The Integrated Science Lab invites you to join the conversation at a Lunch Pitch. Karl Poncha will talk about protein quality control in aging cells, and Johan Henriksson is looking for collaborators wanting to develop algorithms to help fill the gaps in a million microbe genomes.
To encourage cross pollination of ideas between researchers from different disciplines, IceLab hosts interdisciplinary research lunches with the vision of allowing ideas to meet and mate. During the Lunch Pitch Season, the creative lunches take place at KBC (Glasburen) on a Wednesday.
Register to come to the pitch and reserve your lunch by Monday, 9 February at 10am.
Note! The default lunch option is a vegetarian falafel wrap. You can choose an alternative lunch in a separate form that will be emailed to you once you have registered.
Reading between the hits: Enhancing proteomics interpretation in age-related protein quality control decline
Protein Quality Control (PQC) maintains proteostasis, and its decline is a hallmark of aging and age-related diseases like neurodegeneration. While PQC mechanisms in young, healthy cells are comparatively well characterized, why PQC capacity deteriorates with age remains poorly understood—representing a major gap in the field.
Our lab uses yeast as a model system to identify pathways and players that modulate PQC capacity. Starting from genome-wide screens, we map genetic interactions and characterize their effects on PQC capacity. For further mechanistic dissection, we use a combination of targeted perturbations, genetic manipulations, and often employ mass spectrometry-based proteomics.
A key challenge arises at the proteomics stage: proteomics data is noisy, and proteins or groups of proteins we identify can often appear unrelated. How do we find the underlying biology connecting them? And what about relevant proteins we expect to find, but are missing entirely?
Here is where yeast offers a unique opportunity: decades of research have generated rich, publicly available datasets cataloguing how genes and proteins interact and function together. We're exploring ways these resources can help extract more meaning from our experiments.
Interested in: Collaborations
A million microbial genomes: filling the gaps and annotating the sequence
Using a new type single-cell technology (developed with IceLab!), we are now able to sequence up to a million individual bacterial genomes at a time. This data can inform us about which microbes interact, what genes are present, and what function they might have. However, the data is noisy and incomplete!
We look for collaborators interested in developing algorithms to fill the gaps, annotate the genomes, and extract any type of interesting information. The raw data is in the TB-scale, requiring innovation in both algorithms, ML, and practical implementation
Interested in: Collaborations.
KBC Glasburen, near the KBC café. Find your way to the venue (mazemap link)
IceLab Lunch Pitches are made possible through funding from KBC for the venue and lunches and from Stress Response Modeling at IceLab for their coordination.
