News
April 2024.
- Our paper describing the lifecycle of the vampire predator Bdellovibrio exovorus (poor Caulobacter prey!) is out in Nature Communications. We show that this bacterium produces mostly 3 daughter cells while feeding on the prey surface. We also demonstrate that the S-layer is not protective against B. exovorus predation. This work was led by Yoann Santin in our lab, and involved a fun collaboration with Adrià Sogues (co-first author) & Han Remaut at the VIB-VUB, who acquired the beautiful cryo-EM images of the prey-predator interactions.
- Ophélie's paper is published (as Editor's pick!) in the Journal of Bacteriology! This study shows the very intriguing dynamics of proteins differentially associated with the cell poles and division sites in Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus, identifying RomR as an early marker of cell polarity: it finds the future "head" of all daughter cells even before the mother filament constricts! We also used miniTurbo-based proximity labeling for the first time in this bacterium, opening lots of new possibilities for molecular investigations. Read the story here.
- Géraldine obtains a WELBIO Starting grant from the WEL Research Institute to study the molecular arsenal of predatory bacteria.
March 2024
- Ophélie and Géraldine contributed to a joined Perspective article on cell polarity for the Journal of Cell Science. Read it here.
February 2024
- The lab welcomes 3 new interns: Quentin Minutillo (Master 1), Laura Grosjean (BTS), and Apolline Baudelet (Master 60 BBMC).
- Renske is leaving the lab after a successful post-doc, moving on to new adventures in the Netherlands (more info to come soon). All the best to you, Renske!
January 2024
- Ophélie defended her PhD thesis! Featuring pole-related private jokes :-) Congrats, Ophélie, for all your hard work and beautiful presentation!
November 2023
- Ophélie's PhD work is wrapped up in a new preprint. Ophélie used proximity labeling for the first time in Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus, to reveal the proximity network of her two favorite polar proteins, RomR and DivIVA. This was a fantastic collaboration with the i.R.I.P. lab and Petra van Damme at UGent. Ophélie also dissected the subcellular dynamics of both proteins throughout the predatory cycle. Cell polarity is such a fascinating topic!
October 2023
- New bug in the lab, new preprint. We present the first live-cell imaging of the lifecycle of Bdellovibrio exovorus, which predates upon Caulobacter crescentus. We found that the S-layer does not protect against vampirization by B. exovorus, and this predator uses non-binary division in a quite unique manner... Check our preprint to see more, including beautiful CryoEM images by our collaborators in the Remaut lab (VIB-VUB).
- Yoann presents our first story on B. exovorus at the annual meeting of the Molecular Bacteriology contact group (F.R.S.-FNRS) at ULB in Gosselies. Perfect for the spooky season!
September 2023 (back to school)
- Jovana defends her PhD!!!! Outstanding presentation and defense, perfect to celebrate the publication of her last paper (see below). Jovana will start her post-doc in the lab of Tung Le at the John Innes Centre, Norwich (UK). Good luck, JK!
- New paper in PLOS Genetics! Read the story here, featuring unique cell cycle-dependent regulation of the ParABS system in Bdellovibrio and more insights into the non-canonical behaviour of ParB. For this study, Jovana set up a great collaboration with Tung Le (John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK).
- Renske, Jovana and Géraldine (the chromosome part of the lab) attend the BioPhyChrom workshop at the Lorentz Center in Leiden, NL. Talk by Géraldine, many insightful discussions in a unique workshop format, and a Best poster prize for Jovana.
- Read Géraldine's interview by Daniel Routledge for the "Cell Scientist to Watch" series in the Journal of Cell Science
June 2023 (is a busy month)
- New preprint out! Read it here. This is Jovana's 2nd 1st-author paper, about the multi-layered regulation of her favorite chromosome segregation system. Read our easy (Harry Potter-themed) summary here.
- Coralie attends the EMBL conference New Approaches & Concepts in Microbiology. First international conference for our baby (with a poster)!
- Jovana, Ophélie & Géraldine attend the 1st edition of the (already iconic) GRC Bacterial Cell Biology & Development in Manchester, NH (USA). Talks by Jovana & Géraldine, and poster by Ophélie. What a blast!
May 2023.
- New paper out in Current Biology! We examined how the prey impacts cell cycle progression of Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus. Along the way, we designed new image analysis tools to measure filamentous growth and non-binary division timing. Congrats to first author Yoann and all co-authors! Read the full story here.
- We have a new lab member: welcome, Yvann!
- Ophélie wins the best talk award at the de Duve Institute PhD Day
April 2023. Renske speaks about Bdello on the Dutch radio. Listen here (if you understand Dutch ^^)
March 2023. The whole lab participates to the annual symposium of the Belgian Society for Microbiology, with posters and excellent talks by Ophélie and Yoann. Renske presents the activities of the Young BSM as their new Vice-Chair!
December 2022.
- Our new preprint is out! If you want to know what happens to the Bdellovibrio cell cycle when we tune the size or the content of its prey, click here. Congrats to Yoann and co-authors!
- Jovana wins a best poster award at the Bacterial cell biophysics EMBO Workshop in Israel. Congrats, Kale!
October 2022.
- Our lab obtains an ARC funding for a collaborative project called "Pachiderm" between UCLouvain and UNamur researchers
- Jovana presents her beautiful work on ParB (short talk) at the annual meeting of the F.R.S.-FNRS Molecular Bacteriology contact group.
September 2022.
- Thomas and Renske present their work at the Bdellovibrio 60th anniversary symposium and win best talk awards. Bravo!
- Yoann, Jovana and Ophélie present posters at the EMBO BacNet conference in San Feliu (Spain) and Géraldine presents a short talk about Yoann's latest findings.
- We have a new lab member! Coralie starts a PhD funded by the F.R.S.-FNRS to study how Bdellovibrio switches from the attack to the growth phase inside its prey.
August 2022. Géraldine is an invited speaker at the Gordon Conference "Plant & Microbial Cytoskeleton" in Andover, NH (USA). Great to meet a new community of researchers and to obtain their feedback on our recent work!
January 2022. A good start of the year for the lab!
- Yoann Santin obtains an EMBO post-doc fellowship to decipher how the prey cell impacts predation (lots of E. coli will be sacrificed!)
- It is Sander Govers' last month in the lab before starting his own group at KULeuven. Keep an eye on his ERC Starting grant funded projects here.
- During the past years, the whole team worked hard to develop and optimise bacterial predation monitoring protocols. Check our article in STAR Protocols for a new fluorescence-based method to count tiny Bdellovibrio cells, a detailed procedure for automated killing kinetics experiments, and our CuRveR package to plot growth and killing curves and extract metrics in a user-friendly way.
- Our lab obtains a CDR funding from the F.R.S.-FNRS to study the nucleoid of Bdellovibrio (project PREDATOR NUCLEOID).
October 2021. We organise the annual meeting of the F.R.S.-FNRS "Molecular Bacteriology" contact group. What a blast! More than 120 participants gathered in Louvain-la-Neuve, 10 short talks from young researchers and 2 plenary speakers (Tâm Mignot and Kristina Jonas).
July 2021. The first research paper of the lab is published in Current Biology! Find out how Bdellovibrio organises, copies and segregates its chromosome throughout its non-canonical cell cycle, with interesting nucleoid features and an intriguing ParB twist here. This paper is not only the first of the lab but also the first first-author publication of Jovana (and a great teamwork!).
June 2021. What an amazing month for the lab! Congratulations to Renske van Raaphorst for obtaining a prestigious Rubicon post-doc fellowship from the NWO! Renske will study the architecture of the Bdellovibrio nucleoid.
June 2021. Sander Govers obtains a "Chargé de Recherches" post-doctoral fellowship of the F.R.S.-FNRS to study cell cycle control in E. coli!
June 2021. Félicitations, Yoann! Yoann Santin is awarded with the "Prix de la Fondation Dina Surdin" by the French Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology for his PhD work in the lab of Eric Cascales.
June 2021. Best talk award for Jovana Kaljevic at the PhD day of the de Duve Institute! Youhouuu!
March 2021. Jovana gives a wonderful talk at the annual symposium of the Belgian Society for Microbiology, about her work on chromosome dynamics in Bdellovibrio.
March 2021 Yoann Santin (PhD in the group of Eric Cascales) joins the lab to start a post-doc. Welcome, Yoann!
December 2020 The first preprint of the lab is out on BiorXiv!
December 2020. Thomas obtains a PhD fellowship from the FRIA. Well done, Thomas!
November 2020 We welcome our second microscope, Snape, who will stay in good company with our first scope Dumbledore.
October 2020 Géraldine gives a talk on our latest results at the Caulo Conference 2.0 ("Caulobacter-inspired talk")
August 2020 We are happy to welcome 2 new lab members: Thomas Lamot (PhD student) and Renske Van Raaphorst (Post-doc - Renske did her PhD in the lab of J-W Veening in Lausanne and Groningen)
March 2020 We attend the annual symposium of the F.R.S.-FNRS contact group "Molecular bacteriology" in Liège
January 2020 Publication of a Perspective paper on the funky cell biology of Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus
December 2019 Selected short talk by Géraldine at the BMSV 2019 conference in Cape Town, South Africa, entitled "Unravelling the cell biology of a predatory bacterium in space and time", including exciting data from Jovana and Terrens.
October 18th, 2019 We attend the annual symposium of the Belgian Society for Microbiology... and Jovana gets the Best Poster prize for section A (General Microbiology), for a great poster on her work on chromosome segregation in Bdellovibrio!
September 23rd, 2019 Antoine Delhaye is now Dr Delhaye! Congratulations for a great thesis (and extraordinary party).
September 2019 Antoine Gérard (M2 Bioengineering, UCLouvain) joins the team for the next academic year. Welcome!
July 2019 We welcome Charles de Pierpont, our new Research Technician
March 2019 Antoine's paper (Collet + Laloux groups), describing the function of NlpE as a sentinel for two important envelope biogenesis processes, is accepted for publication in the Journal of Bacteriology. Click here to read the manuscript.
February 1st, 2019 Meeting of the FNRS contact group "Molecular Bacteriology" organised this year at the IBMM (ULB), on "Structural biology in microbiology"
October 19th, 2018 Our group attends the Annual Symposium of the Belgian Society for Microbiology
October 2018 Two PhD students join the lab: Ophélie Remy and Jovana Kaljevic
September 2018 Welcome Terrens Saaki, first post-doc of the lab!
July 2018 The ERC Starting Grant "PREDATOR" is funded!
June 2018 Inês Gouveia (Université Clermont Auvergne, M1) joins the lab for the summer.
June 2018 Applications for the available post-doc position are now closed.
May 2018 Antoine Delhaye wins the Best Talk prize at the de Duve Institute PhD Day!
January 2018 Applications for PhD projects are now closed! Post-doc candidates are still welcome to apply (check the job offer here).
December 2017 The lab receives the "MIS incentive grant for scientific research" from the F.R.S.-FNRS. PhDs (ideally with experience in microbiology and/or fluorescence microscopy) who are interested in pursuing an exciting post-doc research project in bacterial cell biology are welcome to contact us with their CV, references and motivation letter. Programs can start as early as July 2018.
The team will expand in 2018 Highly motivated students holding a Master degree with a strong background in microbiology and molecular biology, and who are interested in starting a PhD research project on the cell biology of bacterial predation are welcome to contact me with their CV and references (full job description and requirements available here). Several types of fellowship applications can be considered (earliest deadline December 2017 for a program starting in the Fall 2018). We are also happy to receive applications from Post-doc candidates (experience with quantitative live fluorescence microscopy of bacterial cells is a plus!).
September 2017 Géraldine receives the Alvarenga, de Piauhy award 2016 from the Belgian Royal Academy of Medicine! A total of 7 researchers from UCLouvain received an award from the Academy this year.
September 2017 Our Master student Elodie graduates from the Haute Ecole Condorcet after a great and productive stay in the lab!
© Géraldine Laloux 2016 - Last updated on 28/04/2024