We have had the honour of hosting Prof. Dr. Tomas Lindahl, FRS, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2015 for his mechanistic studies of DNA repair, as part of the activities of the Conciencia Program of the USC, coordinated by Dr. Jorge Mira. We had the chance to discuss with him about cancer predisposition and alternative forms of life, to share his passion for wine and to remember the good olden days of the Clare Hall Laboratories, which he founded in 1986 and led to become a world-class referent in DNA research. In this sense it was also great to see again his wife, Ms. Brenda Marriott, the first manager of the institute and of the keystones for its success. We hope they enjoyed their stay as much as we enjoyed their visit! The lab welcomes Lucía Pasarín López, who is joining us to pursue her BSc thesis with us in the 2019-2020 course. Best luck, Lucía!
Miguel delivers a seminar on the dangers posed by our own cellular nucleases (enzymes that can cut DNA) and how cells must control them, at the National Museum of Science and Technology (MUNCYT) in A Coruña. Thanks to María Mayán (INIBIC), Julio Casal (CORBI Foundation) and Ana Correas (MUNCYT) for their kind invitation and warm welcome.
Tomás and Miguel participate in the Meeting of the “Chromodyst” National Research Network, held in Alcalá de Henares, where we presented some of our latest unpublished results. A fantastic opportunity to catch up with the work of some of the best national groups working on all aspects of chromosome dynamics. Great talks and discussions, new collaborations and a unique chance to (re-)discover Alcalá de Henares, a beautiful city full of culture, science and heritage. Highly recommended! Our thanks to Félix Prado (CABIMER) as the coordinator of Chromodyst and to José A. Tercero for his moonlighting as a knowledgeable local guide. The lab welcomes Lucía Pasarín López, who is joining us to pursue her BSc thesis on the characterization of a novel non-catalytic version of Yen1.
Raquel and Tomás from our lab presented the latest results from our lab at the 42nd Congress of the Spanish Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (SEBBM) held in Madrid from 16th to 19th, July 2019.
Today we have enjoyed the visit of our collaborator Dr. Boris Pfander, from the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry (Martinsried, Germany) for a CIMUS seminar. His DNA Replication and Genome Integrity Research Group focuses on the elucidation of the mechanisms that promote genome stability during and after DNA replication. After a great seminar, students had a chance to share a lunch with him. They barely left any time for our own discussions! Thanks a lot for a great seminar and all the great ideas. Always a pleasure to have you here! Last Friday we had the pleasure to host Rafael Fernandez Leiro from the Genome Integrity and Structural Biology group at CNIO (Madrid) for a CIMUS Seminar on how Cryo-EM can help us elucidate the molecular mechanisms behind the DNA replication and repair machineries. Later on, he shared a lunch with some PhD students from CIMUS. Samuel, a past member of our lab is now solving Cryo-EM structures in his lab at a resolution of 2 Å !!! Thanks Rafa for your great seminar, discussions and advice! Today Tom is starting a 3-month research stay in the lab of our long-term collaborator Dr. Joao Matos at the Institute of Biochemistry (ETH, Zürich). We want to acknowledge the support from Xunta de Galicia for funding his stay and we wish him a very fruitful time.
After two great years in our lab, Diana is moving to a new postdoctoral position in Miguel Fidalgo's lab here at CIMUS. We are sure that she will surely become an independent PI soon and we wish her the best luck in her career, in which we hope to share fruitful collaborations.
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