Seminars

Qiang Fu (Bioi group) will talk about the “Maize expression compendium and its MAGIC access portal” 
Evelien Demeulenaere (AI group) will give a talk entitled “Bionanophotonics: nonlinear optics applied on fluorescent proteins and cellular imaging”
 Veerle Liebens (SPI group) will give a talk entitled “Unraveling persistence in the nosocomial pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa”
Date: Friday 17/02/2011 -- Time: 15h00-17h00 -- Place: Aula van de 2de hoofdwet TI 01.02 (see Plan and zoom in)

Fusarium virulence:  horizontal gene acquisition and hijacking the host. Dr. John Manners (Deputy Chief CSIRO Plant Industry, Brisbane, Australia)

This seminar will take place on Thursday, December 15th 2011 (11h) in the “Raadzaal” (LAND 00.06), Landbouwinstituut, Kasteelpark Arenberg 20, B-3001 Heverlee.

(Academic responsibility: Bruno Cammue)

Pieter Meysman will give a talk entitled “Expression evolution of prokaryotic organisms”
 
Jan Steensels will give a talk entitled “Selecting an optimized microbial starter culture for cocoa fermentations”
 
Nicolas Delattin will give a talk entitled “The identification of new compounds against yeast biofilms”
 
Time: 9h00-11h00 -- Place: BOKU 03.22 (http://www.kuleuven.be/lokalen/50359127.htm, klik on “Plan” and zoom in)

A network-based annotation of the Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG glycome. Aminael Sanchez Rodriguez

Role of auxin signaling in root colonization of Arabidopsis thaliana by Azospirillum brasilense. Stijn Bossuyt

Ectopic recombination between fungal adhesin genes generates functional variability. Joaquin Christiaens

This seminar will take place on op Tuesday 25 okctober 25^th 2011 from 15.00 till 17.00, MTM auditorium 00.13, Metaalkunde en Toegepaste Materiaalkunde, Kasteelpark Arenberg 44, B-3001 Heverlee.

Biofilm formation by Salmonella and other enteric pathogens. Dr. Aaron P. White (Research Scientist, Jarislowsky Chair in Biotechnology, Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, University of Saskatchewan, Canada)
 
This seminar will take place on Wednesday, September 21^st 2011 (14h) in room PLTK 01.30, Plantkunde Instituut, Kasteelpark Arenberg 31, B-3001 Heverlee

Biochar, a greenhouse gas sequestration agent that affects plants. Prof. Yigal Elad (Dept. Plant Pathology and Weed Research, ARO, Israel; Scientific Director, R&D Central and North Arava, Israel;Former president, Israeli Phytopathological Society)

This seminar will take place on Friday, August 19^th 2011 (11h) in the Jozef Heuts auditorium (LAND 00.215), Landbouwinstituut, Kasteelpark Arenberg 20, B-3001 Heverlee.

(Academic responsibility: Bruno Cammue)

Function and Control of Translesion DNA Polymerases. Graham Walker

Graham Walker is Professor of Biology at MIT, Department of Biology and renowned for his research on DNA repair and mutagenesis in bacteria and eukaryotes. More information on his work can be found at http://walkerlab.mit.edu/index.py?page=home

The seminar will take place on Tuesday June 14, 2011 at 11:00, Landbouwinstituut Hoofdgebouw, Kasteelpark Arenberg 20, 2001 Heverlee, room : Jozef Heuts auditorium (LAND 00.215).

(Academic responsibility: Jan Michiels)

Mariya Petrova will give a talk entitled “Lectins and their role in the "life" of Lactobacillus”
Lara Ramaekers will give a talk entitled “Climbing for Nitrogen: Quantitative and qualitative analysis of symbiotic nitrogen fixation capacity in climbing beans”

After the break,
Pieter Timmermans will give a talk entitled “Identification of genes involved in the interaction between Arabidopsis thaliana and Rhizoctonia solani”

Discovery and applications of cyclic peptides in plants. Prof. David Craik (University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia)

11h00, room 00.215, Jozef Heuts auditorium, Kasteelpark Arenberg 20, B-3001 Heverlee

Ingmar Claes, Immunomodulatory role of lipoteichoic acid in Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG.

Ann Jans, Transcriptional control of the general stress response in Rhizobium etli.

Rita Gemayel, A functional role for short tandem repeats within regulatory genes.

14h00-16h00, room 00.215, Jozef Heuts auditorium, Kasteelpark Arenberg 20, B-3001 Heverlee

Evolution of a complex signal transduction system. Prof. Igor B. Jouline (Zhulin)

13h30-14h30, room 00.215, Jozef Heuts auditorium, Kasteelpark Arenberg 20, B-3001 Heverlee

Hassan Rokni Zadeh (PGPRB group) will give a talk entitled “Two different strategies of Pseudomonas putida RW10S2 to kill its competitors”

Maarten Ghequire (PGPRB group) will give a talk entitled “Structure-function study of lectin-like bacteriocins”

Toon Nicolay (AI group) will give a talk entitled “Bringing the inside out: characterization and application of the autotransporter of Pseudomonas stutzeri A15”

Thi Tuong Vi Dang (PFI group) will give a talk entitled “Exploring the potential of a newly discovered Arabidopsis gene as a molecular trait in banana for increasing resistance against fungal diseases”

14h00-16h00, room 00.215, Jozef Heuts auditorium, Kasteelpark Arenberg 20, B-3001 Heverlee

Jos Vanderleyden (AI group) will talk about Auxin signaling in plant-bacteria interactions.

Rita Gemayel (G & G group) will talk about Unstable tandem repeats in regulatory genes generate variability in the dynamics of gene regulation.

Kaat De Cremer (PFI group) will talk about Induced systemic resistance : from model plant to crop.

14h00-16h00, Aula van de 2de hoofdwet TI 01.02, Thermotechnisch Instituut, Kasteelpark Arenberg 41, 3001 Heverlee

Exploring bacterial social skills: release of interference molecules in mixed biofilm communities. Dr. Jean-Marc Ghigo (Genetics of Biofilms Laboratory, URA CNRS Department of Microbiology, Institut Pasteur, Paris)
13h30, room 00.215, Jozef Heuts auditorium, Kasteelpark Arenberg 20, B-3001 Heverlee

You are kindly invited to attend a seminar by dr. Peter Meintjes, Market Development Manager, Biomatters Ltd., Auckland, New Zealand on Friday, November 5th at 10 am in the 'Raadzaal' (Faculty of Bioscience engineering, main building, Kasteelpark Arenberg 20, 3001 Heverlee).
The seminar is entitled " Geneious ‐ an integrated and extendable software platform for the organization and analysis of biological data"

You are invited to attend a seminar by prof. Narendra Maheshri, M.I.T. on Wednesday, June 23rd at 11 am in the Jozef Heuts auditorium (main auditorium in the Landbouwinstituut, Science campus).

Narendra´s lab focuses on transcriptional regulation.  In particular, his group studies processes that allow bimodal expression (a gene that turns completely OFF or completely ON, without intermediary expression levels), hysteresis (i.e. situations where the expression level does not only depend on the current environment, but also on the past environment), noise (stochastic fluctuations in expression), and epigenetic inheritance of transcription levels.  A detailed abstract of Narendra´s talk is below.  You can also read his latest papers in Science and Nature, or have a look here:http://web.mit.edu/~narendra/www/index.html

Abstract: A tale of two switches

Positive feedback loops in gene and protein networks are often found in the decision-making circuitry of cells. They allow cells to mount and unambiguous response to external signals such as nutrient responses in microbes, cell-fate decisions in stem cells, and how to fight infections by the immune system. The same underlying interactions enable a population of genetically identical cells to respond heterogeneously to a fixed intermediate signal.  The heterogeneous, often bimodal, response can lead to a population exhibiting multiple phenotypes that may often be be advantageous.

Here I discuss two examples of transcriptional switches in budding yeast that are capable of generating a bimodal population-level response. These are both epigenetic switches as the particular response is heritable at the single cell level. Both switches rely on biological noise -- small number fluctuations in a particular molecular species.  The first trans-encoded epigenetic switch is a synthetic transcriptional positive feedback loop that relies on small number fluctuations in a trans factor -- in this case a transcriptional activator . We use both modeling and experiments to demonstrate how random and intermittent bursts of transcription are necessary for the observed bimodal gene expression that was previously not predicted with deterministic models . The second cis-encoded epigenetic switch is the FLO11 gene, that slowly fluctuates between a silenced and competent promoter state -- a molecular transition that occurs in cis. Using the same modeling approach, we show the kinetic role of different activators is to largely stabilize the active state. In both cases, we highlight how our dynamical view of these switches can helps explain both high-level functional behavior and lower level mechanistic details.

Transcriptional Lego: Predictable control of gene expression by manipulating promoter building blocks. Prof. Eran Segal, Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel (Academic responsibility: Kevin Verstrepen)
16h00, room 00.215, Jozef Heuts auditorium, Kasteelpark Arenberg 20, B-3001 Heverlee

Priming Plants for Stress Resistance: from the Lab and the Field. Prof. Uwe Conrath, Plant Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Group, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
11h00, room 00.06 (Raadzaal), Kasteelpark Arenberg 20, B-3001 Heverlee

Identification of a putative extracellular matrix binding protein and its putative regulator in Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG. Marya Petrova

In search for genes important for Salmonella biofilm formation: Where single cell approach and global integration meet. Kim Hermans

Identification of new Salmonella biofilm inhibitors through a 'bottom-up' and 'top-down' approach. Stijn Robijns

Auxin signaling in Azospirillum brasilense. Stijn Spaepen

Nonlinear optics of fluorescent proteins: a deeper look. Evelien De Meulenaere

Biosynthetic lego Novel antimicrobial secondary metabolites of Pseudomonas. Wen Li

Novel persistence genes in Pseudomonas aeruginosa identified by high-throughput screening. Valerie De Groote

Variable tandem repeats in promoters allow fast evolution of gene expression. Marcelo Vinces

LuxS, where art thou? Gwendoline Kint, 09h00, room 00.06, Raadzaal

Unraveling the mode of action of the probiotic Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG using a murine DSS colitis model. Ingmar Claes

Plant defensins and other stress-induced peptides in Arabidopsis. Delphine Carron
Further unraveling of the mode of action of RsAFP2, a plant defensin. Gilmer Govaert

Antifungal drug screening and development. Karin Thevissen Klaartje Pellens

Response of two sugarcane varieties to inoculation with Gluconacetobacter species in Mauritius. Yvan Moutia (Academic responsibility: Jos Vanderleyden)

The Millennium Villages project: a cross-disciplinary approach to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Roseline Remans, Post-doctoral research fellow, The Earth Institute at Columbia University, US (Academic responsibility: Roel Merckx)

Promiscuous drug resistance plasmids: Can they further expand their host range? Dr. Eva Top, Associate Professor, University of Idaho , US

Characterization of the autoinducer synthase LuxS in Salmonella Typhimurium. Gwendoline Kint

Differential fluorescence induction as a genome-wide, single cell based technology to study salmonella biofilm formation. Kim Hermans

Drug screening platform: antifungal and anti-apoptotic drugs. Karin Thevissen
Role for membrane rafts in intracellular accumulation of miconazole in yeast cells. Isabelle François
(Academic responsibility: Bruno Cammue), room 00.215, Jozef Heuts auditorium

Identification and characterization of new Botrytis cinerea induced peptides in Arabidopsis thaliana. Delphine Carron
AtPDF promoter analysis, copy and paste from computer to plant. Esther Venmans
room 00.215, Jozef Heuts auditorium

Reconstruction of time profiles from complex microarray designs. Carolina Fierro

Condition-dependent combinatorial regulation in E. coli. Karen Lemmens, room 00.215, Jozef Heuts auditorium