2024
Chair: Prof. Cathy Merry (Nottingham University)
Sylvie Ricard-Blum's Bio
Sylvie Ricard-Blum is Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Lyon (France). She studies the structure, interactions and functions of the extracellular matrix (ECM) using biochemistry, biophysics, bioinformatics and systems biology. Her laboratory has developed a roadmap and tools to build and contextualize ECM interaction networks, including the database MatrixDB. She has identified several hundreds of ECM interactions, and built interaction networks of ECM proteins, bioactive ECM fragments (matricryptins), glycosaminoglycans and proteoglycans leading to the prediction of new functions for a number of them. Her current research aims at determining the role of intrinsic disorder, cross-linking, proteolysis and mutations in rewiring ECM networks in disease with a focus on matricryptins, lysyl oxidases and syndecans. She has been Secretary and President of the French Society for Matrix Biology, as well as President of the International Society for Matrix Biology (2019-2020) and serves as Associate Editor of Matrix Biology and Matrix Biology Plus and Editor of the newsletter of the International Society for Matrix Biology.
Alexandra Naba's Bio
Alexandra Naba is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Illinois Chicago and a member of the University of Illinois Cancer Center. Alexandra received her Ph.D. from the Curie Institute in Paris, where she studied the role of the membrane-cytoskeleton linker, ezrin, in normal and tumor cell adhesion, in the laboratory of Daniel Louvard under the supervision of Monique Arpin. For her postdoctoral training, Alexandra joined the laboratory of Richard Hynes at MIT where she pioneered the application of proteomics and bioinformatics for the systematic analysis of ECM compositions, defining the concept of "matrisome". Alexandra founded the Matrisome Project and MatrisomeDB, two resources aiming to disseminate methods, reagents, and data to advance ECM research. She has received numerous prestigious awards including the Junior Investigator award from the American Society for Matrix Biology, and the Rupert Timpl award from the International Society for Matrix Biology. More recently, she received the 2024 UIC - College of Medicine Departmental Faculty Award. Alexandra is also a member of the editorial board of Matrix Biology and has served on the council of the ASMB and of the ISMB.
Elena Rainero's Bio
She obtained her PhD from the University of Piemonte Orientale, Novara, Italy, with a thesis investigating the role of the lipid kinase diacylglycerol kinase alpha in controlling epithelial polarity and cell migration.
She then joined Prof Norman's lab, at the CRUK-Beatson Institute (now Scotland Institute) to study the role of integrin trafficking in cancer cell invasion and migration. Since 2016, she is a lecturer in the School of Biosciences at the University of Sheffield and her lab focuses on understanding the role of the extracellular matrix in controlling cancer cell migration, growth and metabolism.
Read more on Dr. Di Martino
Read more on Dr. Forneris
Lab sustainability; easier said than done?
Rewatch our event to find out how we can green our life science labs and increase awareness on sustainable practices.
Our guest speakers, Dr. Julie Di Martino and Dr. Federico Forneris highlighted practices and offered their insights on how, by changing everyday habbits, we can reduce the carbon footprint of our labs.
2021-2022
