EMBLetcetera

The Newsletter of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory

Issue 50 • April 2009 • www.embl.org/newsletter

Monterotondo’s movers, shakersand men of many talents

A new lookall roundThere’s been some spring-cleaninggoing on! If you think EMBL&ceteralooks a little different, wait till yousee the new EMBL website, whichwill be online in May.

OIPA, IT and several external con-sultants have come up with a fresh,modern design for the EMBL site,figureheaded by a stylish new portalpage and an immediately recognis-able intranet, which is tailored ac-cording to the specific needs of eachEMBL location. Parallel to the re-vamp, the site is now managed via aContent Management System, allow-ing easier update of the content.

See page 3 for more.

This issue takes a look at some of the news from Monterotondo, EMBL’sItalian outstation and dedicated mouse biology unit, which will becelebrating its tenth anniversary later this year.

Outgoing deputy head of outstation Walter Witke (above left) talks about his early memories ofMonterotondo and his new position at Bonn University (page 2); group leader Cornelius Gross(bottom right) steps into his shoes as Senior Scientist (page 2); and General Assistant Mark Carter(top right) lets us in to some secrets about how everything stays ship-shape (page 9)...

... but look outfor this shadycustomer3

Climb thetree of life...

8Suggestionsfor Lab Day,please!5

Six on boardas corporatepartners

Send in yourenergy-savingtips4

EMBL&cetera • April 20092

First Monte GL takes his leave

alter, tell us about your early mem-ories of EMBL.

I started in 1996. In the beginning my groupwas ‘squatting’ at the main lab in Heidel-berg, but the idea to establish a mouse biol-ogy unit was already in the pipeline. My labwas the first group that moved to the newItalian outstation when it was finished. I re-member how on 26 January 1998 we drovefrom Heidelberg to Monterotondo with amassive truck filled with scientific equip-ment: microscopes, computers, freezers,centrifuges – you name it. While we wereunloading, I’m sure our Italian colleaguesthought we were completely nuts! That washow the mouse biology unit was born, andonly three days later we ran the first gel inour new lab. Without the help of our neigh-bours at the Consiglio Nazionale delleRicerche (CNR), things would have beenvery difficult.Monterotondo is celebrating its 10th an-

niversary in June this year. What haschanged over the past decade?Monterotondo has grown and developedcontinuously. In the beginning there wereonly two groups: my lab and Klaus Rajew-ski’s, with Ulrich Kalinke as Staff Scientist.Now Monterotondo has six groups androughly 60 staff.

A lot has happened in terms of infrastruc-ture and services, as well. A major develop-ment was when we got our own animalhouse, because in the beginning our micewere hosted by the European Mutant MouseArchive on the same campus. Services likethe phenotyping, histology and transgenicservices and the monoclonal antibody andFACS facilities have also made the life of re-searchers a lot easier over time. I’m sureEMBL Monterotondo will continue to de-velop even further in future.What are you going to miss most aboutEMBL?The fantastic Italian coffee. But joking aside– and I know this is what everybody says –

Cornelius steps into Walter’s shoesMonterotondo group leader Cornelius Gross(right) will take on some of Walter’s responsi-bilities in his new role as Senior Scientist.Since he joined EMBL in 2003, Cornelius’group’s work has focussed on the neural cir-cuits underlying anxiety behaviour in mice.“It will be very difficult to replace Walter’ssteady hand and experience, but Montero-tondo is in an exciting phase with many newgroups arriving, and I hope to facilitate thistransition,” says Cornelius.

what I’ll miss most is the EMBL spirit; theinternationality of the place, the informalexchange, flat hierarchies and the casual in-teraction.

What’s also great about EMBL is that youhave the freedom to choose the topic of yourresearch, and so you can work on what in-terests you most. I hope I can bring some ofthat spirit to the University of Bonn where Iam based now.What does your new position entail?I have taken up a professorship as head ofthe department of genetics in Bonn. Thatmeans that, apart from research, I’ll teachgenetics to undergraduate biology and med-icine students.

Bonn is a great place to be right now, be-cause the university is investing heavily inthe life sciences and creating new institutesand networks for biology research. My goal

is to integrate this with the EMBL alumninetwork and maybe start some new collabo-rations.What kind of research are you planningto do?We will continue in the direction that wewere already pursuing at EMBL Montero-tondo. We’re interested in the cytoskeleton,how it brings about cell movements and itsrole in different diseases.

Of course we will continue to work withmice, but we are also planning collabora-tions with the university clinic and institutesfocussing on neurodegeneration andepilepsy to see if our findings are relevantfor patients.Will we see you back at EMBL some timein the future?I’m sure I’ll be back. My lab has an ongoingcollaboration with Ernst Stelzer in Heidel-berg to use the SPIM for 3D live imaging inmice, as well as several with colleagues atMonterotondo. We would like to study howspecific organs form and function in the liv-ing mouse.

And, of course, I can’t miss EMBL Mon-terotondo’s anniversary in the summer!

“What I’ll miss most isthe EMBL spirit; theinternationality of the

place, the informalexchange”

Deputy head of EMBLMonterotondo WalterWitke has recentlydeparted for pasturesnew after 13 years at theoutstation. EMBL pressofficer Anna-LynnWegener talked to him inhis new office at theUniversity of Bonn...

W

Photo:ChristinePanagiotidis

Photo: Maj Britt Hansen

EMBL&cetera • April 2009 3

Left: EMBL staffmember? Welcome

to your newhomepage! Middle:the www.embl.org

gateway, the firstport-of-call for

visitors. Right: thehome page forexternal users

Now’s your chance to relive your childhoodduring working hours with a clear con-science. EBI group leader Nick Goldmanand PhD student Greg Jordan have beenworking as scientific advisors in a new proj-ect to develop an interactive tree of life.

The project, launched by the WellcomeTrust to celebrate the 200th birthday ofCharles Darwin, provided the graphical cen-trepiece (pictured right) of a recent BBCdocumentary, narrated by Sir David Atten-borough, about Darwin and evolution. Nowthe same interface has been made into aninteractive download, so anybody can ex-plore the diversity of life on Earth.

Nick and Greg worked closely with thegraphic designers to supply the phylogeneticexpertise behind the tool. “Watching howthey integrated our understanding of evolu-tionary trees was a lot of fun,” says Greg.The interface uses the same rules as Greg’sPhyloWidget (www.phylowidget.org), aweb-based visualisation tool for drawingand displaying evolutionary trees. Unlike

When did you last climb a tree?

Right: TheTyrannosaurus rex

branch of the tree, asseen on the BBC’s

documentary ‘CharlesDarwin and

the Tree of Life’

If you go onto the web today......you’re sure of a big surprise. Well, nottoday, perhaps, but after mid May, when thenew EMBL web pages will be launched.

In a supreme and ongoing team effort,OIPA, IT and several external consultantshave come up with a fresh, modern designfor the EMBL site that also solves one of theproblems of the old one – where am I?!

Parallel to the design revamp, the wholewebsite is now managed via a Content Man-agement System (CMS). “This allows easierupdate of the content, and in the long termit will allow an increase in the number ofpeople being able to edit parts of the EMBLwebsite,” explains Software Engineer MagdaWilczynska from IT Services.

The new-look intranet now has everything

that a staff member could need – the day’sevents, news, announcements, and quicklinks to downloads, the library and TicketFile Store, as well as all the externally avail-able sections: About Us, Research, Servicesand Training. It sports a stylish grey liveryso you always know at a glance whetheryou’re in the internal pages.

External users, on the other hand, see aclean white design with links to the mostimportant areas of the web for them; re-search, services, training, press releases andjobs, to name just a few. Everything is nowfound behind an attractive ‘portal’ pagewhere visitors can choose their EMBL site.

“The changes have been implemented aftera long process of consultation with a broadspectrum of users, including the outstations,”

says OIPA Web Designer Manuela Borchert.“Everything is still there, but with improvedfunctionality, and it’s tailored according tothe needs of each EMBL site.”

The new website also includes some inno-vative features – the banners advertisingconferences and other events can now in-clude videos, for example – and the secondphase of the project will herald more newfeatures such as a multimedia gallery.

“For staff at EMBL, the intranet homepagefor each outstation is designed to be a essen-tial port-of-call at the start of the day,” saysManuela. “Everything you need is there.”

If you see any room for improvement orhave any suggestions when the pages are liveafter mid May, contact support@embl.de.

many other programs, it uses a ‘zoomable’interface which displays a constant globaloverview of the tree’s shape and composi-tion, and just like with real trees, you can‘walk’ around it, grab a branch and explore,climbing as you go.

As they learn about speciation and diver-gence, users can also watch the accompany-ing section of the BBC documentary and

click to access more information – text, pho-tos and links – relating to a species.

“We were really excited to be asked to con-sult on the project and to have the opportu-nity to bring the science of phylogeneticanalysis to the public,” adds Greg.

To check it out, go to www.wellcometree-oflife.org/interactive ...and get climbing!

EMBL&cetera • April 20094

Round of retreats launched for predoc repsThe first regular ‘retreat’ for predoc repre-sentatives took place on 3-4 April in Ham-burg, an initiative implemented by Dean ofGraduate Studies Helke Hillebrand.

Representatives Nenad Bartonicek (EBI),Danielle Desravines (GR), Tim Wiegels(HH), Marco Faini and Benjamin Stauch(HD) and Serena de Fazio (MO) attended,alongside Helke and ‘old hands’ ClaudiaChica and Judith Zaugg from Heidelberg

and EMBL-EBI respectively.“I recognised the need for such a retreat

as many of the issues being dealt with bythe reps are the same at all EMBL sites, andwe needed a forum for an exchange ofideas and solutions,” says Helke. Otheritems on the agenda included the PredocWiki, Lab Day, TAC procedures, the PhDSymposium, the partner university scheme,mentoring and the Core Course.

“I’d like to thank Margret Fischer andNathalie Thebaud for their hospitality atthe Hamburg outstation, and also groupleaders Paul Tucker and Victor Lamzin,who were kind enough to spend their Fri-day evening having dinner with all of us!”adds Helke.

The next retreat will be held in conjunc-tion with the PhD Symposium in Heidel-berg in October.

What’s in the pipeline? Send in your tips!Building Maintenance have several newprojects on the go, not least of all a newbuilding at EMBL Hamburg, catchilymonikered ‘48e’, which will contain the lab

and facilities for the EMBL PETRA-III syn-chrotron team. Head of department RainerMenzel talked EMBL&cetera through someof the changes in store for Heidelberg, too...

Amphibian lake

Kindergarten refurbishment

Extension

It’s BuildingMaintenance’s policy –and the law – that whenthey build a new building,they also create an areadevoted to nature tocompensate. “We’remaking a lake for frogs,salamanders and otheramphibians by the maincar park,” Rainer says.“It’s going to be an oasisof peace, with benchesfor people to sit on.”

Levels 4 and 5 behindthe main lab will be

extended for therelocation of the IT

server facilities.

The oldest part of the Kindergarten was originally thesite management container when EMBL was built in1974. This summer the building will be removed andthe Kindergarten extended and modernised, includinga permanent and safe link to the upper car park.

Bus stopNo more trekking across the MaxPlanck campus in all weathers –public transport users at EMBL willshortly be able to enjoy a door-to-door (well, Bismarckplatz-to-door)service. “We’re not sure yet whetherthe city will detour the 39 bus or starta brand new route, but watch out forannouncements,” says Rainer.

To coincide with the start of a newBuilding Maintenance initiative tomonitor and improve energy con-sumption at EMBL, Rainer Menzelwould like to invite staff to contact himwith energy-saving ideas.

“We want to build up a monitoringsystem to see where we need to makechanges,” explains Rainer. “We’ll deter-mine which buildings are the mostwasteful and how we can make im-provements.”

While some things are obvious – suchas turning off lights and computerswhen you go home, or not openingwindows when the air conditioning isrunning – Rainer would like to hearother ideas that might be more specificto certain equipment or working con-ditions. “If everyone reduced the tem-perature of their lab or office by justone degree, it would save 6% of EMBL’s

energy,” he says. “We’d like as manysuggestions as possible and

will award a bottle ofwine to whoever

comes up withthe best

one.”

EMBL&cetera • April 2009 5

Not 50 every day

These two (above) both celebrated theirhalf-century in 2009, but I’m sure you’llagree that Matthias looks the better for it.We don’t know what Barbie got up to on 16March, but Head of EMBL HamburgMatthias Wilmanns celebrated his 50thbirthday with a dinner party – a tasty orien-tal buffet and with plenty of beer and wine –at the DESY bistro. All the EMBL Hamburg-ers were invited to the evening, whichkicked off with a birthday song on the pianoby Barbara Tizzano (below), one ofMatthias’ students, and concluded with asurprise birthday cake with 50 candles forMatthias to extinguish. His birthday presentwas in true EMBL style; an etched crystalblock with Matthias’ 3D structure of thetitin domains Z1Z2 in complex withtelethonin. Happy Birthday!

• For another 50th celebration, see page 10.

Partners on board

Jargon-busting measures for Web Budget View

courses, workshops and other events. Tomaximize the impact of the support, it isprobable that ‘attendance fellowships’could be set up to ensure that the eventsremain financially accessible to everyone.

But scientists needn’t be concerned thatfostering out some of the cost will nega-tively affect the quality of events; quite theopposite, in fact. “EMBL scientists willbenefit from the companies’ technical ex-

aluable support for EMBL’s scientificconferences, courses and other events

is assured through the signing of six com-panies as partners in the EMBL CorporatePartnership Programme: Leica Microsys-tems, GE Healthcare, Perkin Elmer, Qia-gen, Becton Dickinson and Eppendorf.With this, a number of prestigious andleading companies are taking part in theprogramme, and the Office of ResourceDevelopment is in negotiation with anumber of further companies which, it is

hoped, will also join soon.

pertise and cutting-edge equipment. TheATC certainly won’t become a commercialplatform for advertisers,” Jörg says.

It’s a smart move for the companies, too;as well as the obvious benefits of associa-tion with the EMBL name and the audi-ence of at least 5,000 attendees per year,other benefits they receive in return fortheir support includes an invitation to anannual round-table discussions withEMBL DG Iain Mattaj to share ideas, ac-cess to events and conference facilities andrecognition on the ATC ‘Wall of Honours’.

“Scientistswill benefit from

the companies’technical expertise and

cutting-edge equipment”

V

The finance department has been learning anew language to improve communicationwith EMBL scientists – plain English!

In the revamped accounting system, whichlaunched on 1 April, the Web Budget View(the part that group leaders and other seniorstaff use to monitor their costs) has beenmade more user-friendly, both in functional-ity and by using ‘non-accounting’ language.

“We accountants tend to think in terms of‘variance’ rather than ‘difference’, ‘commit-

ments’ rather than ‘orders’, and we use brack-ets where most people would use a minussign,” explains head of finance KeithWilliamson. “Now that we’ve changed all thison the Web Budget View, we hope it will bemore scientist-friendly and understandable.”

The new system, codenamed ‘Iceberg’ andpowered by SAP, also offers some new fea-tures to make budgeting easier for scientists.One major improvement, which will be in-troduced in the summer, is that the system

will allow a group leader to look into the fu-ture; it will forecast payable salaries right upuntil the end of a grant.

“The system allows for easier and more re-liable planning,” says Keith, who has recentlybeen travelling around all the EMBL sites tointroduce people to the system. “It also letsyou see exactly what’s being charged so youknow that Finance isn’t diddling you.”

Feel free to contact Keith if you have anycomments or suggestions about the system.

The companies will support the new Ad-vanced Training Centre and EMBL’s mis-sion to provide the best advanced trainingto scientists from all over the world, allow-ing EMBL to continue and build on itsprogramme of top events in a world-classconference centre.

“It has always been EMBL’s policy to runhigh-level conferences at realistic fees, andthe financial support will be used to keepthe registration costs at a reasonable level,even as the size and extent of the events in-creases,” explains Jörg Fleckenstein,EMBL’s Senior Manager of Resource De-velopment.

The funds will be made available to thescientific organisers of conferences,

EMBL&cetera • April 20096

A day in snapshotsOn 12 March dozens of young peopleflocked to EMBL-EBI for the 7th EBIOpen Day – formerly the Masters OpenDay – to learn about life at the institute,its research, services and data resources,and the EMBL International PhD Pro-gramme. The EBI’s Outreach and Train-ing team would particularly like to thankHelke Hillebrand for representing theEIPP and all the outreach and trainingrepresentatives who took time out topresent and answer questions.

The next open day will be held on 3November. As well as welcoming anybioinformatics masters students and theirsupervisors, the EBI would also like toextend an invitation to anyone wanting toknow more about EBI activities. Registerat www.ebi.ac.uk/training/openday.

he queues outside the Cambridge Sci-ence Festival’s ‘Science on Saturday’

event on 14 March barely noticed the wait asthey enjoyed the on-the-spot activities pro-vided by EBI and Wellcome Trust Sanger In-stitute scientists.

Usually safely ensconced in the popularBiology Zone, this year the volunteers went‘guerilla-style’ to bring science and a smile toeveryone waiting to explore the biology-themed attractions inside.

The queue-pleasing activities tied in to thefestival’s theme, Centuries of Science, by fo-cussing on genomics. Visitors could ‘PlayYour Genomes Right’, a fun activity basedon an old TV quiz show, make DNAorigami or compare genome sizes of a rangeof species such as Drosophila and mouse.

Another fun ‘experiment’ was a simple ge-netic profiling survey with which the teamof volunteers found out the most commoncombination of traits possessed by the aver-

age science festival visitor. The ‘trait wheel’categorised visitors based on five geneti-cally-determined characteristics: 1) male/fe-male, 2) whether their ear lobes hung free orwere attached, 3) whether they could rolltheir tongue, 4) whether they had hair onthe mid-digit part of their fingers; and 5)whether their hair (on their heads, not theirfingers!) was straight or curly.

A ‘voxpops’ filming activity from last yearwas repeated with the help of TV producerJonathan Sanderson. The team interviewedvisitors about their thoughts on personalgenome sequencing and what kind ofgenome research they’d like to see done inthe future. The film will be made availablesoon at www.yourgenome.org.

Chris Stock, Sanger’s Communication andPublic Engagement Project Manager, andLouisa Wright, the EBI’s Scientific OutreachOfficer, would like to thank all the volun-teers who did such a great job on the day.

Science –guerrilla style

Left: the EBI’s Duncan Leggeholds the camera steady duringone of the team’s interviews

T

Volunteers help kids(and their parents) tocompare differentgenome sizesP

hotos:Wellcom

eTrustSangerInstitute

EMBL&cetera • April 2009 i

www.embl.org/alumni

Three generations of NMR at EMBL – and still going strongThere was much heartfelt handshakingand back-slapping at the official openingof the upgraded high-field NMR centre atEMBL Heidelberg on 13 March, as thetight and relatively small European NMRcommunity came together for a day-longsymposium.

Attendees included the ex-EMBL NMR group leaders –the Michaels Nilges and Sat-tler, Hartmut Oschkinat andAnnalisa Pastore – as well asrepresentatives from Brukerand the rector of HeidelbergUniversity.

“It feels like a family re-union,” commented jointhead of unit Christoph

Müller in his introductory speech, beforegoing on to talk about the importance ofNMR in EMBL’s drive towards a systemsapproach to biology. “This unit is livingthe concept of integrated structural biol-ogy,” he said. “It’s heartening to see young

scientists coming and embracing the prin-ciple of adopting complementary tech-niques.”

Other talks covered the recent advancesof NMR in terms of technology and appli-

cations, and discussed its in-creasingly important role instructural biology.

“The day was a great success.The Operon was full till 7pm ona Friday evening,” commentedTeresa Carlomagno, EMBL’scurrent NMR group leader.“The speakers demonstratedthat modern NMR can reallycontribute much to the under-standing of the most diverse bi-ological processes.”

The NMR alumni... Where are they now? What’s NMR like elsewhere? And what’s EMBL’s NMR story?

Annalisa PastoreThen: Group Leader, 1988-1997Now: Group Leader, NIMR, LondonWhen I first arrived at EMBL in 1988, I realised how many

potential NMR projects were lying around – but with nospectrometer, I had to arrange NMR time downtown, inMilan and in Strasbourg through various friends and collabo-rations. Eventually I asked explicitly whether we could pur-chase a spectrometer, and Heads of Unit Steve Fuller andDietrich Suck were very supportive. I stood up in front ofSAC to justify the decision – and finally NMR was going tobe introduced at EMBL! DG Lennart Philipson appointedtwo more group leaders in addition to myself: HartmutOschkinat, another experimentalist, and Michael Nilgesas a computational person. You can imagine that it’s very

rewarding for me to see that they are already at the thirdgeneration of NMR groups at EMBL.

Cameron Mackereth

Then: postdoc, Sattler group, 2003-2

007

Now: Group Leader, IECB, Pessac, F

rance

There were many changes with my move to start a group in France,

besides the obvious switch from beer to wine. The spirit of the host in-

stitute was important: like EMBL, the IECB is an incubator for young

group leaders, with a maximum length of stay and an international sci-

entific advisory board. I’ve since also discovered that inclusion in one

of the French national research agencies, such as CNRS or INSERM,

facilitates collaboration and is required for most sources of national

funding.

A recent change to accept applications and interviews in English has al-

ready made an important step towards welcoming an international

contribution to the strong science community already in France.

“ “

””Fabian FilippThen: PhD student, Sattler group, 2001-2007Now: postdoc, University of California, San DiegoLeaving Heidelberg in 2007, I never had the chance to feel homesick in the international science

hub San Diego. In summer 2008 it was the host city of the ICMRBS, one of the most important sci-

entific events in biomolecular NMR, so that was a great opportunity to reconnect with old friends. In true San Diego style,

we organised an NMR surfing workshop – which, just like NMR, involves hard work and waves!

Having finished my postdoctoral project developing 13C based solid-state NMR methods to describe proteins in bio-

membranes, my advisor Stanley Opella has let me branch out and do some exploratory research. In a collaboration with

Michael Burkart, I have begun a new project examining carrier protein guided lipid synthesis by NMR spectroscopy.

Building such a pathway to independence is extremely important for young scientists and will provide the necessary pre-

liminary data to secure research funding. Our department has a strong collaborative ideal that reminds me very much

of the inspiring network during my time at EMBL.

Wolfgang Bermel (Bruker BioSpin GmbH), IrmgardSinning (Heidelberg University), Hartmut Oschkinat

(FMP Berlin) and Ivano Bertini (CERM, Italy)

“

”

Photo: Pierandrea Temussi

EMBL&cetera • April 2009ii

www.embl.org/alumni

EMBL alumna Britta Schläger has twotips for anyone applying for an EC grant:prepare your proposal carefully, and getmanagerial help as early as you can.

Easier said than done? Look no further.Britta – the first research technician in theHentze Group, who started at EMBL in1989 – is celebrating the fifth anniversaryof her company, kobris, which offers proj-ect management services, including themanagement of EC grants. “These posean incredible amount of work for instituteadministrators and grant coordinators,”she explains.

Nobody knows this better than Phil Irv-ing, Head of EMBL’s Grants Services. Sheand her team provide managerial help‘from cradle to grave’ to staff who arepartners or coordinators of a grant, but

sometimes it’s advisable to seek additionalmanagerial help for the time-consumingtasks involved. “This need not pose any fi-nancial restrictions on the scientific side,as many EC grants have a specific costcategory for project management,” Brittasays. Her company has successfully sup-ported two projects at EMBL: the ‘E-STAR grant’ with Anne Ephrussi andMatthias Hentze and, at its final stage, the‘symposi@embl grant’ with Peer Bork.

It may seem an unusual step after the re-sponsibilities of a research technician, butBritta enjoys it. “I like organising and co-ordinating things, and a smooth-runningproject is simply fun,” she says. Of course,EMBL itself has changed a lot since

Britta’s time, too. “When I started, letterswere addressed to ‘Heidelberg, West Ger-many’. We shared one Mac (model II) be-tween the whole group and readnewspapers – this was before the internetconquered the world,” she recalls. “Weneeded three days to extract 100mg ofDNA until Qiagen introduced the firstplasmid kit!”

If you like more information or wouldlike to contact Britta, visit www.kobris.de.

Having left the bench, Britta Schlägeris offering project managementservices to the research community

Don’t sweat the paperwork

We want to hear from you! Tell usabout your personal or scientificachievements, an interesting eventin which you are involved or give usfeedback on alumni matters atalumni@embl.org.

To help track down its alumni and extendthe community beyond the existing chap-ters, the Alumni Association has decided toemploy the latest in Web 2.0 technology –the social networking sites.

“Many alumni use these sites to keep intouch with their ex-colleagues,” saysMehrnoosh Rayner, responsible for Alumnirelations at EMBL. “They’re an incrediblyuseful way to track down alumni, and we al-ready have 38 members on Facebook and94 on LinkedIn.”

The official website remains, as always,www.embl.org/alumni, with 1,500 mem-bers, but the association has also joinedTwitter and XING, two emerging network-ing sites. “We’re curious to see how thesegroups will grow, as they attract very differ-ent user types,” says Mehrnoosh.

“We’re currently exploring ways to use theservices on the sites, like discussion boards,announcements and open reference letters,”adds Alumni Association board memberAnastasios Koutsos. “We hope to have aplan within the next few months, and anyideas are welcome.”

In the meantime, search for ‘EMBLAlumni’ to join the groups at any of thesites.

An excuse to Facebook! Please mark your diaries:

• 11May 2009:Alumni AssociationBoard meeting. If you have any is-sues you would like the Board toconsider, e-mail alumni@embl.orgby 24 April.

• Mid June 2009: Local Chaptermeeting in Dilofo, Greece.Organiser: Anastasia Politou(adakevri@yahoo.gr).

• 18 June 2008: John KendrewAward Ceremony, EMBL Lab Day.

• 11 July 2009:German Local Chap-ter meeting in collaboration withEMBL summer party, Heidelberg.

• 11 September 2009: Deadline forJohn Kendrew Young ScientistAward 2010: www.embl.org/aboutus/alumni/careers_awards/index.html#kendrew.

• 12-14 March 2010: Alumni Re-union 2010.

EMBL alumni George Christophidesand his colleagues at Imperial CollegeLondon have made a major break-through in malaria research by dis-covering how mosquitoes’ immunesystems fight off the parasites.

“Far from being the ‘bad guys’, mos-quitoes are unwilling carriers of thedisease,” says George (above), whowas a Staff Scientist in the Kafatosgroup until 2005. “Now we need tofind out how a small number of para-sites manage to evade detection whilethe immune system is fighting, andgo on to re-infect humans during themosquito’s next meal.”

If the researchers can bolster themosquito’s defences to eliminate allthe parasite, the discovery could helpfind a way to block transmission ofthe disease to humans.

Good guy mossies

EMBL&cetera • April 2009 7

PCUBE: a platform for cutting-edge protein production methodsA new EU Framework 7 programme willbring state-of-the-art protein preparationtechniques – some developed by EMBL sci-entists – to structural biologists in Europe.

PCUBE, an international effort involvinggroups from EMBL’s Heidelberg, Grenobleand Hamburg structural biology units, aswell as researchers in Oxford and Zürich,started on 1 April this year and will run forfour years. Although EMBL isn’t coordinat-ing the programme, its scientists and theunique technologies they have developedare playing a major role. These include Dar-ren Hart’s ESPRIT system for finding solu-

ble protein fragments and Imre Berger’s pro-tein expression systems, notably in insectcells, both at EMBL Grenoble; the high-throughput crystallisation facilities headedby Jochen Müller-Dieckmann (HH) andJosé Márquez (GR), and an advanced lightmicroscopy labelling platform at EMBL Hei-delberg, headed by Christoph Müller.

PCUBE will broaden access to the proteinproduction techniques needed for modern-day structural biology by funding the re-sources needed to make them widelyaccessible to external users, who will also beable to learn from the expertise of the labs

that run the techniques. A third aim ofPCUBE will be joint research activities be-tween the groups, aiming to develop newmethods to improve the capacity, through-put and robustness of the platforms. To-gether, these goals will help Europeanresearchers tackle the formidable challengespresented by 21st century structural biology.

“This kind of model has already been verysuccessful in providing access to synchro-trons and other large instruments,” says Dar-ren. “It will empower young scientists byallowing access to these new technologiesand methods.”

y father was a teacher,” explains Chris-tian, who for the past six years has

taught chemistry, mathematics and bioinfor-matics at the Marie Baum Schule in Heidel-berg. “When I was a kid, he would comehome all the time with terrible stories aboutwhat had happened in his classes. I’d think,how can he enjoy his job?

“It’s not that I didn’t have a good time atschool myself; I did like the chemistry andmaths classes, because the teachers I had atthat time were very motivated. But through-out my childhood and teenage years I sworeI would never become a teacher.”

But while Christian was doing his PhD inthe Böttcher group at EMBL Heidelberg, hegot involved as a Hilfswissenschaftler at theuniversity, someone who helps organise andsupervise the practical work of students.“Ifound that I really enjoyed explaining thingsand helping people,” he says. “I’d never had aproblem talking in front of people, but Istarted to discover that I really actually en-joyed teaching!

“At the same time, I realised that a majorpart of being a group leader consists of writ-ing grant applications and doing a lot ofadmin, and I couldn’t imagine enjoying thatkind of job. It was also very difficult for achemist to find a position: many friends

from university had finished their PhDs andcouldn’t find jobs. So I decided teachingcould really be an alternative.”

It was turned out to be the right decisionfor Christian, but not without its hurdles.“One of the biggest challenges is to motivatethe students in scientific subjects,” he says.“They often tell me that their parents don’tmind if they have problems in these sub-jects, because they had the same problemsthemselves.”

The Marie Baum Schule, though, has asterling success rate for turning out scien-tists.“Roughly half of our students choose ascience career, mainly in biology, medicine,

chemistry or molecular biology,” says Chris-tian. “It’s a fantastic starting point for uni-versity, and they’re interesting candidates fora range of companies.

“From time to time former students tellme that the notes they made during my les-sons are very useful and they still use themat university. They also send me e-mailswhen they have problems in chemistry!”And sometimes, they make Christian proud:“Recently, I got an email from an overjoyedstudent who had received one of only 23 po-sitions at the German Cancer Research Cen-tre (DKFZ) – out of 2,000 applicants!”

Despite the success rate, though, Christianhas several ideas about how science teachingin schools can be improved. “I think it’s im-portant for children to meet ‘real’ scientistsand talk to them,” he says. “Some of my stu-dents visited EMBL, and they were very sur-prised, because they didn’t expect scientiststo be like everyday people, with hobbies andother interests!”

Serendipity in life (and) science

“They didn’t expectscientists to be like

everyday people, withhobbies and other

interests!”

EMBL alumnus ChristianMellwig was determinedthat, whatever path hetook in life, it wouldn’tbe teaching...

M“

Christian in the classroom

EMBL&cetera • April 20098

Suggestions for Lab Day, please!Here’s a date for your diaries: Lab Day,EMBL’s annual get-together for staff from allsites, will be held on 18 June. It’s a great op-portunity to meet colleagues you don’t seevery often, hear about other peoples’ scienceand enjoy a poster session, ceremonies inthe Operon, food, music and a late-nightparty.

New for this year, though, the organiserswould like to try something different for themorning science sessions. “We would like touse this time to host small, focussed re-search meetings, taking advantage of thefact that people will be at Heidelberg fromall outstations,” says Eileen Furlong, who, to-gether with EMBL Grenoble’s Ramesh Pillaiand Alvis Brazma from the EBI, is planningthe day. “We’re soliciting ideas and volun-teers for activities on the morning of LabDay. These could include discussion groupsor short seminars on a given research topic.”

Activities so far include two hour mini-

symposia on RNA and human variation,two discussion groups on Solexa issues andwhat chemistry can do for biology and atraining course on chemoinformatics. If youhave any more suggestions, please contactEileen, Alvis or Ramesh.

As in previous years, Lab Day will be pre-ceeded by Career Options Day on 17 June,during which pre-and postdocs will hearabout alternative, non-academic career op-portunities from a variety of professionals.Organised jointly by EICAT and EMBLEM,the programme will cover business develop-ment, research in industry, HR managementand patenting, and in addition to the talks,small group sessions over lunch will allowattendees to discuss further details with thespeakers.

The day after Lab Day, EMBLEM will becelebrating their 10th anniversary in theEMBL canteen from 7pm, and everyone isinvited to join them.

A group of 41 Finnish biochemistry andbiotechnology students from the Institute ofMedical Technology in Tampere spent a dayat EMBL Heidelberg on 12 March in a visitinitiated by Aino Jaervelin, who spent timeas a trainee at EMBL last year. “I knew as

soon as I came here that EMBL would be areally exciting place for my fellow studentsto see,” says Aino, who spent May to Sep-tember in the Bork group.

The visitors, a mix of first and second yearstudents who hadn’t much experience in alab yet and older ones who were alreadyworking in research groups, were intro-

duced EMBL and its PhD Programme andheard talks by group leaders John Briggs andMarko Kaksonen, EMBL’s Finnish memberof faculty. They also looked around somelabs and found out about working abroadfrom Personnel’s own Finn, Laura Minnich.

Aino, who enlisted the help of her friendElina Ojala to help organise the visit, hasnow been accepted onto the EMBL PhDprogramme.

Bork to the future

For most people, it’s important to keepin touch with former supervisors andlab mates, especially those with whomyou spend the early years of your scien-tific career. Social networking sites ande-mail help, of course, but if you werein Peer Bork’s group, you can also enjoya regular get-together organised specif-ically for his alumni.

“People have diverged into so manydifferent areas, and a get-together likethis offers a really useful and lively plat-form for exchange – a bit like a biggroup meeting,” says Bork alumnus andnew EMBL group leader Jan Korbelwho, together with Peer, Roland Krauseand Francesca Ciccarelli (picturedabove, with Miguel Andrade), organ-ised this year’s 6-8 March event in Hei-delberg. Fifteen alumni met for aweekend of meals in town and at Peer’shouse, presentations and discussionsabout their work, and even an Altstadtstroll with current group members.

“The first such event was in 2006, butthis time everyone agreed it shouldhappen at least every other year,” saysJan. “The group has many alumni whoare already at group leader or professorlevel.”

The four organisers have also beenbusy planning their next EMBO WorldPractical Course, which will be held inShanghai this year. “We hope we havemore luck with the weather this time,”quips Jan. “At the 2007 course in Can-cun, Mexico, Hurricane Dean arrivedan hour before the meeting was sup-posed to start!”

Finnishing school

All smiles: theFinnish visitors

EMBL&cetera • April 2009 9

behindthescenes

Grenoble library gets a makeover

EMBL Grenoble’s libraryis set to be a contender in“France’s Next Top Li-brary” next season as itlaunches its new look. Ad-ministrative Officer MaryJane Villot and the SzilárdLibrary’s Anne Barkworthspent many hours cata-loguing the old stock andparing it down for a clean,spacious feel. “Everythingis still available, but therewas no need to have so

muchold stuffout ontheshelves,” says Mary Jane. “Now we have theup-to-date books and periodicals to hand, aswell as a ‘chill-out’ seating and waiting areawith leather sofas.”

The new-look library will also act as ashowcase for artwork and photography bystaff in a regularly changing exhibition.Some of the first masterpieces on show wereHead of outstation Stephen Cusack’s mag-nificent photos taken in Namibia (above).

owering above the general populus atEMBL’s Italian outstation, Mark Carter

is always on hand – especially if you needsomething getting down from a high shelf.“That’s all I do,” he jokes. “I don’t know howthey’d manage without me!”

Height aside, you still couldn’t miss Mark,Monterotondo’s General Assistant. Evenafter eight years in Italy, he sounds like atrue Brummie (a resident of Birmingham) –and he’s the one to whom all staff turn whensomething needs fixing. “What do I do? It’s along list. Kitchen services, cleaning glass-ware, sterilising, dealing with chemical andradioactive waste, driving to Rome, drivingback from Rome, helping Flavio (Zizzo, Pur-chase Officer) with the deliveries, findingspace for new equipment – no two days arethe same,” says Mark.

He first came to Monterotondo with hisscientist wife in 2001; she was joining theanimal house, but Mark had no job to go to.“I like to keep busy, so I started to go a bitcrazy,” he says. “Then Walter (Witke)needed some equipment fixing, so I offeredto take a look at it – and then he gave mesomething else, and it went on from there.I’ve always been a jack-of-all-trades, and I fitperfectly here. I’m never bored.”

Mark never knows what he’ll have to turnhis hand to. “When we had the new mousehouse, Nadia brought some new cages fromthe US which were about €40,000 each.There was no way of getting them off thelorry until someone said: ‘oh, get Mark, he’ll

be able to drive a forklift truck’,” he recalls.“Well, I’d driven one about once before inmy life! I’d only been here for two weeks –and the very first cage that I lifted off wentcrashing to the ground. I had to go and tellNadia. I thought, oh no, my career’s over!”

It wasn’t, of course, and since then he’samazed at what he has seen and learntworking at EMBL. “I’ve never worked in thiskind of environment before, and I’m alwaysamazed at how intelligent the people are,” hesays. “A few weeks ago someone showed mesome heart cells on a dish that were beating,and I was thinking, how on earth havethings come this far?

“Having said that, though, intelligencedoesn’t necessarily mean common sense.The scientists are so cute. Someone’s always

in a panic because something doesn’t work,and I just go and plug it in for them! But Ido the job because of the people, really.They’re great.”

There are aspects that Mark isn’t so keenon. “You take your life into your hands get-ting to work in the morning,” he says. “TheItalians are amazingly blasé about traffic ac-cidents. Every holiday weekend 40 or 50people will be killed, but the media just says‘that’s better than last year!’ People believethat when your number’s up, it’s up.

“But Rome is amazing. After 8 years I stilldiscover something new around every cor-ner. My only complaint – surprisingly per-haps – is the food. You get more variety inBirmingham. Here, you can have whateveryou want as long as it’s pasta!”

T “The scientists are socute. Someone’salways in a panic

because somethingdoesn’t work, and Ijust go and plug it in

for them”

Monterotondo’sgentle giant

EMBL&cetera • April 200910

Goodies get coolThese snazzy new EMBL memorysticks (below) are the latest addition tothe lab’s range of branded items. At €5each, you can buy them from OIPA –contact michel@embl.de or come toV324 at EMBL Heidelberg. There’s alsoa new range of T-shirts, polo shirts,hooded tops and caps, including – atlast – women’s fitted T-shirts!

www.embl.de/shop

K, so unlike Matthias and Barbie (page5), EMBL&cetera isn’t exactly 50 years

of age, but this issue is the fiftieth – andwhat better time for a revamp?

We’ve caught up with Hollywood at last topresent the newsletter in ‘glorious techni-color’ and sporting the first dramatic re-design since the halfway point, issue 25.With new fonts, more white space and ajazzy new layout, we hope thatEMBL&cetera will fly off the shelves evenfaster every press day!

But how did the idea of having an EMBLnewsletter first come about? Russ Hodge,the first member of the Office of Informa-

“We wanted a namethat would cover a

broad range of topicsrelating to the lab, soEMBL&cetera worked

quite well”

O

As the newslettercelebrates its 50th issue,we take a look back at itsconception, birth and firstdays at school...

Happybirthday,EMBL&cetera!

tion and Pub-lic Affairs, wasone of its founders.“When I started atEMBL in 1997, the onlyway of communicating newswas by word-of-mouth or atcouncil meetings,” recalls Russ, who’snow a science writer at the Max Del-brück Center for Molecular Medicine inBerlin. “We also wanted a way to keepalumni informed about the lab.”

At that time the department comprisedRuss and Volker Wiersdorff, who now man-ages publications at EMBO, and they werealready busy with the Annual Report, pressreleases and much more. It was then thatSarah Sherwood, who would go on to editthe newsletter until its 27th issue six years

later, was brought on board. “We had tocome up with everything from scratch – thetype of content, the layout, even the name,”she says. “We wanted to call it somethingthat would cover a very broad range of top-ics relating to life at the lab, soEMBL&cetera worked quite well – and wewere awfully fond of alliterations.

“Lots of people mistakenly pronounce it‘ec-cetera’ so we made sure you could actu-ally see the ‘t’ in the ampersand. Nerdy de-sign details, but it was fun.”

The first issue came out in July 1999. Ithad eight pages, and stories covered theopening of the Monterotondo outstation,Regina Herhoff and David Westley comingto work at the Szilárd Library at EMBL Hei-delberg and the construction of the new

Kindergarten. “There was no particularformula for the first few issues,” says

Russ. “It was as long or as short as wewanted to make it, and there was no

fixed bimonthly schedule liketoday. The job of editor was,

and still is, a tricky balanc-ing act between pro-

ducing somethinginteresting

and en-ter-

tainingand remain-ing sensitive tothe political issuesbehind the scenes.”

“People cottoned onquickly to contributing ideas andstories, and it took off pretty much by itself,”says Sarah. “One thing that I soon started toappreciate was the insight into the lab thatworking on it gave us. At the time, thereweren’t many people at EMBL who reallyhad their hand on the pulse of what wasgoing on in the different areas of the lab. Wewere really privileged to receive informationfrom the community and then put it backout there for them.”

Russ and Sarah are both alumni now –Sarah works in Communications and Exter-nal Relations at IRB in Barcelona – butthey’re taking a keen interest in the newslet-ter’s evolution, as well as keeping abreast ofchanges at EMBL. “Reading EMBL&ceteranow is like poking your head into an openwindow at the lab,” says Sarah.

EMBL&cetera • April 2009 11

newsinbrief� Registration is now open for the fol-

lowing EBI hands-on bioinformat-ics training course, aimed at helpingresearchers to get to grips with theirdata: Interactions, Pathways and Net-works (15-18 June; registration closes18 May). See www.ebi.ac.uk/train-ing/handson for programme detailsand to register.

� Want to do something to help scienceeducation and see your name pub-lished online? The Science in Schoolteam is always looking for people totranslate the articles in the Euro-pean journal for science teachers –and it can be fun, too! With severalEMBL staff members, predocs andpostdocs already contributing, someof the articles are even about the sci-ence that’s being done here. If you’reinterested in translating or even writ-ing articles, check out the website,www.scienceinschool.org, or con-tact editor@scienceinschool.org.

� On 31 March five young winnersfrom the GEN-AU (AustrianGenome Research Programme)Summer School and ‘Jugendforscht’ Rheinland-Pfalz enjoyed avisit to EMBL Heidelberg, includinga visit to the fish facility and a DNAextraction experiment. The twoyouth research competitions, one na-tional and the other regional, allowstudents the opportunity to be partof real research with a series of visitsand practicals.

� On 30 March Professor RichardLarkins AO, Vice-chancellor and

President of Monash University inAustralia, visited EMBL Heidelbergto meet EMBL DG Iain Mattaj andHead of Monterotondo NadiaRosenthal in preparation for takingup office as the first chair of EMBLAustralia in July this year. AO standsfor Officer of the Order of Australia,a title Professor Larkins was awardedin 2002 for service to medicine andhealth.

� The Szilárd Library at EMBL Heidel-berg will run a Web of Science andEndnote Web training course onthe afternoon of 11 May. If you’re in-terested in attending, please contactlibrary@embl.de.

Visit www.embl.org/nonscientifictrain-ing for more details.

Upcoming free courses in the EMBLNon-Scientific Training and Develop-ment Programme include:

Course Date / site

Minute taking withconfidence

22 April (MO)

Time Management 6 May (EBI)

How to be a successfulinterviewee

13 May (GR)

Effective Writing 14 May (GR)

Access Intermediate 20 May (HD)

Leading your Project 26 May (HH)

Managing risk & qualityin projects

27 May (HH)

121 AdvancedPresentation Skills

8-9 June (HD)

Excel Beginners 9-10 June (HD)

Effective Writing 15 June (EBI)

fromtheStaffAssociation

� News from the Staff Association GeneralAssemblies in March and April:

• After a comprehensive Council review ofthe Rules and Regulations in 2008, inwhich the Staff Association, together withAdministration, were intensely involved,the following mostly positive changes weremade: availability and limit of the Educa-tion Grant increased; Saturday now countsas overtime; time limits for installationgrants unified to 2 years; retirement ageraised to 68 in exceptional cases; notice pe-riod for contract renewal raised to 6months; period of limitation (similar to astatute of limitations) created set to 2 years.

• The Staff Association committee memberswere thanked for their work during whatwas an unusually busy 2008. The associa-tion itself would like to thank the 18 clubswho made EMBL Heidelberg’s Clubs Fairfollowing the AGM on 3 April a success.

• If you were unable to attend the AGM,contact one of your Staff Association rep-resentatives for more information.

� 2009 Events (Heidelberg): 11 July: EMBLSummer Party. 17 October: Beer Festival.

� The Staff Association covers all categoriesof staff and has representatives at all out-stations. Keep up-to-date with events atwww.embl-heidelberg.de/~staff (site forEMBL pensioners:www.embl-heidelberg.de/~staff/pensioners). – Catherine Floyd

No businesslike snow business

Left to right: Ski instructorPhilipp Heindl joins snowfans Nonia Pariente, MarcoFaini, Oriol Gallego,Sebastian Glatt, MatthewBetts, Kat Brown andAndrea Pocco for someaprès-ski at the playgroundof the rich and famous,See/Ischgl, in Austria at thisyear’s EMBL ski trip on 19-22 March. As in previousyears, Matthew will beputting together a souvenir‘movie’ of the trip for all toenjoy, so if you have anyvideos you’d like him toinclude, please send themto betts@embl.de.

25 year-old Russian piano virtuosoNikolai Tokarew treated an audienceof 320 people to pieces by Rameau,Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Ravel,Rosenblatt, Liszt and Debussy in hissell-out Heidelberger Frühling recitalon 16 April. Organiser KlausScheffzek would like to thankeveryone involved, including thesponsors and Building Maintenance,who greatly contributed tomaintaining the perfect ‘atmosphere’for the music in the packed Operon.

Music, maestro

EMBL&cetera issue 50, April 2009.Published by EMBL’s Office of Informationand Public Affairs, Meyerhofstrasse 1, D-69117 Heidelberg. e-mail: info@embl.de.Available online: www.embl.org/newsletter.Editor: Vienna Leigh. Editorial support:Lena Raditsch, Silke Schumacher.Contributors: Matthew Betts, LouisaWright, Mehrnoosh Rayner, Anna-LynnWegener, Ivanka Araujo.Graphic support: Petra Riedinger.Photographic support: EMBL Photolab.Printed by ColorDruck, Leimen.

Jacqueline Dreyer, EMBL Heidelberg’s new Scientific TrainingOfficer, will establish a new series of courses and workshopsalongside EMBL’s corporate partners. Half-German and half-Mozambiquan, Jacqueline grew up in Portugal, studied biotech-nology and molecular biology in Mannheim and Bochum andthen worked for a French healthcare consulting firm in Paris andCologne before coming to EMBL. Her only problem now, shesays, is deciding which of EMBL’s clubs she can live without: “Iwant to join them all!” she says.

Brenda Stride will return to EMBL Heidelberg on 1 May thisyear in the newly created role of Postdoctoral Programme Ad-ministrator. Brenda will be a familiar face to some, as she did apostdoc at EMBL from 2005 to 2007 in the group of formerEMBO Director Frank Gannon. Originally from Canada, shehas since been working as a scientist at the pharmaceutical com-pany Phenex in Ludwigshafen. “I’m really looking forward tobeing back at EMBL, and to help make the postdoctoral pro-gramme a valuable resource for EMBL postdocs,” says Brenda.

events@EMBL people@EMBL

awards&honours

24 April EMBL HeidelbergFlea Market for children’s clothes,toys, books and equipment

27-29 April EMBL-EBICourse: Programmatic Access toBiological Databases. EMBL-EBIOutreach & Training Team

30 April EMBL MonterotondoEMBL Distinguished Visitor Lecture:Grid cells and the entorhinal-hippocampal network for spatialrepresentation. Edvard Moser,Medisinsk teknisk forskningssenter,Norway

4-6 May EMBL HeidelbergCourse: The joint EMBL/Affymetrixworkshop on whole transcriptmicroarray data analysis. V. Benes

8 May EMBL MonterotondoEMBL Distinguished Visitor Lecture:Deconstructing metastasis. JoanMassague, Cancer Center at MemorialSloan-Kettering Institute, NY

11-15 May EMBL-EBICourse: A Walk Through EBIBioinformatics Resources. EMBL-EBIOutreach & Training Team

13-17 May EMBL HeidelbergConference: EMBO Conference Serieson Chromatin and Epigenetics

18-20 May EMBL HeidelbergConference: Fifth Annual BioMalParConference on the Biology andPathology of the Malaria Parasite

18-23 May EMBL HeidelbergCourse: EMBO Practical Course onFluorescence (Cross-) CorrelationSpectroscopy (FCS/FCCS) for CellBiology Applications

22 May EMBL MonterotondoEMBL Distinguished Visitor Lecture:Dissecting tumour suppressor genenetworks in vivo. Scott Lowe, CSHL

8-10 June EMBL HeidelbergCourse: Analysis of Short ReadSequencing Data. V. Benes

For more details about these eventsand more, visit www.embl.org/events

Johan Hattne, a former predoc in Victor Lamzin’s group at EMBL Hamburg, has receivedthe prestigious Max-von-Laue prize from the German Society for Crystallography for hisoutstanding PhD work, during which he developed a pattern recognition-based method forthe automated location and modelling of DNA and RNA molecules in electron-densitymaps. Johan, who defended his PhD in October 2008 and has since taken up a postdoctoralposition at Southwestern University, Dallas, was awarded his prize at the society’s annualmeeting in Hannover on 9-13 March.Mayka Sanchez, a postdoc in Matthias Hentze’s lab at EMBL Heidelberg, has been awardedthe Josep M. Sala Trepat Prize from the Catalan Society of Biology. The prize is awarded toa young researcher from Spain or Portugal for studies in gene regulation performed abroad.Mayka will receive her prize on 24 April at the Institut d’Estudis Catalans in Barcelona.Developmental Biology Unit group leader Stefano de Renzis has received a Career Devel-opment Award from the Human Frontier Science Program for his project, ‘Transcriptionalcontrol of protein and membrane trafficking during tissue morphogenesis’.

With the departure of Thomas Franz to the Max Planck Institute for the Biology of Ageingin Cologne, Gene Expression unit team leader Jeroen Krijgsveld took over the running ofthe Proteomics Core facility from 1 April this year. The facility is now located in roomsV215 and V216 at EMBL Heidelberg.

Right: ‘EMBL’ written withmitotic spindles, courtesy ofthe Nédélec group. “Thepattern of chromatin beadswas enclosed in amicrochamber and filled withXenopus egg extractsproviding all the necessaryelements for spindle assembly,” says Research Technician Celine Pugieux. “The image wastaken using a confocal microscope, to visualise fluorescent tubulin and Hoechst dye.” If you’dlike to have your favourite word in chromatin for a modest fee, contact her or François Nédélec.