Over 110 participants at the IECB Young Scientist Symposium 2011

On May 19-20, 2011, over 110 PhD students and post-doctoral researchers from the Interbio community (Bordeaux, Toulouse, Barcelona, Valencia and Lisbon) attended the 4th edition of the IECB Young Scientist Symposium. This event gave the opportunity for young chemists, biologists and physicists to present their results through oral communications and posters, and discuss different career paths with professionals working in academia and technology transfer.

Introducing secondary school students to molecular modelling

Over 300 secondary school students attended the Sciences and Digital Technology Day organized on the campus of the Université Bordeaux 1 on May 17^th. Two scientists from the IECB - Dr. Jean Dessolin, senior researcher, and Judith Elkaïm, PhD student – contributed to this science promotion event. Their goal: introducing students to the principles of molecular modelling.

The synthesis of ellagitannins reviewed by the Quideau team

IECB team leader Stéphane Quideau and his team study the chemistry of ellagitannins, a class of plant polyphenols whose biological activities may lead to therapeutic applications against cancer, osteoporosis and viral diseases.  In a review released in April 2011 in Natural Products Reports (cover on the left), they provide a detailed overview of chemical synthesis approaches to these natural products.

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Vescalagin causes the collapse of the actin cytoskeleton

Following an internal call for proposals launched by IECB in 2007 to stimulate interdisciplinary interactions, the Génot and Quideau teams initiated a collaboration on the effect of vescalagin, an ellagitannin extracted from oak wood, upon actin. Their results, which have just been published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition, could lead to a novel therapy against osteoporosis. The two teams submitted an application to patent their discovery.

On the left: Vescalagin winds actins filaments into fibrillar aggregates