EMBLetcetera

The Newsletter of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory

Issue 52 • August 2009 • www.embl.org/newsletter

What’s everybody looking at?A good week fora field tripTwo journalists who got a taste of lifeat EMBL Heidelberg couldn’t havechosen a better time – their stay coin-cided with Career Day, Lab Day andEMBLEM’s tenth birthday celebra-tions. Nicla Panciera and Adam Grist-wood chose EMBL for theirplacement as part of a course run bythe European Initiative for Commu-nicators of Science (EICOS), which isopen to journalists from all over Eu-rope. EICOS aims to improve com-munication between researchers andjournalists and make research moreintelligible to the public.More on page 7.

Building Maintenance have put their heads together with scientists tocome up with a solution to Heidelberg’s landlocked situation – for acertain worm-like marine cephalochordate, anyway

When Elia Benito Gutierrez joined the Arendt group in February this year, she had quite a chal-lenge on her hands: no one had yet managed to keep a successful breeding colony of amphioxus ina lab, and all other attempts to raise them have been at facilities in coastal regions with good accessto fresh seawater. As she and Detlev were embarking on a important project to produce a molecularfingerprint of the animal’s nervous system and shed light on the brain development of other species,help was needed, and fast. Find out what happened on page 9.

Feelinga littlehorse

6The shapeof things tocome5

EMBLEM: 10years of techtransfer

Beautifulbut deadly:HIV in 3D3

Welcome to Heidelberg-on-sea

Find out inside... page 3

Summerparty fun8

EMBL&cetera • August 20092

EMBL’s turn to chair EIROforum for a yearFrom July 2009 EMBL took over as chair ofEIROforum, a partnership of the sevenlargest intergovernmental research organi-sations in Europe (CERN, EFDA-JET,EMBL, ESA, ESO, ESRF and ILL), for ayear. During this time, EIROforum activi-ties will include the renewal of the State-ment of Intent, which was signed with theEC in 2003; it will also be reviewed and up-dated to to express the mutual interest in

continuing the cooperation. Other eventswill include the biannual Assembly of theEIROforum Director Generals, which willbe hosted by EMBL in November and May.

Also in November, EMBL and its EIRO-forum partners will organise a conferenceon technology transfer in Heidelberg to ex-change knowledge and best practices acrossdisciplines. EIROforum is also planning toestablish a series of teacher training courses

and to continue the publication of Sciencein School, the European journal for scienceteachers, and will exhibit at the 2010 Euro-science Open Forum (ESOF) in Turin.

The mission of EIROforum is to supportEuropean science in reaching its full poten-tial by facilitating interactions with the ECand European Union, national govern-ments, industry, science teachers, studentsand journalists.

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Salary hikes, a new Admin head and moreNews from the 37th EMBL Summer Council meeting...

irst things first: yes, Council approvedthis year’s salary adjustments, which are

2.7% in Heidelberg and Hamburg; 3% inGrenoble; 3.9% in Monterotondo and 4% atthe EBI. These adjustments are calculatedbased on a remuneration index, the nationalconsumer price index and purchasing powerparities, factors which are different for eachEMBL site. You should have noticed yoursalary adjustment on your July payslip.

Council also approved the appointment ofRalph Martens from the InternationalCriminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands,as EMBL’s new Administrative Director.There will be a period of overlap in autumnto ensure a smooth handover before Bernd-Uwe Jahn retires after eight years. The An-nual Report 2008-2009 and the draft EMBLbudgets for 2009 and 2010 were also ap-proved, as was a promotion for Nick Gold-man to senior scientist.

The Scientific Advisory Committee re-views of EMBL-EBI’s research, EMBLGrenoble and the Cell Biology and Bio-physics Unit at EMBL Heidelberg were pre-

sented to Council by the vice-chair of SAC,Roberto di Lauro, who will replace currentchair Werner Kuehlbrandt at the end of theyear, with Sandra Schmid taking up the roleof SAC vice chair. All three units receivedpositive reviews and their scientific per-formance was rated as outstanding.

Associate Director Matthias Hentze re-ported to Council that EMBL Heidelberg’sAdvanced Training Centre will be com-pleted in two sections. The new canteen,photolab and teaching lab section will beready in September, and the helix part of thebuilding in October 2009. Staff will moveinto the helix from the end of October, withan official opening ceremony taking placeon 11 March 2010, with guests to includeKlaus Tschira, science ministers of theEMBL member states, EU representativesand other stakeholders. As well as the offi-cial opening celebration, there will be aparty for all EMBL staff in the ATC on 11December 2009.

In his traditional report to council, EMBLDG Iain Mattaj outlined the state of the lab-

oratory for the past year. While eight facultymembers have left, 21 have joined or beenpromoted, and 94% of the newcomers aremember states nationals. Iain also drewCouncil’s attention to the Thomson ISI Es-sential Science Indicators ratings for 1997-2007, which list EMBL as the top Europeaninstitute for molecular biology and geneticswith a ranking of fifth worldwide (the onlyother European institute to appear in theworldwide top ten is London’s Institute ofCancer Research).

Iain also announced plans for EMBL’s in-volvement in a Centre for Structural Sys-tems Biology to be based at EMBLHamburg. The outstation also hopes to be-come a player in European XFEL, a new re-search facility which aims to be operationalfrom 2014 onwards and which will generateultrashort X-ray flashes to will be used byresearchers from all over the world.

The next EMBL Council meeting will beheld at Monterotondo from 23 November2009.

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EMBO Director Hermann Bujard gave apresentation to celebrate the 40th anniversaryof the foundation of the EMBC at an officialreception at Palais Prinz Carl, Heidelberg

EMBL&cetera • August 2009 3

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No,it’s foreman Sven Kühl on top of thenew PETRA III annex building...

Science for lifein Europe

Beautiful but deadly

Nike has ‘Just do it’, Apple has ‘Thinkdifferent’, Allinsons has ‘Bread wi’ nowttaken out’... and now EMBL has a newslogan, ‘Science for life in Europe’.

The new tagline was chosen from ashortlist of six after the entire EMBLcommunity had been asked for theirsuggestions. The Lab Day poster sessionincluded a ballot box for people to votefor their favourite, and predoc XavierHeiligenstein’s brainwave was the win-ner. The slogan will appear on promo-tional materials and the EMBLexhibition stands.

“I just wrote it down just as it came tome, thinking that a brainstormingwould combine many ideas,” saidXavier. “I never thought the phrasewould be taken as it was, so I’m reallyhappy that my simple idea met withsuch enthusiasm.”

The groups of John Briggs at EMBL andHans-Georg Kräusslich at Heidelberg Uni-versity have used cryoelectron tomographyto generate a 3D reconstruction revealing,with unprecedented detail, the structure ofthe ball-shaped protein coat of the imma-ture HIV virus (below). This is the form ofthe virus as it is released from infected cells.Once outside, the spherical protein lattice ismodified to a more conical shape as thevirus matures into its fully infectious form.

They hope that their findings will help tounravel a crucial stage in the HIV lifecycle,perhaps even revealing new chinks in the ar-mour that could be targeted by drugs in thefight against the virus.

In cryoelectron tomography a sample isinstantly frozen and imaged with an elec-tron microscope from different angles, pro-ducing a 3D computer reconstruction.

Alongside the new beamlines for structuralbiology at the PETRA III synchrotron atHamburg’s German Synchrotron RadiationFacility (DESY), an annex building is beingconstructed which will house integrated fa-cilities, offices and laboratories, as well as acafeteria and seminar room for DESY andEMBL staff and users. On 9 July, EMBLstaff from Hamburg and Heidelberg got to-gether with members of DESY for the tra-ditional ‘topping out’ ceremony of thebuilding, and to celebrate the close collabo-ration which DESY and EMBL have en-joyed for many years.

“Our collaboration with EMBL is a jewelin the crown of science in Europe,” saidChair of the DESY Directorate HelmutDosch in his speech, after which the assem-

Standing on ceremony

bled throng watched the traditional Richts-fest ceremony which sees the building fore-man toast the new construction.

Building 48e will contain laboratories forsample preparation and characterisation andEurope’s largest high throughput crystallisa-tion user facility, as well as a computing fa-cility for data evaluation. The inaugurationis planned for November 2009.

Following the Hamburg tradition of nam-ing the annex buildings (Siberia, Helgolandand Zanzibar), the outstation’s PETRA IIIteam looks forward to hearing what nametheir new home will receive.

– Rosemary Wilson and Stefan Fiedler

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EMBL&cetera • August 20094

On 26 May EMBL Hamburg made historyby linking to the other side of the world –Nanyang Technological University’s Schoolof Biological Science (SBS) in Singapore, tobe exact – to conduct the world’s first re-mote synchrotron small-angle X-ray scatter-ing (SAXS) experiment.

It marked a major landmark in a series ofdevelopments aimed at establishing a com-

pletely automated SAXS experimentpipeline undertaken over the past severalyears by Dmitri Svergun’s group.

This event formed a module of a course –southeast Asia’s first practical training inSAXS – run by members of the Svergungroup who had travelled to Singapore.While around 60 students, professors andlocal dignitaries watched, their colleagues

back in Hamburg placed the SBS group’spreviously-sent samples into the automatedliquid handling robot at the SAXS beamlineX33 on the DORIS storage ring. The SBSteam could then remotely control the exper-iment through to data acquisition, analysisand 3D model building.

“The EMBL SAXS beamline on DORIShas been using an automated samplechanger since 2007, and the group has alsobeen developing major software packages forautomated SAXS data interpretation whichare widely used in the scientific communityworldwide,” explains Dmitri. “The ultimategoal is that scientists will not have to travelto the synchrotron to do experiments, butcan steer the entire experiment from theirown computers at the home institute.”

Given the increased demand in synchro-tron SAXS from biological solutions, au-tomation of the experiment has become amust, saving time and funds as well as sig-nificantly facilitating access to the large-scale facilities. This will become essentialwhen the group moves to PETRA III andthe new BIOSAXS beamline, which will beconstructed and operated in collaborationwith the GKSS Research Centre, Germany.

Dmitri chairs the remote SAXS experimentat the SBS. The screen on the left showsthe remote access interface with camerasdisplaying the robot and the sample cell;on the right, a Skype window showsEMBL’s SAXS group monitoring theexperiment in Hamburg

The joy of (remote) SAXS

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Improvements for an information ageSeveral exciting changes are underway forEMBL-EBI’s nucleotide database, EMBL-Bank, including its 100th release, a recentintegration with two other resources toform the European Nucleotide Archive(ENA) and the appointment of GuyCochrane as the new team leader for theENA.

The ENA brings together EMBL-Bank(www.ebi.ac.uk/embl), the Sequence ReadArchive for data from high-throughput se-quencing projects and the Trace Archivethat was transferred from the WellcomeTrust Sanger Institute to EMBL-EBI lastyear. The ENA will strengthen the integra-tion that already exists between these threeresources, helping researchers deal withthe rapidly increasing amount of databeing generated and ensuring the archivewill adapt easily to evolving needs.

The 100th release of EMBL-Bank, per-haps the oldest public database of DNAand RNA sequences, holds over 160 mil-lion entries comprising nearly 300 billionnucleotides. A collaboration betweenEMBL-EBI, the US Genbank and the DNADatabank of Japan, it represents a compre-hensive archive of the world’s nucleotidesequencing data, providing the source in-formation for secondary bioinformatics

services such as Ensembl and UniProt,with which most scientists access the data.

You may have already noticed differencesin the EMBL-Bank sequence submissionprocess, both for small-scale users and forhuge amounts of data from next-genera-tion sequencing projects. Future develop-ments within the ENA will improveintegration of ENA data and the usabilityof the database. For example, the team isdeveloping a search algorithm capable ofworking with very short reads from the lat-est high-throughput sequencers, which aretricky to assemble. Ultimately, the ENA in-tends to offer its own user-friendlybrowser, enabling searches through relatedsequences using cross-references in waysnot currently possible. It’s hoped that allthe changes will be rolled out within thenext 12 months.

For Guy, a particular challenge is reliablymirroring the large amounts of data be-tween Europe, the US and Japan. “The cre-ation of the ENA means a much broaderscope, offering the potential for new col-laborations,” he says. “Users will receive amore comprehensive service, whetherthrough ENA directly or one of EMBL-EBI’s other core services.”

One stop shopEMBL-EBI and the University of Manches-ter have launched a new web resource,Biocatalogue.org, a central repository foronline biology-related services, tools anddatabases. There are more than 1000 on thelist so far, from the most well known and es-tablished – the largest provider to date beingthe EBI – to the newest. Users can search bycategory (Data Retrieval, Microarrays or Se-quence Analysis, for example) or by serviceprovider. Every listing is annotated andrated by curators, service providers andusers with an at-a-glance traffic light system.

“It could accelerate research in a range ofdisciplines, including pharma, medical andagronomic fields, and acts as a forum for re-searchers to make contact with serviceproviders and other experts,”says RodrigoLopez, head of External Services at EMBL-EBI, who’s leading the project with CaroleGroble at the University of Manchester.

EMBL&cetera • August 2009 5

Ten years of technology transfer

When EMBLEM was established in1999, EMBL hoped it would breakeven within ten years. In fact, as thecompany celebrated the end of itsfirst decade on 19 June, there waseven more cause to party

EMBLEM: a look back...and a look forward

xceeding all expectations, EMBL Enter-prise Management Technology Transfer

GmbH – EMBLEM for short – has actuallybeen generating a profit for EMBL and itsscientists since as long ago as 2004, less thanhalf the time predicted. Not only that, it hashelped 400 EMBL staff become inventors,and has more than 250 granted patents andpatent applications and 11 spin-out compa-nies on its portfolio.

But what is technology transfer, anyway,and what does this success story actuallymean for EMBL and its scientists? It’s a fairlynew concept; while research institutes suchas MIT, UCSF and Harvard in the US havelong benefitted from the services of nearbyorganisations, the idea of active technologytransfer policies only really entered the con-sciousness of institutes in continental Eu-rope towards the turn of the 21st century.

“Innovation is driven by excellent basic re-search,” explains Gábor Lamm, managingdirector of EMBLEM. “It’s essential to havemechanisms which ensure that scientific re-sults and discoveries can properly and rap-idly be translated into practical applicationsand marketable products to the benefit ofsociety at large.”

It’s one of EMBL’s missions to develop itsdiscoveries to benefit society, but before theexistence of EMBLEM the protection andcommercialisation of intellectual propertyand inventions was done on an ad hoc basis.Creating EMBLEM allowed the process tobe streamlined, ensuring a steady incomefor EMBL and benefiting the member statesand society as a whole by translating basicresearch results into marketable tools andproducts. It also builds on the renown of theinstitute and boosts public trust in it, andthe scientist inventors can enjoy the recogni-tion and remuneration that marketing aninvention brings.

EMBLEM is run by business professionalswho, following their scientific training,gained considerable experience in industry:Gábor completed his PhD at EMBL Heidel-

Top and above right: EMBLEM pushed theboat out with their 10th birthday celebrationson 19 June. Above: EMBLEM’s current line-up (back, l-r: Ilka Singer, Jürgen Bauer, JörgRauch, Martin Raditsch, Gábor Lamm,Thorsten Schneider; front: Yvonne Powell,Birgit Kerber).

berg before working as a researcher at Vi-enna’s Boehringer Ingelheim Institute ofMolecular Pathology (IMP) and entering in-dustry at Wacker Chemie. He joined EM-BLEM in 2000 and has systematically builtup the company ever since.

In 2001 EMBLEM helped established the€26million EMBL Technology Fund (ETF),managed by EMBL Ventures, to invest in thecreation of further start-up companies, and

after redeeming all past investment by 2004,was selected in 2008 to push forward thetechnology transfer activities of the Univer-sity of Heidelberg’s Medical Faculty and as-sociated clinics in a consortium with thetechnology transfer arm of the GermanCancer Research Centre (DKFZ).

As an important part of their activities,EMBLEM also offers training in technologytransfer. “It’s useful for young scientists to

know what sort of ideas and results are com-mercialisable, what the criteria are forpatentability and what the components of asuccessful start-up company are,” saysDeputy Managing Director Martin Ra-ditsch. “Some inventors fear that patentingresearch results could prevent them frombeing published later in scientific journals,or that patents and copyrights hinder inno-vation. In fact, academic research is usuallyunaffected by patent protection.”

You can browse EMBLEM’s products andspin-out companies on the revamped web-site, www.embl-em.de, which offers newfeatures such as a fast and easy downloadarea for EMBL-developed software and a listof available technologies for commercialpartners interested in licensing. Simply con-tact the team to find out more, whetheryou’re a potential scientific inventor or in-dustry partner or have an idea for a start-upcompany.

“Our process provides inventors andfounders with all the tools and support re-quired to rapidly develop and deploy theirideas, and we collaborate with more than250 licensees of EMBL technologies and ac-ademic partners worldwide,” says Gábor.

“Innovation is driven byexcellent basicresearch”

Gábor Lamm

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Party photos: Marietta Schupp

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EMBL&cetera • April 20096

n July Kim Henrick, team leader of theProtein Data Bank in Europe (PDBe), bid

EMBL farewell after 13 years. He leaves ahuge legacy: the PDB has made tremendousprogress under his stewardship, and the bat-tery of tools Kim developed promise to in-fluence the development of structuralbiology for years to come. As EMBL-EBI Di-rector Janet Thornton says: “The establish-ment of the global wwPDB, used bythousands of researchers today, reflect Kim’svision for a united scientific enterprise, hisdedication and hard work.”

The PDB started life in the early 70s inBrookhaven, USA as a repository of proteinstructure coordinates run by the ResearchCollaboratory for Structural Bioinformatics(RCSB) consortium. When Kim joinedEMBL-EBI in 1996, the MacromolecularStructure Database (MSD) team had justbeen created to partner the RCSB to handlethe increasing flood of structural data, withJapan coming on board later. There werejust four members of the MSD team; acrossthe pond, the global PDB database con-tained about 5,000 entries.

In the late 90s, the PDB moved to RCSB-Rutgers in New Jersey, and when Kim hadtaken over the leadership of MSD in 2001,he strengthened the collaboration betweenthe sites, founding the Electron MicroscopyData Bank (EMDB) a depository for modelsand data from cryo-electron microscopy. Amajor milestone was the formation of theworldwide Protein Data Bank (wwPDB) inSeptember 2003 by the three foundingmembers: the RCSB, the MSD – now knownthe PDBe – and the PDBj (Protein DataBank Japan). This provided a global reposi-

tory of macromolecular structure data forexperimental data and structures from crys-tallography (X-ray) and nuclear magneticresonance (NMR) spectroscopy, providing

comprehensive, integrated and publiclyavailable data.

Since the creation of the wwPDB, thePDBe team has worked with its collabora-tors to improve the quality of the databaseby correcting inconsistencies and by creat-ing a unified archive for all data from thethree partners, as well as developing tools toassist researchers when submitting data. In

addition, PDBe team efforts have improvedintegration with the not just the rest ofEMBL-EBI’s data sources but also externalexternal databases such as UniProt, Pfam,InterPro, SCOP and CATH. Users can usethe PDB – in which there are now morethan 60,000 structures available – to per-form complex queries and structural com-parisons, visualise ligand binding and toexplore protein interfaces, surfaces and as-semblies.

Kim will be replaced by Gerard Kleywegt,who has just been appointed Professor ofStructural Molecular Biology at UppsalaUniversity, Sweden. Gerard’s no stranger tothe PDBe, having served on its ScientificAdvisory Board and as a representative onthe wwPDB Advisory Committee. “Kim willbe a hard act to follow,” he says. “I’m sure Ispeak for everyone when I thank him for allhis work over the past 13 years.”

The shapeof things tocome

Little and large: there’s quite a change afoot at thePDBe, with Gerard (right) taking over from Kim

“Kim will be a hard actto follow”

Gerard Kleywegt

Celebrating fruitful collaborations: inauguration of Bio-SAXS

I

On 15 June, EMBL joined ESRF Councilrepresentatives and staff in Grenoble forthe official inauguration of the new Bio-SAXS station ID14-3, dedicated to solu-tion scattering of biological macromole-cules. The project was highly collaborative

from the beginning, with stafffrom EMBL Hamburg

working with colleagues at EMBL Greno-ble and the ESRF to convert ID14-3 to aSAXS beamline to cope with heavy de-mand. EMBL Grenoble’s Diffraction In-strumentation team, led by FlorentCipriani in collaboration with EMBLHamburg, developed a faster and more ef-ficient sample changer to allow optimal

use of third generation synchrotronbeams. This was based on an existing au-tomated sample changer built under thesupervision of Manfred Roessle and im-plemented at X33, which is run by theSvergun group at EMBL Hamburg. Aworking prototype at ID14-3 was demon-strated to the visiting guests.

To represent the collaborative nature ofthe project, the beamline was inauguratedby cutting two ribbons at the entrance tothe experimental hutch by (l-r) ESRFCouncil chair Robert Feidenhans’l, head ofEMBL Grenoble Stephen Cusack andESRF DG Francesco Sette. The first officialusers collected data in November 2008and results are already being published.www.esrf.fr/UsersAndScience/Experiments/MX/About_our_beamlines/ID14-3

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www.embl.org/alumni

o stay in academia, you have to beconvinced about the topic you are

working on, and be sure that it’s going tomotivate you for the next ten to fifteenyears.” This was the message from formerEMBL Monterotondo group leader WalterWitke at the ‘Where next after EMBL?’event at EMBL Heidelberg on the morn-ing of the summer party. “Once you’vechosen this path, be stubborn!”

Alumni based in Germany met to catchup with old friends and present their ca-reer paths after leaving EMBL, with speak-ers from academia and industry giving afascinating insight into future options andsome valuable career development tips.While Walter, now professor at the Uni-versity of Bonn, was speaking for the aca-demic route, Luca Toldo, principalresearch scientist at Merck and formerEMBL staff scientist, promoted industry.“My motivation is driven by the goal tooperate in a worldwide competitive busi-ness producing meaningful benefits for

patients, doctors and the scientific com-munity,” he said.

Having been successful both in scienceand industry, Gábor Lamm, Managing Di-rector of EMBLEM and former Gene Ex-pression predoc, concluded that neitherside can live without the other. “Industrycreates devices for scientists, but requirestheir scientific input to get there,” he said,going on to present EMBLEM’s work.

Matthias Hentze talked about how proudEMBL is of its relationships: with currentEMBL staff on the one hand, and itsalumni through the Alumni Associationon the other. He pointed out that the largestaff presence amongst the fifty partici-pants on the day was a direct result of theincreasing efforts by the association to in-clude staff in their activities, projects andservices as early as possible.

Other speakers on the day were WernerKühlbrandt, Director of the MPI for Bio-physics in Frankfurt and former EMBLgroup leader and senior scientist, who’salso chair of the Scientific Advisory Com-mittee, Daniel Forler from Bayer ScheringPharma AG and Pavel Tomancak (seebelow).

The Alumni Association would like tothank all the speakers for their excellentcontribution to this event. To view theprogramme of talks and participants,please check www.embl.org/alumni.

Where next after EMBL?

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EMBL alumni in GermanyThe largest clusters of alumni live inHeidelberg (110), Dresden (43), Mu-nich/Martinsried (38) and Berlin (34);they work at the University of Heidel-berg (37), Dresden’s MPI for Cell Biol-ogy (29) and DKFZ, Heidelberg (22).Of the 68% alumni working in acade-mia in Germany (328), 29% are at anMPI (95), 19 as directors.

“

A model career

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One of the interesting career paths out-lined at the ‘Where next after EMBL’ eventwas that of former EMBL predoc PavelTomancak, now a group leader at the MPIfor Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics(MPI-CBG) in Dresden. He has gainedexperience in three very different fieldsduring his academic career. “Thanks tothe freedom in Gerry Rubin’s lab at Berke-ley, where I was a postdoc, I was able tomove from the bench to computational bi-ology” he explains. “I made a final transferto image analysis at MPI-CBG because itis so important – most primary data in bi-ology are images.”

As part of his work there, Pavel gener-ated the Genomic Fosmid Library, whichcovers 90% of genes in theDrosophilagenome. He also promotes a new imageanalysis open source project called Fiji(Fiji Is Just ImageJ). Though a world awayfrom the PhD he completed in AnneEphrussi’s lab at EMBL on the genes in-volved in the establishment of theDrosophila oocyte polarity, he recalls his

early days here with appreciation for thegreat start to his scientific life. “I was oneof the first eastern European students tobe accepted at EMBL, and I was known as‘Skodaman’,” recalls Pavel, who comesfrom the Czech Republic. “It’s when youleave that you realise there are peopleworldwide benefiting both professionallyand personally from the EMBL networksthey build. As soon as I got off the plane inCalifornia when I started my postdoc Imet three people from EMBL! It makesyou feel at home all over the world.”

At MPI-CBG, though, he’s reminded ofthe old days all the time – the institute isknown as the ‘Dresden model’, inspired byEMBL, and there are no fewer than 29EMBL alumni currently working there.“The two share many principles: inde-pendence for young groups, competitivepackages, locations in nice cities, excellentPhD programmes and state-of-the-art fa-cilities – and, of course, the parties,” Pavelsays. “EMBL has changed the culture ofscience in Europe by exporting suchideas.”

“As soon as I got offthe plane in

California I met threepeople from EMBL”

EMBL&cetera • August 2009ii

www.embl.org/alumni

Where ITs @

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.

It’s thanks to EMBL’s IT group that we canmaintain contact with alumni via onlineregistrations and updates – an interfacewhich was set up in 2003 by BjörnKindler. Since his departure it has beenenhanced by Matthias Helmling to carryout advanced searches and to import therecords of all staff from the SAP-HR sys-tem automatically when they leave. Wecaught up with three alumni who chosethe IT path precisely for the buzz of help-ing others: Björn, FACETS project admin-istrator at the Kirchhoff Institute forPhysics; Marc Hemberger, head of IT atBioQuant and Daniel Browne, systemsadministrator at Cellnetworks, all at Hei-delberg University.How did you get into IT, and what doyou like about it?MH: After my PhD in physics I decidedagainst more research and opted for a ca-reer in software development and latersystem administration. Communication,talking to people and providing solutionsare my favourite aspects of the job. I likebeing proactive – seeing a need comingup and already having a solution to hand– which requires a good understanding ofmy ‘customers’ and their work.BK: IT became a hobby when the first af-fordable computer system became avail-able, but as I thought the world alreadyhad enough book-keeping programs, I dida PhD in biochemistry. During that time,I discovered my passion for extractingsomething meaningful from a lot of dataand replacing repetitive work.DB: I was one of those people who cameacross computers only when I startedworking. During a training course forWordStar the instructor recognised mytalent for learning quickly and encouragedme to assist the others. That’s when I re-alised that I enjoy supporting others asmuch as I do working with computers.What did you do at EMBL?MH: I was at EMBL from 2001-2006, re-sponsible for the administration of mailand backup infrastructures and the gen-eral purpose compute cluster. After thedeparture of Hans Döbbling, I was in-terim head of IT, providing solutions for

completely different user groups. Whatwas particularly special was being able totry something out and getting it right be-fore going to ‘market’.BK: As IT architect and programmer be-tween 1997 and 2006, I maintained theEMBL webserver and was responsible fordata integration applications, i.e. gettingdata from one system into another. I espe-cially liked the contact with the customersand the opportunity to make their workeasier or less repetitive.DB: I was a desktop systems managerfrom 1997-2006, responsible for the in-stallation of new computers and printers,hardware/software repairs and first leveluser support. We were the human face ofIT, letting users know what the group wasdoing and passing on their feedback. Themost challenging part was sacrificing ourwork schedule due to the sheer numberand unpredictablity of the requests to IT!How is your job different now?MH: We’re building a powerful infra-structure for high throughput and highcontent microscopy and next generationsequencing. Being at a university withuser groups all over campus is very differ-ent to working at EMBL, and creating anIT setup at a new institute is exciting.BK: I’m doing administration for theFACETS project – including, of course,webserver and self-written web applica-tions as well as reporting to the EU. Ourproject works towards a concept forneuro-inspired computing. The challeng-ing aspect is working with 15 groups inseven countries to strict deadlines.DB: My responsibilities include project

conception, realisation and maintenance.The most obvious difference is the pace ofchange. EMBL was always able to be at theforefront of IT trends due to its size andbudget.Is there life outside computing?MH: Yes, I’m chair and swimming in-structor for the Deutsche Lebens-Ret-tungs-Gesellschaft Schwetzingen, andspend the rest of my free time with my 18-month old son, Benedikt.BK: I’m still a member of the EMBL diveclub, and meet with current and formerEMBL staff on our trips.DB: I play golf with the EMBL golf club.I’ve been trying to lower my handicap butam only getting better at losing the balls!

Please mark your diaries:

• 2 October: local chapter meeting atthe University of Porto, Portugal.

• 16 November: Application and nomi-nation deadline, John Kendrew YoungScientist Award 2010.

• 14-15 December: 14th Alumni Asso-ciation board meeting, EMBL Ham-burg. E-mail alumni@embl.org by 26November with issues you’d like theBoard to consider.

Björn, Marc and Daniel

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EMBL&cetera • August 2009 7

The Kinderhaus kids enjoyed learning all aboutfire and its dangers with a visit from the KreisBergstraße and Heidelberg fire brigades on 7May. After a drill, during which their calm, un-

hurried evacuation in hand-holding pairs shouldhave been an inspiration to the adults of EMBLat their own on 26 June, the children spent therest of the morning tearing around on mini fire

engines and fighting raging infernoes with thehelp of real firefighter Wilfried Staudigel and hiscolleagues, who also explained about emer-gency procedures and equipment.

he two journalists who got a taste of lifeat EMBL Heidelberg this year couldn’t

have chosen a better time – their stay coin-cided with Career Day, Lab Day and EM-BLEM’s tenth birthday celebrations.

Nicla Panciera and Adam Gristwood, whochose EMBL for their placement as part of acourse run by the European Initiative forCommunicators of Science (EICOS), wentaway with the impression that, as well asbeing Europe’s hub of excellence in molecu-lar biology research, EMBL is also PartyCentral.

“I’m certainly going to steal some ideas formy own institute, particularly Lab Day,” saysNicla who, as well as contributing to Italy’sLa Stampa newspaper, is also press officer atthe University of Trento’s Center forMind/Brain Sciences (CIMEC). “I was keento visit EMBL because I wanted to see howsuch a large community of scientists getsalong. I found it’s almost like a big family –and the group leaders here are so young!”

The EICOS course, which is open to jour-nalists from all over Europe and from allbackgrounds, aims to improve communica-tion between researchers and journalists andmake the activities of scientists more intelli-gible to the public, so Nicla was especiallyimpressed to witness first-hand the goodcommunication skills of EMBL scientists.“In Italy our scientists often say they’re toobusy to talk about their work. They think it’sa waste of time,” she explains. “At EMBL,everyone’s aware of the possibilities and op-portunities that are opened up by presentingtheir research to the outside world.”

Adam, who edits the UK’s Public ServiceReview: Science and Technology and isbased in Manchester, agrees. “All too oftenscientists are afraid to simplify complex the-ories,” he comments. “Scientific communci-ation can be like treading a very fine line.”

“I get the impression that the scientists

here are involved in something much biggerthan just their science, which helps in all as-pects of life,” adds Nicla. “We’ve talked tosome really fascinating people and collectedalmost too much material!”

During the week, the journalists spenttime with scientists from all units and careerstages and heard about some of the mainareas of research at EMBL. Adam found the

institute’s interdisciplinarity particularly in-spiring. “There’s such a diverse range of sci-entists here working with fantastic facilitiesin a whole host of different fields, and theirintegration opens up entirely novel possibili-ties in research,” he says.

“One postdoc I talked to was saying thatall the fields are represented within her owngroup, which is amazing,” adds Nicla.

The journalists have taken away a wealthof ideas. “One of my articles is going to lookat how the EMBL model could be used for afuture centre for climate change,” saysAdam. “The scientists here seem to be en-couraged to take risks, which is refreshing.Most institutes are too worried about cost.”

As well as getting an overview of the sci-ence and outreach activities, Nicla andAdam, who picked EMBL from a choice of15 other research institutes across Europe,were able to mingle even more at the socialevents on Wednesday, Thursday and Fridaynights. “Is it like this all the time?” Adamwas heard inquiring worriedly. “I’m not sureI could take the pace...”

“I’m going to stealsome ideas for myown institute,

particularly Lab Day”Nicla Panciera

T

AdamGristwood andNicla Pancieratake a well-earned break

A good weekfor a field trip

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EMBL&cetera • August 20098

Summer party

MMPU discovery may help fight major cause of heart diseaseWhen was the last time you took a choles-terol test? Are you feeling guilty about thatslice of cake or extra helping of chips? As weall know, high levels of cholesterol in thebloodstream seriously increase the risk ofheart disease – but now the groups of RainerPepperkok at EMBL and Heiko Runz at theUniversity Clinic Heidelberg have broughtus a step closer to understanding how cho-lesterol levels are regulated by identifying 20of the genes involved.

Despite its bad press, cholesterol is vital tothe smooth running of our bodies; it keepscell membranes flexible and is essential inmany metabolic processes. Either made inthe liver or taken up from the diet, it is

transported around the body in the blood-stream and taken up by cells as they need it.It is when blood cholesterol levels get toohigh that we risk developing heart disease.

The researchers deprived isolated humancells of cholesterol and then looked at thewhole genome to find genes that alteredtheir expression in response, revealing hun-dreds that might be involved in cholesterolregulation. To check which ones were reallyimportant, they used RNA interference tosystematically turn off each candidate gene,revealing which had an effect on cholesteroluptake and on cholesterol levels inside cells.

Of the 20 genes shortlisted, 12 were previ-ously unknown. The teams are now trying

to discover how these novel genes are in-volved in regulating cholesterol and whetherthey might be affected in patients. Besidesgiving scientists new leads to uncover themechanisms behind cholesterol regulation,the discovery could open new avenues fordeveloping targeted drug therapies for cho-lesterol-related diseases.

The research was conducted under theMolecular Medicine Partnership Unit(MMPU), a collaboration between EMBLand Heidelberg University. “It allowed us touse EMBL’s technology to answer questionsthat first arose at the university, whose clini-cal aspects will now help in the follow-up,”says Rainer.

EMBL Heidelberg staff and their fami-lies enjoyed a day of rides, theatre andmusic at this year’s Summer Party on11 July. There were many activities forkids including pony riding, bouncycastles and face painting, as well as sci-ence games. Musical entertainmentcame from the Walldorf youth band,the Alptraumboys and the FreddyWonder Combo. As ever, a wonderfularray of dishes were prepared by Claus

Himburg and his canteen staff. We’dlike to thank the committee whohelped make this year’s event anothersuccess.

Thanks to your contributions to thisyear’s tombola, we managed to raise€5,025 for the neighbouring Waldpi-raten camp for children recoveringfrom cancer. A cheque will be handedover in August.

– Catherine Floyd

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hristinePanagiotidis

Heidelberg-on-sea

EMBL&cetera • August 2009 9

Postdoc Elia Benito Gutierrez and HermannWeber from Building Maintenance tell LucyPatterson about why – and how – they’ve broughta little bit of the beach to Baden-Württemberg

Photo: Christine Panagiotidis

hen Elia Benito Gutierrez joined theArendt group in February this year,

she had quite a challenge on her hands. Sheand Detlev were embarking on a new proj-ect as a result of their shared interest innervous system evolution which involvedan unusual model animal, amphioxus.Though Elia had a long history with thisworm-like cephalochordate as a student inBarcelona and during her postdoc at theNIMR in London, joining EMBL posed anew puzzle: no one had yet managed tokeep a successful breeding colony in a lab.

All other attempts to raise amphioxushave been at facilities in coastal regions withgood access to fresh seawater. Getting em-bryos has, until now, involved fishing dailyduring the 2-3 month breeding season inthe hope of being there when the animalswere ready to breed. “In the end you havejust a couple of nights where you hope toget enough embryos for a whole year’s re-search,” explains Elia.

That’s where Building Maintenance’s Her-mann Weber came in. “In Heidelberg wewould have had big problems pumping theseawater in and out – we would need a verylong pipe!” he says. Hermann, as Elia willtell you, has been crucial to the success ofthe introduction of amphioxus to EMBL –and it’s thanks to the ongoing collaborationbetween Detlev’s group and Hermann indeveloping and maintaining marine facili-ties that this important project was able togo ahead.

“A lot of my emails would start somethinglike, ‘Hermann, I know this might soundcrazy, but…’ and he just found solutions toeverything,” Elia remembers. BuildingMaintenance created a facility that runs onnatural sea water which is filtered and

shipped in 2000 litre tanks all the way fromHelgoland, just like the water for thePlatynereis facility. It’s then cooled to 8-13.5°C – which causes condensation prob-lems – and has to be totally insulated fromexternal light. As amphioxus only breed atsunset, it was necessary to shift theday/night cycle so that night falls in the af-ternoon. The facility simulates natural dawnand dusk with artificial lights, and a blue

LED ‘moon’ provides moonlight for 6 days amonth. The animals themselves were mostlybrought by Elia herself in her hand luggagefrom a wild colony in the south of France,and despite the upheaval, they seem to bedoing very well in Helgoland seawater.

For Hermann, such projects are quite a de-parture from the day-to-day business ofbuilding maintenance and he relishes theopportunity to put his technical expertise toa new use. It wasn’t long before they hadproof of their success. “I remember the dayElia came to find me in the canteen,” he re-calls. “She dropped her things down on thetable and said ‘I’ve got babies!’ It was great!”

The amphioxus will help Elia and Detlevconstruct a detailed map of the brain as itdevelops, showing for the first time the posi-tions of the different neurons and whichmRNAs and proteins they express. As am-phioxus is considered to be a ‘living fossil’this will provide great insight into howbrains in other species have evolved.

“She dropped herthings on the table andsaid ‘I’ve got babies!’ It

was great!”

Hermann Weber,Elia Benito

Gutierrez andDetlev Arendt atthe facility. Inset:

amphioxus

W

Farewell sweet ladies EMBL Heidelberg said goodbyeto some very familiar faces on 30June when EMBL’s obligation totender for cleaning servicesmeant that the Gegenbauer com-pany’s tenure at the lab ended.

No one was more sad to leavethan supervisor Anni Stenzel,who for 13 years has led the teamof ladies in their invaluable workkeeping EMBL spick and span.Anni, who’s 62, was referred to asthe ‘Mother of nations’ by the

predocs she rescued in the EMBL laundryroom with vital decisions regarding temper-atures and settings for their laundry. Eventhough she can’t speak English, Anni saysshe never had any problems communicatingwith staff and it was this aspect of life thatshe found terrific at EMBL, as well as the ap-proachability of the people. However,though she says she has ‘left her heart atEMBL’, she won’t miss cleaning up after thepredoc parties – that was always ‘a killer’!

Cleaning services at the lab have now beentaken over by Breer, based in Heidelberg.

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EMBL&cetera • August 200910

ELLS’ firstvisit to (notso sunny) Spain

When local education administrators inCastilla y Leon asked EMBL alumna TeresaAlonso to organise a course for biologyteachers, she immediately came to EMBL’sEuropean Learning Laboratory for the LifeSciences (ELLS) for inspiration. Togetherwith Rossana De Lorenzi, the ELLS officerbased in Monterotondo, Teresa ran hercourse, ‘New frontiers in research on geneticdiseases: from the lab to the classroom’, atthe Instituto de Biología y Genética Molecu-lar in Valladolid in April, with seminars inSpanish and practical activities in English.

The scientists and speakers who con-tributed to the course were Alfredo Moreno,

Diego Sanchez, Ana Sanchez and Juan JoseTellería from the host university, formerEMBL postdoc Filip Lim, who now leads agroup at the Autónoma University inMadrid, and former PhD student FelipeMora, who’s now at Dresden’s Max PlanckInstitute of Molecular Cell Biology and Ge-netics.

“This first ELLS course in Spain was a bigsuccess, with a great atmosphere among theteachers and the scientists,” says Teresa. “Asa result, the teachers have set up a workingnetwork with a virtual platform to exchangeuseful ideas and teaching materials.”

EMBL DG Iain Mattaj addressing the audience at 26 June’s official signing ceremony of the Unitfor Virus and Host Cell Interactions Unité Mixte Internationale (UMI) between EMBL, CNRS andthe Université Joseph Fourier in Grenoble. The international unit is a unique structure in Francein the areas of biology and health, and will facilitate interdisciplinary research in structural andmolecular biology. Head of EMBL Grenoble Stephen Cusack (seated, front right) will direct theunit for the first five years, and deputy head will be Rob Ruigrok, professor at the UniversityJoseph Fourier.

In the mixCalling all chemistsOn Lab Day this year group leaders MajaKöhn, Carsten Schultz and Edward Lemkeasked ‘what can chemistry do for biology?’during which they presented a new sectionof the EMBL website devoted to chemicalbiology (www.embl.de/research/chemistry/index.html).

The pages list the ten EMBL groups thatincorporate different areas of chemistry intotheir research, such as chemical synthesis,spectroscopic and spectrometric methods,chemoinformatics, chemical docking andmodelling, protein semisynthesis and engi-neering, and analytical and medicinal chem-istry. There’s also a area listing the relatedequipment that is available at all EMBL sitesand one that lists upcoming events organ-ised by the chemical biology community.

“One of the aims of the site is to raiseawareness of how much chemistry is actu-ally being done here, even though it’s a mo-lecular biology laboratory, and to encouragechemists at all career stages to apply,” saysCarsten.

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500 female biologists join expert network

“very usefulduring ourrecruitmentdrive”

“an excellent resourceto search for scientificexperts who can serve

on peer reviewcommittees”

“highlyrecommended!”

Four years after its launch, the Women inLife Sciences (WiLS) database has grown toinclude 500 experts and is proving an in-valuable networking tool, as the testimonialson the right demonstrate.

Initiated by the European Life ScientistOrganization and supported by EMBO andthe Federation of European Biochemical So-cieties (FEBS), the online public databasepromotes qualified women as candidates forprofessorships, advisory groups, as speakersat conferences and as manuscript reviewers,areas in which they are currently underrep-resented. “The WiLS database helps all users

– not just women – identify and establishcontacts with accomplished female scientistsbelonging to their research area,” says coor-dinator Karla Neugebauer, group leader atthe MPI for Molecular Cell Biology and Ge-netics in Dresden.

Several of EMBL’s senior scientists andmany alumni are already included in thedatabase. To be accepted, candidates mustbe based in Europe or a European national,and have published a basic research articleas first or last author within the past threeyears. Check it out at http://wils-database.embo.org/members_meet.php.

EMBL&cetera • August 2009 11

newsinbrief� Registration is now open for the fol-

lowing EBI hands-on bioinformaticstraining course: ‘A dip into EBI re-sources: understanding your data’ on19-22 October (registration deadline21 September). See www.ebi.ac.uk/training/handson to register and forprogramme details on courses to beheld in 2010.

� Ramón Moreno, Catalonia’s GeneralDirector of the Research CentresProgramme (CERCA) Department ofInnovation, Universities and Business,and Project Director Ramon Nogueravisited EMBL Heidelberg on 10 July todiscuss the ongoing collaborations be-tween EMBL and the Catalan researchorganisations, including the CRG.

� In another visit from the Spanish pen-inula, representatives from the Inter-national Iberian NanotechnologyLaboratory came on 13 July to learnmore about technology transfer, EM-BLEM and EMBL.

� Maria Leptin will be the new directorof EMBO from January next year.Maria, who works on cell shapes andimmunity at the University ofCologne, will be the fifth director inthe organisation’s 45-year history.

� MMPU group leader and EMBLalumna Martina Muckenthaler hasbeen been elected as Director of theInternational BioIron Society.

� EMBL again set up its stand to pro-mote its activities and career opportu-

nities at this year’s FEBS congress,‘Life’s Molecular Interactions’, inPrague on 4-9 July (below). Withmore than 2,000 participants the FEBScongress is one of the largest in Eu-rope. “We were excellently placedright next to the refreshment tables, sowe had a constant stream of visitors,”commented Head of Communica-tions Lena Raditsch, who helped manthe stand.

� EMBL researchers recently got to-gether to organise a symposium span-ning the entire gamut of structuraland cell biology imaging and analysistechniques with the help of FP7’s newIntegrated Structural Biology Infra-structure (INSTRUCT) project. Withfunding from that and the Spine2-Complexes project, Edward Lemke,Christoph Müller and Rainer Pep-perkok welcomed more than 130 par-ticipants to “LightMicroscopymeetsStructural Biology” at EMBL Heidel-berg on 22-23 June, with 18 speakerscovering topics such as imaging pro-tein-protein interactions, correlativelight-EM microscopy and super-reso-

lution techniques. “The topicszoomed all the way in from imagingcell biology to atomic resolution tech-niques,” says Edward. “This broadrange meant that we got a lot of peopletogether who wouldn’t normally meet,which made the symposium particu-larly unique and interesting, and wereceived lots of positive feedback.”

� EMBL’s Non-scientific Training andDevelopment is changing its name tothe General Training and Develop-ment Programme in response to feed-back. “We’ve gathered very positiveinput on the quality and range of thecourses and see no need to alter theprogramme, just to improve on it,” saysHead of Personnel Ulla Böhme. “Thename change aims to reflect the factthat the courses are useful for everyoneat any level, and we’ll aim to offer moreadvice about which training peopleshould choose according to their careerstage.” Upcoming courses include:

Please see http://intranet.embl.de/personnel/training_development/index.html for more information.

Course Date / site

Effective Writing 2 4 Sept (EBI)

Personal Effectiveness 16 Sept (HD)

Negotiating Skills 17 Sept (HD)

Conflict Management 18 Sept (HD)

Effective Team Leader 117-18 Sept(EBI)

Intro to Meetings,Events and Conferences

23 Sept (HD)

Alice in wonderlandFrom 21-23 July EMBL Heidelberg was hostto the 23 participants of the 13th Interna-tional Summer Science School Heidelberg(ISH), a chance for students to visit labs,take part in experiments and chat with sci-entists. The ISH runs for a month eachsummer and gives students, who come fromHeidelberg’s twin towns including Montpel-lier (France), Rehovot (Israel) and Simfer-opol (Ukraine) a real insight into howscientific research is conducted and achance to see professional facilities close up.

ELLS officers Philipp Gebhardt and JuliaWillingale-Theune organised the pro-gramme, which also involved two interns –of which I was one – and eight studentsfrom local schools. Activities involved semi-

nars, practicals and a chance to interview apanel of EMBL scientists. Highlights wereFrancesco Pampaloni’s 3D microscopy sem-inar and the visit to the Xenopus facility,both topics being something we hadn’t nec-essarily associated with lab work (thoughyou experts undoubtedly would!).

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the ISHbut was pleasantly surprised. The group wasextremely friendly and together we learnt alot (proving that practical work is alwaysmore fun than theory). The programme wasquite tiring, especially for those without anyexperience of science taught in English, butoverall the three days were fantastic.

– Alice Goldman, aged 17Students put their heads together to prepare

samples for a PCR experiment

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EMBL&cetera issue 52, August 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: Louisa Wright, KatrinaPavelin, Mehrnoosh Rayner, LucyPatterson, Yvonne Kaul, Adam Round,Rossana De Lorenzi, Corinna Gorny.Photographic support: EMBL Photolab.Printed by ColorDruck, Leimen.

Alexander Aulehla has joined EMBL Heidelberg’s Develop-mental Biology Unit as a group leader. He qualified as a med-ical doctor from the Albert Ludwigs University in Freiburg in2002 and performed research in Houston, USA and Freiburg,before holding a position as physician in Basel and then com-pleting his PhD in Paris. He returned to the USA as a postdoc,and now his group at EMBL will study the timing of mam-malian embryogenesis using mouse genetics, ES-cell technol-ogy and real-time imaging of mouse embryos.

Gwen Sanderson is the new face in EMBL’s Courses and Con-ferences Office. Born in Venezuela, Gwen was educated inWales and went to university in London, where she read Mod-ern Languages and International Studies. She’s been in Ger-many for 20 years and has worked in advertising and eventmanagement for SAS EMEA in Heidelberg and IDC in Frank-furt. In EMBL’s international environment Gwen is looking for-ward to the chance to speak Spanish again – and she also hopesto find someone to help her with some DIY at home.

events@EMBL people@EMBL

awards&honours

4 September EMBL MonterotondoEMBL Distinguished Visitor Lecture:Optogenetics: development andapplication. Karl Deisseroth, Stanford

8-9 September EMBL HeidelbergCourse: Joint EMBL/GenomatixWorkshop on mRNA-Seq and ChIP-Seq: Comprehensive Methods for NextGeneration Sequencing Data Analysis

9-13 September EMBL HeidelbergConference: EMBO Conference Serieson Protein Synthesis and TranslationalControl

16 September Golf Hotel StrombergFaculty Retreat 2009

2-6 October EMBL HeidelbergConference: EMBO Conference Serieson Morphogenesis and Dynamics ofMulticellular Systems

8-16 October EMBL HeidelbergCourse: EMBO Practical Course onCurrent Methods in Cell Biology

15 October EMBL GrenobleHeads of Units/Senior ScientistsMeetings

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

Janet Thornton, Director of EMBL-EBI, has been awarded a Senior Scientist Award by theFellows Programme of the International Society for Computational Biology. Janet was se-lected in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the fields of computational biologyand bioinformatics. The award was presented at the combined 17th Annual InternationalConference on Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology (ISMB) and 8th European Con-ference on Computational Biology (ECCB) 2009 held in June in Stockholm.

Happy birthday, Monterotondo

On 22 June EMBL Monterotondo celebrated its 10th anniversary with a scientific meetingfeaturing talks from various speakers including internationally renowned immunologist KlausRajewsky (right), who led the unit before current head Nadia Rosenthal (left, with (l-r) LilianaMinichiello, Pascale Beudin and Rossana De Lorenzi) took over in 2001. “EMBL has been animportant addition to the Monterotondo campus and has contributed to developing andinternationalising Italian biological and biomedical research,” said Glauco Tocchini-Valentini,head of CNR-EMMA international activities on the Adriano Buzzati-Traverso campus. At 30June’s Council meeting, Iain Mattaj praised Nadia’s leadership and said that she has ensuredthe mouse biology unit’s successful integration into the EMBL community, with severalstudents pursuing joint projects with EMBL-EBI.

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Several EMBL individuals and teams tookpart in 2 August’s grueling HeidelbergMantriathlon, with some outstanding results.EMBL’s star in the solo women’s sectionwas research technician Victoria McPar-land, who came 6th with a time of 2:37:00.Top EMBL participant of the men’s solorace was predoc Tobias Stuwe, with a timeof 2:36:50. Of the EMBL teams, postdocNadia Dubé’s ‘Zeroes’ came in 39th with2:35:34, closely followed by ‘Cellzome 1’,which comprised Bork group analystDamian Devos and Cellzomers MikhailSavistski and Toby Mathieson, who camein at 41st with 2:36:32. For the rest of theEMBL participants and the entire resultstables, see www.heidelbergman.de/2009/main2009.html.

Well done, athletes!