National and International Seminar Series 2014

Speaker:
Lars Bode
UCSD, USA

Title: tba

Room: Betula, bldg 6M

SciLifeLab will launch two Outreach Days per year with the aim to raise awareness of the technologies and expertise that are offered at the SciLifeLab platforms to researchers from all of Sweden.? ?

SciLifeLab scientists will visit universities around Sweden, two at each occasion, starting with Umeå and Göteborg. The first Outreach Day will focus on Genomics, Bioinformatics and Drug Discovery and Development with other platforms presenting their activities in the form of posters.

The same day also the directors and platform coordinators of the National Genomics Infrastructure (NGI) will inform about NGI and local PIs will present examples of their research and collaboration with NGI.

Date: 14 October 2014, 9.30-16.30
Place: KBC, Stora hörsalen, KB3B1 and KB3B3

Please register to the event here:
Registration form

Programme 

Contact: Eva-Maria Diehl, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics
Seminar
Speaker:
Lee Makowski
Northeastern University, Boston (MA), USA.

Title:
X-ray solution scattering characterization of the structural ensemble of adenylate kinase

Host: Magnus Wolf-Watz

Room Lilla hörsalen, KB3A9

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KBC / UCMR Seminar

Adam Olsson
McGill University, Canada

Title:
"Acoustic Sensing of Bacterium-Substratum Interfaces"

Room: KB3B3, KBC

Host: Madeleine Ramstedt

Abstract:
Acoustic Sensing of Bacterium-Substratum Interfaces
Adam L.J. Olsson
McGill University
 
Bacterial adhesion to surfaces and subsequent biofilm formation is an important phenomenon in many areas including, amongst others, biomedical engineering, food processing and water treatment.  Since biofilms essentially originate from only a few initial bacterial colonizers, understanding the mechanisms governing the initial bacterial adhesion event may help designing surfaces with the ability to manipulate biofilm formation.

This presentation explores the possibilities to utilize a quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D) to acoustically sense the mechanical properties of the bacterium-surface interface. The QCM-D is generally considered a mass balance, where a negative shift in the resonance frequency of a quartz crystal sensor is proportional to attached mass. However, in the case of bacterial adhesion, the surface attached bacterium possesses a resonance frequency that couples to the oscillation of the sensor surface. The resulting frequency shift of this “coupled resonance” is either negative or positive, depending on the ratio between QCM-D resonance frequency and the bacterium resonance frequency which, in turn, is determined by its mass and surface contact stiffness. Thus, analyzing bacterial adhesion in QCM-D within the context of “coupled resonance” offers a unique opportunity to monitor mechanical properties of bacterium-surface contacts.

Since the quartz sensor is mounted in a temperature controlled flow module, and because change in resonance frequency of the sensor is monitored in real time, it possible to follow dynamic changes of the bacterium-surface contact during both the initial adhesion event as well as during subsequent biofilm growth. Another important aspect of the method is that the stiffness, which is related to bond strength, is investigated without detaching the bacteria from the surface; hence the method is non-destructive.
 
 

National and International Seminar Series

Speaker:
Pierre-Yves Lozach
Dept of Infectious Diseases, Virology, Univ.Hospital Heidelberg, Germany

Title:
Bunyaviruses: host-to-host and cell-to-cell

Host: Anna Överby, ClinMi

Room:  Betula Lecture Hall, Bldg 6M, NUS

Department of Molecular Biology

Thesis Defence
Constance Oben Ayuk Enow

Title:
Studies of pore-forming bacterial protein toxins in Escherichia coli

Faculty Examiner: Mikael Rehn, professor, institutet för mikrobiologi, tumör- och cellbiologi, Karolinska Institutet

Supervisor: Bernt Eric Uhlin

Lecture room E 04, Unod R1

Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics

Seminar Series

Speaker:
Dr. Esther Bullitt
Dept. of Physiology & Biophysics, Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA, USA.

Title:

"Assembly Intermediates of the Shigella Type III Secretion Apparatus: Nascent and Primed Syringe Tips"

Hosts: Bernt Eric Uhlin & Magnus Andersson

Room KB3A9,  Lilla hörsalen, KBC

Next generation tools for studying UPEC pathogenesis

Speaker: MD/PhD Swaine Chen, Singapore NRF Fellow, National University of Singapore and Genome Institute of Singapore, Singapore.

Title: "Next generation tools for studying UPEC pathogenesis"

Room: Major Groove

Hosts: Fredrik Almqvist and Sven Bergström 

Abstract: Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are extremely common infections affecting half of all women and contributing greatly to antibiotic prescriptions and therefore bacterial antibiotic resistance. Most UTIs are caused by uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC). The study of how UPEC cause UTIs is greatly facilitated by many genetic and molecular tools available for E. coli in general. However, these tools are usually developed in and for cloning or lab-adapted strains of E. coli, and they are sometimes not usable or not efficient in disease-causing clinical isolates such as UPEC.

My lab has developed two new tools with clinical strains in mind to improve our ability to study UTI. The first improves our ability to manipulate the UPEC chromosome. We have developed a general and modular negative selection (counterselection) system that functions without optimization in multiple clinical isolates of E. coli and Salmonella. Furthermore, this system functions up to 1000x better than all other reported systems in lab strains of E. coli. This system now enables the convenient creation of definitive genetic constructs directly in UPEC.

The second project improves our ability to detect UPEC during infection. We have designed a new GFP protein which we term vGFP that demonstrates a 30-50% improvement in bulk brightness while simultaneously enabling rational control of dimerization state. vGFP is therefore a better chromosomal reporter than other GFP variants and should improve our detection sensitivity of UPEC, which is paramount for tracking UPEC as they move through minor niches during infection.

Together these tools improve our ability to translate our mouse studies into human disease. I will conclude with our plans for performing niche-specific, single-cell resolved, simultaneous host and pathogen transcriptional profiling in direct UTI samples. In the future, this will hopefully allow us to do a full genomic translation of our lab studies into knowledge about human disease.