Publications related to Label-free plasmonic biosensors for real-time live cell analysis

Accessible and highly observable gastrointestinal organoid model systems for studying host-pathogen interactions

Traditional cell cultures have long been fundamental to biological research, offering an alternative to animal models burdened by ethical constraints and procedural intricacies, often lacking relevance to human physiology and disease. Moreover, their inabi ...

EPFL2024

Exploration and modulation of mechanical cues for enhanced cancer immunotherapy

Armand Kurum

The advent of immunotherapy, such as immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) and adoptive transfer of cytotoxic lymphocytes, has transformed the clinical care of cancer. However, a significant proportion of patients are resistant to immunotherapy or experience re ...

EPFL2024

Mechanisms and functions of protein S-acylation

Françoise Gisou van der Goot Grunberg, Laurence Gouzi Abrami, Francisco De Magalhães Sarmento R De Mesquita

Over the past two decades, protein S-acylation (often referred to as S-palmitoylation) has emerged as an important regulator of vital signalling pathways. S-Acylation is a reversible post-translational modification that involves the attachment of a fatty a ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Cytokine-armed dendritic cell progenitors for antigen-agnostic cancer immunotherapy

Ali Ghasemi

Dendritic cells (DCs) are specialized myeloid cells with the ability to uptake, process, and present antigens to T lymphocytes. They also generate cytokine and chemokine gradients that regulate immune cell trafficking, activation, and function. Monocyte-de ...

EPFL2024

A Cluster of Evolutionarily Recent KRAB Zinc Finger Proteins Protects Cancer Cells from Replicative Stress–Induced Inflammation

Didier Trono, Priscilla Turelli, Sandra Eloise Kjeldsen, Cyril David Son-Tuyên Pulver, Evaristo Jose Planet Letschert, Filipe Amândio Brandão Sanches Vong Martins, Olga Marie Louise Rosspopoff, Joana Carlevaro Fita, Romain Forey, Florian Huber

Heterochromatin loss and genetic instability enhance cancer progression by favoring clonal diversity, yet uncontrolled replicative stress leads to mitotic catastrophe and inflammatory responses that promote immune rejection. KRAB domain-containing zinc fin ...

2024

Single-cell analysis of the interactions between Mycobacterium tuberculosis and macrophages

Ophélie Rutschmann

Mycobacterium Tuberculosis is a highly effective pathogen infecting nearly a third of the world's population. An M. tuberculosis infection starts when droplets containing bacteria enter an individual's lungs. The first host cells to contact the bacteria ar ...

EPFL2024

Development of tools and methods for protein identification: From single molecules to in vivo applications

Salome Riccarda Püntener

As the fundamental machinery orchestrating cellular functions, proteins influence the state of every cell profoundly. As cells exhibit significant variations from one to another, analyzing the proteome on a single-cell level is imperative to unravel their ...

EPFL2024

The conceptual foundations of innate immunity: Taking stock 30 years later

Bruno Lemaitre

While largely neglected over decades during which adaptive immunity captured most of the attention, innate immune mechanisms have now become central to our understanding of immunology. Innate immunity provides the first barrier to infection in vertebrates, ...

2024

Deciphering the nature of cell state transitions in single cells using quantitative modeling of temporal dynamics

Alex Russell Lederer

Cells are the smallest operational units of living systems. Through synthesis of various biomolecules and exchange of signals with the environment, cells tightly regulate their composition to realize a specific functional state. The transformation of a cel ...

EPFL2024

Engineering novel protein interactions with therapeutic potential using deep learning-guided surface design

Anthony Marchand

Proteins are foundational biomolecules of life playing a crucial role in a myriad of biological processes. Their function often requires interplay with other biomolecules, including proteins themselves. Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) are essential for ...

EPFL2024

Recording physiological history of cells with chemical labeling

Kai Johnsson, Julien Hiblot, Ling Hai

Recordings of the physiological history of cells provide insights into biological processes, yet obtaining such recordings is a challenge. To address this, we introduce a method to record transient cellular events for later analysis. We designed proteins t ...

American Association for the Advancement of Science2024

Ru(II)-Arene Complexes of Curcumin and Bisdesmethoxycurcumin Metabolites

Paul Joseph Dyson, Farzaneh Fadaei Tirani, Mouna Hadiji

Curcuminoids and their complexes continue to attract attention in medicinal chemistry, but little attention has been given to their metabolic derivatives. Here, the first examples of (arene)Ru(II) complexes with curcuminoid metabolites, tetrahydrocurcumin ...

Amer Chemical Soc2024

HaloTag-Based Tools for Live-Cell Imaging and Elucidation of Organellar Redox Biology

Sarah Emmert

Redox homeostasis is a key factor in maintaining cellular function and health. The main determinant of the intracellular redox potential is ubiquitous glutathione (GSH) together with its oxidized dimer (GSSG). Importantly, both redox equilibrium and GSH ho ...

EPFL2024

Characterization of the gut-bone marrow axis through bile acid signaling

Alejandro Alonso Calleja

Communication between the intestine and other organs such as the lungs, brain or bones is mediated by several metabolites, like short-chain fatty acids or bile acids, that relay information about nutritional and microbiota status. Bile acids are endogenous ...

EPFL2024

Development of cysteine cathepsin inhibitors combined with cell type-specific delivery for the treatment of B-cell lymphoma and solid tumors

Aaron Simone Petruzzella

Cysteine cathepsins proteases are enzymes that play essential physiological roles, but their activity is also associated to different aspects of cancer progression and to the development of other diseases. Therefore, cysteine cathepsins are relevant and pr ...

EPFL2024

Metabolically enhanced CAR T cells efficiently clear solid tumors in mice

Li Tang

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells in the solid tumor microenvironment enter a partially dysfunctional state called T cell exhaustion. Interleukin (IL)-10-producing CAR T cells retain their metabolic fitness, resist T cell exhaustion and display unpre ...

Nature Portfolio2024

From Sequence to Dynamics to Function: Computational Design of Allostery and Ligand Selectivity in G-Protein Coupled Receptors

Mahdi Hijazi

The phenomenon of allostery, a general property in proteins that has been heralded as "the second secret of life" remains elusive to our understanding and even more challenging to incorporate into protein design. One example of allosteric proteins with gre ...

EPFL2024

Bioengineering functional organoid models across scales

Tania Hübscher

The last two decades have seen the development of organoid models for many different tissues and organs. Organoids are three-dimensional organ-mimetics derived from stem or progenitor cells comprising various specialized cell types, resembling the architec ...

EPFL2024

A common NFKB1 variant detected through antibody analysis in UK Biobank predicts risk of infection and allergy

Jacques Fellay, Flavia Aurelia Shoko Hodel

Infectious agents contribute significantly to the global burden of diseases through both acute infection and their chronic sequelae. We leveraged the UK Biobank to identify genetic loci that influence humoral immune response to multiple infections. From 45 ...

2024

Computational drug development for membrane protein targets

Henning Paul-Julius Stahlberg, Pierre Vogel, Shuguang Yuan, Dongchun Ni, Babatunde Edukpe Ekundayo

The application of computational biology in drug development for membrane protein targets has experienced a boost from recent developments in deep learning-driven structure prediction, increased speed and resolution of structure elucidation, machine learni ...

2024