News from the Institute

For his poster "A high resolution cryo-EM structure of the Mrp antiporter from Bacillus pseudofirmus offers insights into ion transfer pathways" the IBC2 PhD student Anton Altmeyer received the FEBS Letters Poster Award at the European Bioenergetics Conference 2022 which took place from the 20th to the 25th of August in Aix-en-Provence, France.

IBC2 director Ivan Đikić is one of the five new members of EMBO Council that were elected at the Council meeting in Heidelberg on 24 and 25 May 2022. Đikić will join the Council in 2023. The EMBO Council, composed of 15 members, is the governing body of EMBO and as such responsible for developing and guiding the future directions of the organization.

The IBC2 postdoctoral researchers Adriana Covarrubias and Alexis González both received a poster prize at the EMBO workshop “Integrating the molecular, mechanistic and physiological diversity of autophagy” which took place from 27 June until 01 July in Eger, Hungary.

The IBC2 chemical screening unit under the lead of Alexandra Stolz contributed to a study now published in Science. In the study, researchers from Karolinska Institutet and colleagues improved the function of a protein called OGG1, an enzyme that repairs oxidative DNA damage, implicated in ageing and diseases such as Alzheimer’s, cancer, and autoimmunity. The team examined how catalyst molecules, previously described by others, bind to OGG1 and affect its function in cells.  One of the molecules proved to be of particular interest: it enabled the enzyme to cut DNA in an unusual way such that it no longer required its usual counterpart, APE1 to work, but relied on another protein called PNKP1. Potentially, OGG1 proteins improved in this way can be exploited as novel drugs for diseases in which oxidative damage is implicated.

IBC2 director Ivan Đikić has been awarded with an Advanced Grant of the European Research Council (ERC). This is the third time he receives the prestigious grant that comes along with research funding in the amount of € 2.5 million for the next five years.
With his grant, Ivan Đikić intends to unravel molecular mechanisms of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) remodelling via ER-phagy pathways. The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is the largest intracellular membrane system and covers important functions in numerous processes. It is essential for cellular homeostasis and wellbeing. To fulfill its diverse functions, the ER is constantly adapting its shape, and Ivan Đikić is amongst the pioneers in shedding light on the regulation of these dynamic changes. He postulated that ER-phagy, a selective autophagy route targeting ER, is a major driver of ER remodelling and found first molecular cues on how this process is regulated.