Oral and poster presentation prizes awarded during the 2024 FrenchBIC Meeting

Posted in 2024 FrenchBIC Annual Meeting, awards, Photos Tagged with Posted on

Oral presentation prizes

with the support from EurJIC/Chemistry Europe

Juneina Omeiri

Anna Baidiuk

Juneina Omeiri, originally from Lebanon, received a Master’s degree in Integrative Structural Biology from the University of Grenoble Alpes. She is currently a third-year PhD student at the Institute of Structural Biology at the CEA of Grenoble, working under the co-supervision of Dr. Yvain Nicolet and Dr. Mickaël Cherrier. Her research primarily focuses on the assembly machinery of the FeFe hydrogenase active site. Recently, at the FrenchBic 2024 conference, she presented her latest paper, which was published in Angewandte Chemie. This publication provided the first description of the real structure of the HydG product “Complex B” and clarified the mechanism by which complex B is transferred between the two radical SAM enzymes, HydG and HydE.

Anna Baidiuk is a second year PhD student working at the Institute of Molecular Sciences of Marseille (iSm2) under the supervision of Dr. Cédric Colomban and Prof. Alexandre Martinez. Her research aims at developing bioinspired caged catalysts for efficient and selective transformations in confined space. Her talk at FrenchBic2024 was driven around artificial O2-activating Cu(I) catalysts and their unusual light-induced reactivity switch. Mechanistic insights to this new reactivity were discussed, along with its potential synthetic application. (DOI: 10.1021/jacsau.4c00184). 

Poster presentation prizes

with the support from the Royal Society of Chemistry (Dalton and Chem. Sci.)

Iris Wehrung

Théophile Lambert

I am a first year Phd student at the Marseille Institute of Molecular Sciences in the Biosciences team, under the supervision of Dr. Maylis Orio and Dr. A. Jalila Simaan. My research concerns Lytic Polysaccharide MonoOxygenases (LPMO), a copper metalloenzymes which have attracted great interest since they were shown to be able to degrade recalcitrant polysaccharides; thus rendering possible to valorize biomass to produce biofuels. We aim at describing LPMO active sites to develop structure-property-activity relationships to better understand the biological system and guide the desing of bio-inspired catalysts able to reproduce the LPMO activity. The reactive site of these enzymes consists of a mononuclear copper center. The copper ion is bound to two histidines with one being coordinated in a bidendate fashion to the metal center and denoted as the “histdine brace”. This unusual motif is rare in metalloproteins and is hypothesized to provide LPMO their remarkable oxidative power.

I completed my studies in Chemistry at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, where I quickly developed an interest in the interface of chemistry and biology. This led me to pursue internships in microbiology and biochemistry, further solidifying my passion for these fields. Also, I developed a strong affinity for using computational tools for investigating chemical reactions and biomolecules. Building upon this foundation, I started my first year of PhD under the mentorship of Wadih Ghattas within the bioorganic and bioinorganic chemistry team at ICMMO, Université Paris-Saclay. My research combines all my favorite disciplines, blending computational studies, organic chemistry, and biochemistry. Currently, I am developing an artificial metalloenzyme for the catalysis of the synthesis of bioactive molecules. The goal is to develop a protein platform by engineering the cavity of the Cyclo/Malto-Dextrin Binding Protein from Thermoactinomyces vulgaris, to bind metal complexes, thus enabling the activation of small molecules and facilitating the synthesis of pharmaceutically relevant compounds


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