 November. a wooden forest hut to the immediate left of cases for the first time and saw for them- the Kinderhaus, where the children will selves how the work was progressing learn about nature. It will be completed by (below). spring next year. The second is the new one- storey NMR building, which will cover  If you’re interested in Science and Society, A recipe for success 225m2 on the hill behind the existing build- why not apply for a Branco Weiss Fellowship ing and will house the old NMR machine from the Swiss Federal Institute of Take a kilo of nuts, five kilos of bananas and a brand new one, as well as offices for Technology (ETH), aimed at life science and a theme park, and what have you got? the new NMR group of Teresa Carlomagno. researchers who want to incorporate social A sure-fire way to get kids excited about “We’re working closely alongside the local science. Photo: Marietta Schupp Marietta Photo: environmental protection office,” explains On 11-13 October, EMBL’s European Estate Manger Rainer Menzel. “We’re only Learning Laboratory for the Life Sciences cutting tall trees that would anyway be a (ELLS) participated in Germany’s biggest danger in storms, and for every one that we science festival, Science Days 2007. cut down, one or more saplings are planted Twenty thousand visitors flocked to the nearby.” The NMR bulding is expected to be event at the Europapark in Rust, near finished by June 2008. Freiburg. With the help of six motivated pupils  Practical Bioinformatics Course: from the Bertha-von-Suttner school in Exploring Modular Protein Architecture, 30 Ettlingen, ELLS ran a variety of hands-on January to 1 February, EMBL Heidelberg. activities about DNA and protein, The course is open to all EMBL researchers designed by the EBI, the Sanger Institute and will introduce experimental scientists to and EMBL. Hoards of young visitors computational tools that help identify archi- jumped at the chance to be like real scien- tecture modules (domains, motifs, disor- tists, extracting DNA from bananas or dered regions) in eukaryotic protein protein from nuts. Over 100 other stands from universi- ties, schools, research institutes, compa- awards&honours nies and authorities offered insights into other questions such as how shampoo is Maïwen Caudron, a former member of Eric of whom are in the Gavin group and were the made and what brainwaves look like, with Karsenti’s lab at EMBL Heidelberg and still a only Sebastians at EMBL until the current the programme covering chemistry, geol- visitor there, has received the PhD student intake – received prizes on the ogy, technology, medicine and computer L’Oréal/UNESCO Germany and Christiane same day. PhD student Sebastian Kühner was science as well as biology. – Sabrina Grass Nüsslein-Volhard Foundation prize, “For awarded a new prize for best diploma thesis from the German Society of Biochemistry and Women in Science”. The prize, awarded for the Ex-EMBL PhD student and new ELLS first time in Germany to three postdocs, pro- Molecular Biology for his work on ATP- recruit Philipp Gebhardt helps visitors vides support for excellent young female sci- induced myosin unbinding of actin. On the extract DNA entists with children, and helps them juggle same day, 26 October, postdoc Sebastian family obligations and a successful career. Charbonnier travelled to Strasbourg to receive Maïwen, who now works at the Genome the Université Louis Pasteur’s “Prix Jean Organisation and Function Group, DKFZ & Kepler” for his PhD thesis, “Structural and kinetic interaction study between the E6 onco- Bioquant, Heidelberg investigating the organi- protein from human papillomaviruses and zation of chromatin during cell differentiation PDZ domains”, which he completed at the was awarded her prize at a ceremony on 25 École supérieure de biotechnologie de September in Bonn. Strasbourg (ESBS) in the Oncoproteins group Spooky coincidence alert! Two of EMBL’s of the CNRS/UMR7175 under the supervision Sebastians, Kühner and Charbonnier – both of Dr. Gilles Travé. people@EMBL events@EMBL

New EMBL Grenoble group leader Imre Berger was born in Budapest Tuesday, 18 December EMBL Heidelberg and grew up in Germany. After studying biochemistry at Hannover External Speaker: Pre- and Post-transcrip- and at MIT in Cambridge, USA, he did his PhD and a postdoc in tional gene regulation in Drosophila – a com- molecular biology and X-ray crystallography at MIT. He then joined parative genomics approach. Alexander Stark, ETH Zürich’s Institute of Molecular Biology and (IMB), Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard/CSAIL becoming group leader there in 2005 and developing the award-win- External Speaker: Genome-wide analysis of ning MultiBac technology for multiprotein complex production. His structural variation in humans using novel group will develop further technologies in multiprotein complex high-throughput approaches. Jan Korbel, Yale structure research to study the mechanisms of human transcription initiation and gene regulation. External Speaker: The role of nuclear mechanics and nuclear-cytoskeletal coupling New group leader in NMR spectroscopy Teresa Carlomagno was born in human diseases. Jan Lammerding, in Italy and studied chemistry at the University of Naples Federico II. She Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard obtained her PhD there in 1996, after which she spent two and a half Wednesday, 19 December EMBL Heidelberg years as a postdoc in Christian Griesinger’s lab at Frankfurt University. External Speaker: Development of new tools After working as a research assistant at the Scripps Research Institute, and approaches for the analysis of GTPase California, she became a group leader at the MPI for Biophysical controlled molecular machines. Kirill Chemistry, Göttingen, in 2002. Her group at EMBL Heidelberg will Alexandrov, MPI for Molecular Physiology, investigate the structural basis of intermolecular interactions and RNA Dortmund folding by NMR spectroscopy in solution, focussing on RNA processing complexes and mechanisms of anticancer drugs activity. External Speaker: Developing microfluidic tools for structural biology. Andrew May, Maja Koehn is the new group leader in the Gene Expression unit at Fluidigm Corporation, San Francisco, CA EMBL Heidelberg. Maja grew up in Kiel, Germany, where she studied External Speaker: Protein structure and chemistry at Christiana Albertina University. She completed her PhD dynamics at the single molecule level. Marcus in Herbert Waldmann’s group at the Max Planck Institute for Jäger, University of California at Los Angeles Molecular Physiology in Dortmund and was a postdoc in Gregory Thursday, 10 January EMBL Heidelberg Verdine’s lab at Harvard University. Her group will work on chemical External Speaker: Intra-axonal patterning concepts and tools to study phosphatases, particularly those involved and its role in neural network formation. in cancer. Their focus will be on concepts that use nature as a guide for Yasushi Hiromi, GUAS, Sokendai effective molecule design while improving drug-like compound prop- erties. Tuesday, 15 January EMBL Heidelberg External Speaker: Switching muscle fibre New EMBL Grenoble team leader Christiane Schaffitzel will be study- type in response to Hedgehog in the ing the structure and function of ribosomal complexes in protein nas- zebrafish embryo. Philip Ingham, Institute of cent chain folding, targeting and translocation. Her group will charac- Molecular and Cell Biology, Singapore terise large multiprotein assemblies involved in gene expression bio- Wednesday, 16 January EMBL Heidelberg chemically and by cryo-EM. Born in Tübingen, Germany, Christiane External Speaker: Automated Microtubule studied biochemistry at Leibniz University and the Medical School, Detection. Christian Tischer, Institute for both in Hannover, and completed her PhD at the University of Zürich. Atomic and Molecular Physics, Amsterdam Since 2001 she has worked as postdoc at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biophysics, ETH Zürich, and in 2006 became team leader 17–18 January EMBL Heidelberg there. Conference: Physical Biology Circle Meeting 28–31 January EMBL-EBI Hinxton Course: Transcriptomics Web designer Manuela Borchert, who is joining the EMBL web team in Heidelberg, is from near Göttingen. She studied communication and design at the University of 31 Jan–1 Feb EMBL Hamburg Applied Sciences, Dortmund, and after graduating in 2002 she worked in advertis- Heads of Units / Senior Scientists Meeting ing agencies as a graphic designer, focussing on web design. Saturday, 16 February EMBL Heidelberg Burns Night New Budget Officer Aurélie Détante is from Toulouse, where she studied Finance. Thursday, 28 February EMBL Heidelberg She completed several internships during her studies, the latest of which was a 6- EMBL Distinguished Visitor Lecture: From month stay at international company (EADS) in Munich from March to September Worms to Mammals: Genes and Cells that 2007. At EMBL she joins the world of work for the first time! Control the Rate of Aging. Cynthia Kenyon, Dept. of Biochemistry & Biophysics, University of California, San Francisco, San Accounts Officer Nina Croney is from near Manchester and studied Modern Francisco CA Languages and Marketing Studies at Salford University, during which she completed work placements in Berlin, Toulouse and Paris. Before EMBL she worked in treasury For more details about these events and and finance roles at AstraZeneca and Middlesbrough company Huntsman Tioxide. more, visit www.embl.org/events

EMBL&cetera 42, December 2007. EMBL&cetera is published by EMBL’s Office of Information and Public Affairs, Meyerhofstrasse 1, D-69117 Heidelberg, e-mail: [email protected]. Online version available at www.embl.org/newsletter. Editor: Vienna Leigh. Contributors: Lena Raditsch, Silke Schumacher, Anna- Lynn Wegener, Yvonne Kaul, Sabrina Grass, Louisa Wright, Catherine Floyd, Milanka Stojkovic, Aidan Budd. Photographic support: EMBL Photolab. Printed by ColorDruckLeimen.