News & Events

The Martens lab has been awarded an instrument grant from Nanion Technologies, which gives us six months of free access to the SURFE²R N1.
A big thank you to Nanion (https://www.nanion.de) for this incredible opportunity and their commitment to supporting scientific innovation. 

Yet another great piece of research from the group of Abel Garcia-Pino  published in Nature "A bacterial immunity protein directly senses two disparate phage proteins". Happy to have contributed to this impressive research that uncovered a novel aspect of the bacterial immune system.

The Martens group went to the SFMBBM (Structure and Function of Biological Macromolecules, Bioinformatics, and Modelling) One-day Symposium in lovely Namur. Excellent talks!

Assia Khalild joins the lab for her PhD thesis. She will develop new HDX-MS approaches to study MFS drug transporters in bilayers. Welcome Assia!

The Martens lab is now part of the Center of Excellence Plant-PATH! Led by Bjorn Pedersen (http://pedersenlab.dk/), in collaboration with Magnus Kjaergaard (https://www.biophysics.dk/) and Ulrich Hammes (https://www.mls.ls.tum.de/en/plasysbio/working-group-pd-dr-ulrich-hammes/). Stay tuned for PhD opportunities to study phytohormones transporters. For more details https://mbg.au.dk/en/news-and-events/news-item/artikel/new-research-center-to-shape-the-future-of-climate-resilient-crops

Chloé gave an invited talk at the GRC "Membrane Transport Proteins" in Sunday River, Maine. Excellent structure-function talks, exciting molecular insights into neuropathies and great lobster.

Excited to share our latest research published in *Cell Host & Microbe*: 'Mechanism of Phage Sensing and Restriction by Toxin-Antitoxin-Chaperone Systems.' This study provides new insights into the creative strategies bacteria use to defend against phages. Proud to have collaborated with the Garcia-Pino group on this work!

Hassan Maklad obtained a fellowship from the FNRS to continue his research project. Congrats Hassan! 

Kyo attended the International Conference on HDX-MS in Monterey, California. He presented his latest results on the dynamics of multidrug efflux pumps from the Major Facilitator Superfamily.​

Mohamed Gouni joins the lab for a collaborative master thesis project with the Govaerts group. He will study the structural dynamics of the NBD1 domain of the CFTR channel using HDX-MS. Welcome Mohamed!

Chloé and Hassan went to the Protein Folding and Assembly meeting in Liège. Chloé gave a talk "Beyond membrane protein structure : insights into dynamics from H/D exchange coupled to Mass Spectrometry".

Kyo and Chloé went to the GRC "Mechanisms of Membrane Transport" in Les Diablerets, Switzerland. Kyo gave a talk "Using HDX-MS to Understand the Molecular Basis of Substrate Polyspecificity in Multidrug Efflux Pumps". Well done! We celebrated with cheese fondue.

George Chiduza joins the lab as a postdoctoral researcher, supported by a "Seal of Excellence" fellowship. George will study the role of dynamics and lipid interactions on the molecular mechanism of a human heterodimeric amino acid transporter. Welcome George!

Chloé gave a talk at the Molecular Biology & Genetics Department of Aarhus University. Thanks for the invitation, and for the simulating discussions and interactions with the Pedersen lab.

Nassouh Soulaimane and Serdar Aygun join the group for their master thesis projects. Welcome!

Chloé took part and gave a talk at 33rd Sanibel Conference on Mass Spectrometry - "Membrane Proteins and Their Complexes: Mass Spectrometry and Beyond".

Another fruitful collaboration with the Garcia-Pino group, now published in Science Advances "The structure of DarB in complex with RelNTD reveals nonribosomal activation of Rel stringent factors". 

Chloé gave a talk at the IRIBHM research institute @ULB.

Amazing work from collaborator Abel Garcia-Pino and colleagues published in Nature "Direct activation of a bacterial innate immune system by a viral capsid protein". Happy to have contributed to this impressive research that uncovered a novel aspect of the bacterial immune system.

Dr Hasan Maklad joins the group as a postdoctoral Research Associate. He will investigate new approaches to tackle multidrug efflux. Welcome Hasan!

Patrick Deszeri joins the lab for his master thesis. He will develop a functional assays to follow MDR transport. Welcome Patrick!

Chloé gave an invited talk at the EMBO Workshop on Membrane transporters in Chania. 

"Hydrogen-deuterium exchange coupled to mass spectrometry: A multifaceted tool to decipher the molecular mechanism of transporters" mini-review published in Biochimie.

Maria Mamkaeva joins the group. As a lab technician, she will support the group efforts to understand multidrug efflux. Welcome Maria!

Chloé gave an invited talk at the 2nd Symposium of the International Transmembrane Transporter Society (ITTS) in beautiful Copenhagen, Denmark.

Chloé and Kyo went to the International Conference on HDXMS in London, UK. Kyo presented his work on multidrug transporters and Chloe gave a talk on what makes a "good" elevator-type transporter. Great time!

Chloé was invited to speak at the Inserm Workshop 267, "Membrane proteins in reconstituted systems: from the latest advances in fundamental research to therapeutic applications"

Chloé was invited to speak at the LDRI Louvain Drug Research Institute @ UCL

Chloé was invited to speak at the LIBST Louvain Institute of Biomolecular Science and Technology @ UCL

Chloé gave a talk at the CIP Centre for Protein Engineering @ ULiège

"Linking function to global and local dynamics in an elevator-type transporter" published in PNAS in collaboration with the Boudker group @ Weill Cornell

Kyo gave a great talk at the Appicom Membrane Proteins meeting in Lyon. Well done Kyo!

"Assessing the Role of Lipids in the Molecular Mechanism of Membrane Proteins" published in IJMS.