January 1, 2023, Elena Martínez Díaz begins her Ph.D. in the group with a fellowship (FPU) funded by the Spanish Ministry for Universities. Congratulations and welcome!
December 16, 2022, Antonio Monera Girona defends his PhD thesis on CarF protein function in light signaling in the bacterium Myxococcus xanthus and its conservation in higher eukaryotes. Congratulations Antonio!
July 10-15, 2022, 12th International Conference on Porphyrins and Phthalocyanines (ICPP-12), Madrid, Spain. Montse Elías gave an invited talk titled “Plasticity in the Mode of Action of B12-based Photoreceptors”.
July 5 , 2022, Elena Martínez Diaz and José Antonio López Ruiz, two Masters students in the group for 2022 successfully presented and defended the research projects for their Masters thesis carried out in the group. Congratulations to both!
May 29-June 1, 2022, “Myxo 2022”, 47th International Conference on the Biology of the Myxobacteria, Hotel Galúa, La Manga del Mar Menor, Murcia, Spain. After a lapse of three years (from cancelation of the 2020 meeting due to COVID and a virtual meeting in 2021) the in-person 47th International Myxomeeting was finally organized by Montserrat Elías and her group with success at Hotel Galúa, La Manga del Mar Menor, Murcia, Spain. Besides talks from all attendees from myxo groups worldwide, a very moving retrospective on Dale Kaiser, a pioneering giant of molecular and myxo biology who passed away in 2020, was presented in talks by Dan Wall and Mitch Singer (many thanks).
May 11, 2022, Our latest review “Plasmalogens and photooxidative stress signaling in myxobacteria, and how it unmasked CarF/TMEM189 as the Δ1′-Desaturase PEDS1 for human plasmalogen biosynthesis" is published in Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology, DOI: 10.3389/fcell.2022.884689
March 10, 2022, Our latest review chapter “Vitamin B12 Photoreceptors” in Vitamin B12, 1st Edition - March 24, 2022, Volume 119 in the Vitamins and Hormones book series is published online. https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.vh.2022.01.007.
February 1, 2022, Prof. James S. Godde (PhD Biochemistry-1993 with Prof. Jon Widom, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA; postdoc with Prof. Alan Wolfe, NIH, USA) Professor of Biology at Monmouth College, Monmouth, IL 61462, USA joins the group for a three-month stay as a Fulbright scholar. Welcome!
January 9, 2022, Our work on B12-dependent and independent photoregulation of carotenogenesis across Myxococcales published in Environmental Microbiology, DOI: 10.1111/1462-2920.15895 (Online ahead of print).
December 15, 2021, Victor Espejo Moya begins his Ph.D. in the group with a fellowship (FPU) funded by the Spanish Ministry for Universities. Congratulations and welcome!
December 10, 2021, Ricardo Pérez Castaño defends his PhD thesis on the plasticity in the mode of action and evolution of B12-dependent (CarH) photoreceptors. Congratulations Ricardo!
October 25-29, 2021, Myxo 2021 Virtual meeting. After cancelation of the 2020 meeting and the situation not permitting an in-person one in 2021, PhD students from various Myxo groups an excellent virtual one. Ricardo Pérez Castaño gave a talk. Alfonso Lopez-Rojo, Antonio Monera Girona, Eva Bastida Martínez and Irene del Rey Navalón had posters on their work.
September 2021, Elena Martínez Díaz and José Antonio López Ruiz join the group for Master´s research work. Welcome.
May 15, 2021, Our review on light-triggered carotenogenesis in M. xanthus published in Microorganisms, Vol. 366, Issue 5, p 1067 (22 pages), DOI: 10.3390/microorganisms9051067.
April 5, 2021, Ricardo Pérez Castaño returns after a 3-month stay funded by his PhD fellowship (“FPI”) in Prof. Martin J. Warren´s group, University of Kent-Canterbury UK.
March 3, 2021, Montse gave an invited talk titled “Unmasking the identity of plasmanylethanolamine desaturase and the role of plasmalogens in photooxidative stress signaling”, at the 9th International Singapore Lipid Symposium – online, organized by the National University of Singapore (organizer: Prof. Markus R Wenk) March 1st–5th, 2021, https://sling.sg/news-events/isls/.
December 17, 2020, Elena Pajares Martínez defends her PhD thesis on new molecular aspects of the transduction of the light signal in the bacterium Myxococcus xanthus. Congratulations Elena!
November 25, 2020, Collaborative work with Prof. Roseanne Sension (Univ. of Michigan-Ann Arbor, USA) on CarH photochemistry titled " The photoactive excited state of the B12-based photoreceptor CarH" was published in J Phys Chem B 124: 10732-10738, DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.0c09428.
October 2020, Irene del Rey Navalón and Alfonso López Rojo begin with their Ph.D. with fellowships (FPI and FPU, respectively) funded by the Spanish Ministeries for Science and Universities in the group. Congratulations!
September 17, 2020, Montse gave an invited talk titled "A bacterial light response unmasks the identity of plasmanyl-ethanolamine desaturase and a signaling role for plasmalogens " at virtual meeting of the 7to11@SLING – a new scholarly forum in lipidomics on “Advances in research of plasmalogen metabolism” hosted by Prof. Markus Wenk, Professor and Head, Department of Biochemistry, Director, Singapore Lipidomics Incubator (SLING), National University of Singapore (www.sling.sg).
September 10, 2020, Padhu gave a "semi-plenary" talk titled "Vitamin B12-based photoreceptors: Structure, function, plasticity and evolution in myxobacteria" at GRAFOB: V Reunión GRAFOB 2020, organized by Grupo Argentino de Fotobiología.
September 4, 2020, Montse gave a plenary talk titled "Bacterial "vision" and how its study unmasked a long-sought human enzyme" at GRAFOB: V Reunión GRAFOB 2020, organized by Grupo Argentino de Fotobiología.
September 3, 2020, The Science Breaker (https://thesciencebreaker.org/) published our invited short lay summary (“break”) titled “A soil bacterium unmasks a human enzyme” about the work that we had published in Science, 366, 128-132 (2019).
April 23, 2020, Montse hosted a virtual conference by Prof. José Penadés of the Institute of Infection, Immunity & Inflammation, University of Glasgow (now Director of the MRC Centre for Molecular Biology & Infection, Department of Infectious Disease, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College, London, UK). Prof. Penadés gave a fabulous talk as part of the Seminar Series in the Master´s Program "Biología Molecular y Biotecnología" titled "Y de repente todo se mueve..." ("And suddenly everything moves...").
March 11 2020 on, COVID times begin, work stops, real becomes virtual, and then semi-virtual and semi-real! Casualties included various meetings, conferences (notably Gordon Research Conferences and including Myxo Meeting 2020 to be organized by Montse and scheduled in June) and talks that Montse was invited to give at IQFR-CSIC, Madrid and CRG-Barcelona in April.
March 6, 2020, Montse hosted Dr. Francisco Barro Losada, CSIC Research Professor, Instituto de Agricultura Sostenible (CSIC), Cordóba (https://www.ias.csic.es/mejora-genetica-vegetal/biotecnologia-vegetal/francisco-barro-losada/). Prof. Barro gave an exciting talk as part of the Seminar Series in the Master´s Program "Biología Molecular y Biotecnología" on March 6 titled "Desarrollo de trigo para celíacos: aplicaciones de la tecnología ARNi y CRISPR/Cas" ("Wheat development for celiac patients: applications of RNAi and CRISPR/Cas technologies").
February 12-13, 2020, Montse hosted a visit by Dr. Iñaki Ruiz-Trillo, ICREA Research Professor, Instituto de Biología Evolutiva (CSIC-Universidad Pompeu Fabra), Barcelona; (http://multicellgenome.com/people). Prof.Trillo gave a thrilling talk as part of the Seminar Series in the Master´s Program "Biología Molecular y Biotecnología" on Feb. 13 titled "El origen de los animales: una nueva visión basada en el estudio de los organismos unicelulares más cercanos a animales" ("The origin of animales: a new view based on the study of unicellular organisms most closely related to animals").
February 7, 2020, Montse gave a seminar titled “La visión en bacterias y cómo su estudio ha desvelado la función de un gen humano” ("Vision in bacteria and how its study unveiled the function of a human gene") at the Instituto de Bioingeniería, Universidad Miguel Hernández (UMH) de Elche (Host: Prof. José Luis Micol Molina, Seminar in the Master´s program in Biotecnología y Bioingeniería).
February 7, 2020, Elena Pajares was one of the awardees of the first Annual Prizes for Young Women Scientists of the Región de Murcia from the Asociación de Mujeres Científicas de la Región de Murcia y el Lyceum de Ciencia (Women Scientists Association of Murcia and Lyceum of Science, Murcia). The prize was in recognition of Elena´s contribution as one of three joint first authors of our paper published in Science, 366, 128-132 (2019). Congratulations Elena!
January 28, 2020, Montse´s invited commentary titled "Anaerobic bacteria need their vitamin B12 to digest estrogen" published in final form in PNAS 117: 1833-1835 (2020) (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1921340117).
January 9, 2020, Montse´s invited commentary titled "Anaerobic bacteria need their vitamin B12 to digest estrogen" published online in PNAS (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1921340117).
December 1, 2019, Our paper "A bacterial light response reveals an orphan desaturase for human plasmalogen synthesis" in Science, 366, 128-132 (2019), was selected as the "Article of the Month" by the Spanish Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (SEBBM), for their portal (https://www.sebbm.es/web/en/), and highlighted in the SEBBM magazine December 2019 (no. 202) issue.
November 8, 2019, Our paper "A bacterial light response reveals an orphan desaturase for human plasmalogen synthesis" in Science, 366, 128-132 (2019), was recommended as exceptional in F1000Prime by F1000 Faculty Member Tâm Mignot. (F1000, DOI: 10.3410/f.736704744.793566871)
October 4, 2019, Our paper on Myxo CarF titled "A bacterial light response reveals an orphan desaturase for human plasmalogen synthesis" published in Science, Vol. 366, Issue 6461, pp. 128-132, DOI: 10.1126/science.aay1436.
September, 2019, Alfonso López Rojo joins the group as a Master´s student to do his thesis on Myxo CRISPR-Cas systems. Welcome to the group, Alfonso!