SFR- Condorcet Conference

I was in SFR-Condorcet Conference few weeks ago. SFR Condorcet is a federative research structure  recognized by the French National Reaserch Council (CNRS). From its website, we can learn that this structure consists of twenty-two entities including research universities, INRA, CNRS, major engineering schools and industry partners. In total, the FRS involves approximately 400 members and The objective of the FRS Condorcet is to pool together skills and expertise present in the research laboratories (public and private) working in the field of agro-science and localized in Champagne Ardenne, in Picardy and in Wallonia. For more information please click for the website SFR Condorcet.

The conference was really well organized with plenary sessions followed by oral presentations and poster session. It  was both professionally and personally rewarding. I want to conclude with one other issue that is very important to me. During this conference, I received the « Best Oral Presentation »  prize. I would like to thank to my colleagues for our work and to organizers and member of jury for their interest.

During the reception with colleagues at the conference hall, Compiègne , France

ECOF14 Conference

The 14th European Conference on Organized Films is holding in Genoa. The conference is still taking place today (1st of July) and tomorrow with excellent contributions not only from different European countries but also from Asian countries and USA. This afternoon, I have really appreciated the plenary session given by Prof Schulz from Postdam University. I presented our results by a poster entitled « How do synthetic rhamnolipids interact with biomimetic systems of plant plasma membranes ? Key role of the chemical structures. » It was also announced that the next ECOF conference will be holding in Dresden, Germany in July 2017.

ECOF 14

New Review Article Now Available in the Journal BBA

Our new article entitled «  Complementary biophysical tools to investigate lipid specificity in the interaction between bioactive molecules and the plasma membrane: A review » is now available in the journal Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) – Biomembranes. 

The plasma membrane is a key component of the cell and understanding the way in which biomolecules interact with this component is crucial. Before, the overall trend was thinking about an interaction between a molecule and its receptor located on the membrane. However, recent works showed that the interactions could occur with the lipid phase of the membrane instead of receptors and in this context, the lipid specificity of the interaction was also a key factor.

In this article, we review the biomimetic approach and its related biophysical tools to investigate lipid specificity in the interaction between bioactive molecules and the plasma membrane. 

Dutch Biophysics 2014 : Views and Insights

As I announced few days ago, I have been in Dutch Biophysics 2014 Conference held in Veldhoven. The conference was bigger than I expected. Naturally, there was a lot researchers from Netherlands, from neighbouring countries and also from the UK, Canada etc. Some excited topics related to Biophysics have been covered during the conference. I have only taken excerpts from certain presentations by invited speakers.  Peter Tieleman gave a presentation on the study of the he thermodynamics and mechanism of defect formation in lipid layers by computer simulations using coarse-grained simulations with the MARTINI model. He shown that it is possible to analyze the behavior of lipid monolayers. Their recent work is published in JACS and entitled  « Lipid Organization of the Plasma Membrane ». Alexander Kros gave a presentation entitled « Understanding membrane fusion using a biomimetic model system ». His team works on the lipid fusion process with  a special focus on peptide-peptide and peptide-lipid interactions and recently on the live cells-liposome fusion. The other exciting conference was given by Antoinette Kilian on the ability of copolymers of styrene and maleic acid  to solubilize membranes in the form of nanodiscs. This is very important because it allows to purify membrane proteins without detergents. I attend this conference to present  our works on bolaamphiphile molecules which could be potential drug delivers.

Dutch Biophysics 2014 

DutchBiophysics 2014

The Dutch Biophysics will be held on next week in Veldhoven, a city close to Eindhoven.  The conference is organised by FOM « De Stichting voor Fundamenteel Onderzoek der Materie »  (The Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter). The conference will include different exciting topics in biophysics but I am more interested on Molecular Biophysics section. It would also represent a great opportunity to attend seminars given by well-recognized researcher in the field like Peter Tieleman and Antoinette Killian. For the first time, I will attend this conference and I am waiting to attend it for sharing my views and insights.

Before Starting

Hello everybody,

Welcome to my blog about  biochemistry and biophysics.

Why create a blog on biochemistry and biophysics ? I do not have a specific answer to the question. However, I can say that I would like to share my point of view about matters pertaining to this field and  also doing that for the non-biochemists. Although I am not a native English-speaker, I will try to write in English in the order to reach more people. Sometimes, I will also try to publish in French and in Turkish.

Before starting I would like to thank you for your interest 🙂