EMBO

Simon Kaja

Cerebellar ataxia is a rare neurological disorder that causes attacks of jerky, uncoordinated movements. Walking can become increasingly difficult, and eventually the use of a wheelchair is necessary. The name is derived from the word cerebellum, which refers to the part of the brain that controls balance and coordination. The condition has no cure and is irreversible. Treatment is available to alleviate symptoms, but not all patients respond to the drug of choice, acetazolamide.

Rita Gross-Hardt

The number of egg cells dictates how many offspring an animal or plant can produce. In most higher plants, the egg cell forms in a specialized structure, termed the female gametophyte. It consists of four different cell types. Two cells, the egg cell and the central cell, are fertilized by sperm cells and develop into the embryo and the nutritive tissue (endosperm), respectively.

Michael Chang

Telomeres, the physical ends of eukaryotic chromosomes, protect chromosome ends from DNA end-fusion and degradation. They are maintained by the ribonucleoprotein enzyme telomerase. Most human somatic cells do not express telomerase and as a result, telomere length progressively decreases with each round of cell division, limiting their replicative potential, a phenotype termed as senescence. Telomerase-deficient cell lines can escape senescence by turning on telomerase, allowing these cells to become immortalized. 

Kasper Jensen

Supercomputers are used to understand the underlying design principles of nature's proteins and to modify proteins in order to device new, cleaner and more efficient catalysts and medicinal therapeutics. Understanding the physical, chemical, and biological design principles of proteins containing metals is essential for the development of corresponding medicine and bio-inspired clean industrial catalysts.

Maria Teresa Alvarado-Kristensson

I started my EMBO long-term fellowship on the first of July 2005. My project has been carried out in Spain at Dr. A. Carreras lab. My main interest had been the cloning and characterization of new members of the protein family SADB (SAD1 in humans).

Ignacio Mena

My EMBO Fellowship research took place at the Institut Pasteur (Paris, France) during 2000 and 2001. The focus of my research was a virus called Theiler's virus, which is a relative of the poliomyelitis virus (family Picornaviridae). Theiler's virus infects the Central Nervous System (brain and spinal cord) of the mouse.

Stefan Luschnig

Cellular tubules are the basic unit that many of our organs, including the lung, kidney, and vascular system, are built from. The proper size and shape of these tubes is strictly controlled and is essential for organ function. However, the mechanisms controlling tube size are poorly understood.

Fulvio Reggiori

The EMBO fellowship has allowed me to work on autophagy, a crucial degradative pathway of the cell. The hallmark of autophagy is the sequestration of the cytoplasmic structure that has to be destroyed by a large double-membrane vesicle called an autophagosome.