The Young Microbiologists Symposium (YMS) on Microbe Signalling, Organisation and Pathogenesis took place in Belfast, Northern Ireland, 27-28 August. NDPIA postdoc Enrique Joffré (Karolinska Institutet) participated in the event together with PhD students Danna Lee (Uppsala University) and Carlos Núñez Otero (Umeå University) in order to increase their understanding of the topic at hand and to network with peers and cutting edge researchers.

Enrique Joffré (in the photo): “The YMS2018 held in Queen´s University Belfast was a very fruitful and fun experience. I enjoyed building connections with other young researchers, being exposed to new ideas and getting feedback from well-known scientists in a very friendly environment. I noticed the effort of the organizers and speakers to recognize the important role of young scientist nowadays, which was very inspiring. The highlight of the conference, besides de scientific part, of course, was the social dinner and Irish céilí dance. Almost everybody participated, which was very entertaining. I would like to thank NDPIA for the financial support”.

A 1,5 ECTS NDPIA course on protein structure and structure-based drug design will be held in Lund 190115-18 and will feature lectures and hands-on tutorials on: Protein structure / Sequence & structural databases / Structure in drug discovery / Internet tools for drug discovery / Ligand docking and screening. There will also be time for networking.

Link to additional information and registration

Registration deadline – 3 December, 2018

Pedro Lopes (Umeå University, Dept. of Clinical Microbiology) will defend his thesis entitled " Candida albicans adaption to host microenvironments drives immune evasion" 5 October 2018 at 9 a.m. Venue: Major Groove, Building 6L, Norrlands Universitetssjukhus.

Opponent: Professor Allistair Brown, Aberdeen Fungal Group, Institute of Medical Sciences, University of Aberdeen, UK.

Immunosuppressed patients are frequently afflicted with severe mycoses caused by opportunistic fungal pathogens. Besides being a commensal colonizing predominantly skin and mucosal surfaces, Candida albicans is the most common human fungal pathogen. Mast cells are present in tissues prone to fungal colonization being expectedly among the first immune cells to get into contact with C. albicans. Here we describe how mast cells acted as tissue sentinels and modulated initial antifungal immune responses. Mast cells response was able to reduce fungal viability and signaled for neutrophil infiltration to the tissue.

Continue reading Thesis defence by Pedro Lopes (UmU) on “Candida albicans adaption to host microenvironments drives immune evasion”, 5 October 2018 →