A new project leader in structural biology.

Composed of more than 300 000 atoms, the ribosome decodes the genetic information to produce proteins necessary for cell survival. Try to explain why, in some cases, this machine stops is the goal of Dr. Axel Innis, who joined IECB at the beginning of January.

Trained in biochemistry, molecular biology and biotechnology, Axel Innis joined the University of Cambridge and Tom Blundell laboratory to perform his thesis on structural biology of growth factors TGF-β, their receptors and their inhibitors. This expert in crystallography worked since 2004 at Yale University in the laboratory of Professor Thomas Steitz, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry in 2009 for his work on the ribosome.

The goal of his research is to determine how specific « arresting » peptides and small molecule cofactors interact with the ribosomal exit tunnel to induce translation arrest in cis. Understanding of this phenomenon could in the long term give birth to a new family of antibiotics, which arouse no bacterial resistance.

His team is affiliated to the  ARNA Laboratory (Inserm / Bordeaux Segalen U869).