Research, Teaching & Other Activities

CURRICULUM VITAE

Academic education and professional experience:

Sept 2006-now            Associate Professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy, University Grenoble Alpes.
  • Research Scientist in the Neutron Diffraction Group at the UVHCI (2006-2010).
  • Scientific co-responsible of Laue Diffractometer dedicated to neutron protein crystallography at the Institut Laue-Langevin, Grenoble (April 2009-April 2010).
  • Research Scientist in the Synchrotron Group (http://www.ibs.fr/research/research-groups/synchrotron-group/ferrer-team-fip) at the Institut de Biologie Structurale (since November 2010).
  • CNRS-appointed researcher hosted by IBS (Sept 2013 – Feb 2015).
  • Accreditation thesis/HDR (December 2013, UGA): “Crystal growth for structural biology: Methodological developments and applications.”
                                        Interests/field of research:
  • Controlling and monitoring the crystallization process (nucleation and crystal growth) of biological macromolecules (crystal size, number and morphology) for different downstream structure determination approaches.
  • Crystallization optimization based on phase diagram investigation.
  • Development of novel tools and approaches to protein crystallization regarding in situ methods for X-ray crystallography (including microfluidics) and methods of large crystal growth for Neutron protein crystallography.
  • Study of hydrogen transfer in proteins by Neutron protein crystallography.

 

Feb 2003-Aug 2006     Postdoctoral fellow at Grenoble Outstation of EMBL, Neutron Diffraction                                              Group.
                                        Interests/field of research:
  • Neutron protein crystallography and technology development in growing large crystals for neutron macromolecular crystallography.

 

Jan 2000-Jan 2003        Postdoctoral fellow at the Institut de Biologie Structurale in Grenoble.
                                         Interests/field of research:
  • Macromolecular crystal growth and structure-function studies of catalytic fragments of the complex C1, the first component of the classical pathway of the human complement (a first line of defense against infectious agents).
  • X-ray protein crystallography.

 

Jan-Dec 1999              Postdoctoral fellow at the Institut de Chimie des Substances Naturelles in                                           Gif sur Yvette, France.
                                      Interests/field of research:
  • Biochemistry applications (protein purification) toward X-ray structure investigations.

 

Oct 1994- Oct 1998    Research student at University Aix-Marseille II and “Centre de Recherche                                               sur les Mécanismes de la Croissance Cristalline” in Marseille, France.
  • PhD and Diploma of University Aix-Marseille II in Material Science.
                                        Interests/field of research:
  • Crystallization and characterization of proteins in solution: Phases diagrams, growth kinetics and molecular associations.

 

July-August 1996         Two months spent with Professor Charles W. Carter at University of North                                            Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA.
                                         Interests/field of research:
  • Factorial design in protein crystallization.

 

Jan-August 1994          Eight months spent with Professor Claudette Briand, Department of                                                      Research of Protein Interactions in Pharmacology, Faculty of Pharmacy,                                                University Aix-Marseille II, France.
  • Diploma of advanced studies of University Aix-Marseille II in protein                                                   engineering and genome sequencing.
                                         Interests/field of research:
  • Protein purification and characterization.

 

Nov 1992-April 1993   Six months spent with Professor Dusan Chorvat, Department of                                                                Biophysics, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Comenius University                                                    Bratislava, Slovakia.
  • Diploma of a Master’s Degree of Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia                                        in Biophysics and Chemical Physics.
                                          Interests/field of research:
  • Biophysical studies of proteins in cell membrane (diffusion of proteins studied by FRAP).

 

Synergistic activities:

– Member of the French Crystallography Association (AFC) and of the French Scattering Association (SFN)

– Council Member of the International Organization for Biological Crystallization (IOBCr) since 2014 and the IOBCr Treasurer since 2016 (http://www-iobcr.u-strasbg.fr/iobcr/index.php/iobcr-board).

– Member of the French crystal growth network (CRISTECH) since 2008 and Member of its Steering Committee since 2015 (http://cristech.cnrs.fr/).

– Member of the Program Committee and Chair of the Scientific Sessions “Biological crystals and Biomaterials” and “Crystallization in solution” during the CRISTECH scientific days held in Carry le Rouet, France in October 2012 and in Autrans, France in October 2016.

– Member of the Program Committee and co-Chair of the Scientific Session “Crystal Growth (in memory of Raymond Kern” at the Congress of the French Crystallography Association held in Marseille France, in July 2016.

– Member of the International Program Committee and Chair of the Scientific Session “Crystallization methods for neutron diffraction” at ICCBM16 (16th International Conference on the Crystallization of Biological Macromolecules) held in Prague, Czech Republic in July 2016.

– Member of the Scientific Committee at the meeting of future users of the Neutron Bio-Crystallography Station at the European Spallation Source organized in Grenoble, France in March 2015.

– Member of the International Program Committee of the 5th European Conference on Neutron Scattering, July 2011, Prague, Czech Republic.

– Organiser and Chair of the Workshop on Biological Crystallization, supported by the MRCT CNRS CRISTECH, June 2009, UVHCI/EMBL Grenoble, France.

– Reviewer for Acta Crystallographica D, Acta Crystallographica F and Crystal Growth & Design.

 

Collaborators and Other Affiliations:

Collaborations:

  • Matthew Paul Blakeley: Institut Laue-Langevin, Grenoble, France.
  • Esko Oksanen & Zoë Fisher: European Spallation Source, Lund, Sweden.
  • Ivana Kuta-Smatanova: University of South Bohemia, Faculty of Science, Institute of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Academy of Sciences, Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic
  • Radka Chaloupkova: Masaryk University, Faculty of Science, Loschmidt Laboratories, Department of Experimental Biology, Brno, Czech Republic
  • Françoise Bonneté: Institute of Biomolecules Max Mousseron, Bioorganic Chemistry and Amphiphile Systems, University of Avignon and Pays de Vaucluse, Avignon, France.
  • Jean-Baptiste Salmon: Laboratory of Future, Bordeaux, France.

Graduate and Postdoctoral Advisors:

  • Graduate PhD Advisors: Roland Boistelle & Stéphane Veesler, Directors of Research of CNRS, “Centre de Recherche sur les Mécanismes de la Croissance Cristalline”, Marseille, France.
  • Postdoctoral Advisor (ISCN): Bernard Badet, Director of Research of CNRS, “Institut de Chimie des Substances Naturelles”, Gif sur Yvette, France.
  • Postdoctoral Advisor (IBS): Juan Carlos Fontecilla-Camps, Director of Research of CEA, “Institut de Biologie Structurale”, Grenoble, France.
  • Postdoctoral Advisors (EMBL/ILL): Dean Myles, Head of Neutron Diffraction Group & Stephen Cusack, Head of EMBL Grenoble Outstation of EMBL, Grenoble, France; Peter Timmins, Head of LSS Group, Institut Laue-Langevin, Grenoble, France.

 

Training:

Lectures, tutorials and practical intended for undergraduate (5th year) and postgraduate students, postdocs and researchers with an interest in macromolecular crystallization:

  • FEBS and FEBS-INSTRUCT practical crystallization course » in Nové Hrady Czech Republic in June 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016 (http://febs.img.cas.cz/).
  • 2nd Advanced Protein Characterisation and Crystallisation Course at the Institute of the Biotechnology University of Helsinki Finland in May 2011.
  • International School of Biological Crystallization (ISBC) in Granada Spain in May 2009, 2013 and 2017 (http://www.isbcgranada.org/).
  • ICCBM15 Pre-Conference Workshop in Hamburg Germany in September 2014.
  • CECAM Workshop « The Physics of Protein Self-Assembly » in Lausanne Switzerland (http://www.cecam.org/workshop-1152.html) in June 2016.
  • MRCT/CRISTECH Workshops (http://cristech.cnrs.fr/) in Grenoble, Strasbourg and Toulouse France in June 2009, 2011 and 2013 respectively.
  • COST Workshop on protein function triggering for time-resolved structural studies in Porto Portugal in October 2016 (http://molecularmachinery.eu/mc-meetings/past-events/).
  • Crystallography Tutorial organised by the Partnership for Structural Biology (EMBL, ESRF, ILL, IBS) in Grenoble France (March 2014-2017)
  • European school HERCULES organised by University Grenoble Alpes (March 2012-2017) in Grenoble France (http://hercules-school.eu/).

 

Research supervising and postgraduate fellow mentoring:

  • Niels Junius (PhD thesis, November 2013 – November 2016), Irtelis & CEA, University Grenoble Alpes, France. Dissertation: “Instrumental developments for the control of crystallization by dialysis: microfluidic approach and X-ray analysis”. From November 2017: R&D (Software) Engineer with Elvesys in Paris France (https://www.elveflow.com/microfluidic-innovation-center/).
  • Julien Peyroux (Bachelor’s degree, June – July 2012), University Joseph Fourier, Grenoble, France.
  • Benédicte Lafumat (Bachelor’s degree, January – February 2011), University Joseph Fourier, Grenoble, France. Currently with a short-term contract in Neutron Macromolecular Crystallography at the ESS Lund Sweden.
  • Esko Oksanen (Postdoc, February 2010 – September 2011), Academy of Finland, EMBO & University Joseph Fourier, Grenoble, France. From October 2011: Instrument Scientist for Macromolecular Crystallography at the ESS Lund Sveeden.
  • Esko Oksanen (PhD thesis, September 2007 – August 2008), Univesity of Helsinky, Finland. Dissertation: “Enzyme Molecular Choreography – Studies of Soluble Inorganic Pyrophosphatases”.
  • Ghizlane Meskaoui (Master’s degree, April – July 2005), EMBL & University Joseph Fourier, Grenoble, France.