Bio Screening Industry News

Increasingly, disease-causing microorganisms are being analysed on a genetic level in the hope of identifying critical factors that might be therapeutically applicable. European research in this area is being promoted under the roof of the ERA-NET PathoGenoMics network. During the 3rd European Conference on Procaryotic Genomics, held from 7 to 10 October in Göttingen, Germany, the network recognised three outstanding pathogenomic PhD theses. This year is the second time the prize has been awarded. The winners were selected from ten applications.

The ERA-NET PathoGenoMics was initiated in 2004 by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and is a network of 15 partners from Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Latvia, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain. Their aim is to promote genomic research on pathogenic microorganisms (pathogenomics) taking place in Europe. It was initiated in 2004 and is one of around 70 ERA-NET networks aimed at counteracting the fragmentation of the European Research Area. The ERA-NET scheme is a funding instrument of the European Commission, first introduced in the Sixth Framework Programme. The underlying intention is to step up the cooperation in research activities carried out at a national or regional level in the member states.

For the second time, the ERA-NET PathoGenoMics has recognised outstanding PhD theses in the field of pathogenomics research. The annual prize is endowed with 2000 Euros for each winner. This year, three reseachers have been chosen from a total of ten applications: Christel Archambaud (France), Cédric Delevoye (France) and Joâo Paulo dos Santos Gomes (Portugal). The official award ceremony took place during the 3rd European Conference on Procaryotic Genomics in Göttingen, Germany, on 8 October. Following an introduction by Nicole Firnberg (Austria), the winning researchers had the opportunity to present the results of their thesis. The researchers were later presented with their awards by the French scientist Philippe Glaser (Institute Pasteur, Paris): a large petri dish with synthetic resin as imitation agar, through which the official award certificate can be seen, as well as a hard copy of the certificate rolled in a volumetric flask.

Christel Archambaud from the Institut Pasteur in Paris has focused on the analysis of a special enzyme family involved in signal transduction (phosphatases) and its role in the pathogenicity of Listeria monocytogetes, which can cause a number of deadly infections due to its sophisticated survival and reproduction strategy once it has entered a host. In her PhD thesis, Archambaud has identified a functional phosphatase (Stp) that appears to be crucial for the virulence of Listeria.

Cédric Delevoye, working at the Institute Curie in Paris, has analysed the intracellular infection cycle of Chlamydia. Chlamydia is a sneaky bacterial genus that can only reproduce from within host cells and causes chronic infections that are extremely difficult or impossible to treat. In his PhD thesis, Delevoye focussed on identifying membrane proteins that are secreted by Chlamydia pneumoniae during infection. In addition, he functionally characterised a single protein from the IncA-family that appears to be essential for cellular membrane fusion events.

Joâo Paulo dos Santos Gomes, working at the National Institute of Health in Lisbon, studied biological and genetic features of Chlamydia trachomatis serological variants to reveal their different pathogenic potential. Dos Santos Gomes identified highly polymorphic so-called pmp genes as playing a significant role in infection and transmission ability based on transcriptomic and immunoactivity analysis. Furthermore, he found recombination among strains to be a mechanism for generating Chlamydia trachomatis diversity.

Research group leaders from the ERA-NET partner countries are now invited to submit a proposal for the PhD Award 2008. Deadline for submissions is the 28 February 2008.  For national contact details see www.pathogenomics-era.net