TEAM MEMBERS

Manuel Rodriguez
CNRS Research Director

Manuel S. Rodriguez obtained his first degrees from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). After a Ph.D. in Microbiology at Paris 7 University - Pasteur Institute, Manuel continued his career in distinct European research centres including the Centre for Biomolecular Sciences of the University of St. Andrews (UK), Jacques Monod Institute-CNRS (France), CIC bioGUNE and Inbiomed (Spain). He is currently based at the LCC and Pharmadev laboratories (Toulouse, France). He is a founding member of the European Network INPROTEOLYS and co-coordinator of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie training networks UPStream and UbiCODE, both dedicated to the study of the Ubiquitin-proteasome system.



Corentin Bouvier
PhD student

Corentin joined the lab in January 2021 as a Phd student in organic chemistry co-supervised by Manuel Rodriguez (UbiCARE) and Cédric-Olivier Turrin (LCC). His project aims at developing new therapeutic approaches of Mantle Cell Lymphoma relying on multivalent molecular platforms that target proteaphagy and autophagy. with a joined supervision by Manuel Rodriguez (biology) and Cédric-Olivier Turrin (chemistry).

Corentin holds a Master degree in Molecular Chemistry from the University of Rennes, and a Master degree in Chemistry and Living Technologies from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Rennes. His previous experience in medicinal chemistry led him to work with Sanofi and Yale University.

Quentin Alasseur
Engineer

Quentin completed his Master in cellular and molecular biology at the University Paul Sabatier in Toulouse. He started his career as an engineer at the Ecole Normale Supérieure of Paris to investigate eukaryotic mRNA expression and regulation. For 4 years, Quentin mainly worked in the field of molecular biology and learned to master techniques such as CLIP-seq and genome engineering.

He joined UbiCARE in April 2021 and is shifting to proteomics. He is in charge of characterizing and improving our molecular traps against ubiquitin-like proteins.




ALUMNI

Post-doctorals

Fabienne Aillet
Inbiomed, San Sebastian, Spain 06/2015

Fabienne worked on the regulation of protein ubiquitylation during cancer treatment. The objective of this project was to identify cellular factors regulated by protein ubiquitylation in response to chemotherapy. Fabienne studied mainly the response to DNA damage drugs and inducers of proteotoxicity. A main contribution was the implementation of protocols to isolate and detect ubiquitylated proteins using TUBEs, using various formats (affinity columns, Western-blot and protein micro-arrays).

Fabienne Aillet is currently Pharmacovigilance Platform Coordinator at Clinact (Servier Therapeutic safety department)


Valérie Lang
Inbiomed, San Sebastian, Spain 06/2015

Valérie's research project focused on the regulation of immune and inflamatry response by protein ubiquitylation and SUMOylation. She studied the role of ubiquitin family members on the regulation of the nuclear factor kB (NF-kB) in response to immune and inflamatry signals. She contributed to develop and set up conditions for the isolation of SUMOylated proteins using SUMO-traps (SUBEs).



Valérie Lang is currently responsible of the viral production platform at Viralgen.


Wendy Xolalpa
Inbiomed, San Sebastian, Spain 06/2015

During her post-doc, Wendy worked on the identification of protein ubiquitylation under proteotoxic stress conditions using TUBEs-Mass spectrometry approach. One important contribution was the implementation of protocols to isolate and identify ubiquitylated proteins using Tandem-Ubiquitin Binding Entities (TUBEs) by mass spectrometry. Wendy's results have still a direct impact on the current investigations carried out in our laboratory.

Wendy Xolalpa now holds a permanent position at the Biotechnology Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and is an Associated scientist to Gloria Sab lab.

Fernando Lopitz Otsoa
Bilbao, Spain - 2007/2012

During his postdoc, Fernando worked on in vitro modification systems, to identify and characterise different post-translational modifications (Ubiquitin and Sumo) using immuno and radioactive detection systems. He contributed to developing and setting up conditions for the isolation of ubiquitylated proteins using Tandem Ubiquitin Binding Entities (TUBEs). He also contributed to the development and optimisation of the SUMO-traps (SUBEs).

Fernando Lopitz Otsoa holds a permanent position as Research Assistant at the Precision Medicine and Metabolism laboratory at CIC bioGUNE.

PhD fellows

Maria Gonzalez Santamarta
PhD - UbiCODE MSCA programme

María completed her Master's in Molecular Biology and Biomedicine at the University of the Basque Country. During her time at Rosa Barrio´s Lab (CICbioGUNE, Bilbao, Spain), she worked on the characterisation of the Townes Brocks Syndrome, a rare genetic disease and surprisingly a recently described ciliopathy. With a strong interest in genetics, she soon became very attracted to the proteomic field, and more specifically to the ubiquitin code. As part of her PhD thesis, María set up conditions for mass spectrometry analysis of bortezomib resistant cells using biotinylated TUBEs and chain specific nanobodies. Furthermore she inhibited ubiquitin enzymes using various approaches to analyse the impact of these enzymes in the composition of ubiquitin chains and resistance to bortezomib.

Grégoire Quinet
PhD - Université Paul Sabatier Toulouse - 2020

Grégoire joined the lab after a Master's degree at the INSA engineering school. During his Phd, Grégoire studied the role of ubiquitin like proteins in the UPS-ALS crosstalk in Bortezomib resistant Mantle Cell lymphoma (MCL).  He has demonstrated that autophagy is upregulated in MCL cells that resist to proteasome inhibitors. In particular, proteaphagy plays a crucial role when the proteasome is impaired. The autophagy receptor p62 plays a crucial role in the autophagosome formation and its inhibiton blocks proteaphagy en favors apoptosis of bortezomib resistant cells. Grégoire also developed LC3-traps to capture and analyse autophagosome formation and regulation.

Rosa Lopez Reyes
PhD - Université Paul Sabatier Toulouse - 2020

Rosa's PhD project aimed at analysing the proteasome-autophagy crosstalk under proteotoxic stress conditions in Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML).  This thesis was oriented to understand the UPS-ALS crosstalk under proteasome inhibition conditions. Rosa Lopez Reyes was interested in characterising selective autophagy envents activated after bortezomib treatment and in particular, proteaphagy.






Lydia Mata-Cantero
PhD - Complutense University of Madrid - 2017

Lydia's PhD thesis focused on the identification of new therapeutic targets and inhibitors of the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) for malaria treatment. The two major objectives of this research were to identify ub-regulated processes/targets controlling the erythrocytic cycle of Plasmodium falciparum that could represent targets for intervention, and to identify new inhibitors of the UPS that will selectively target Plasmodium falciparum. The two objectives were successfully achieved and these results are currently exploited by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).

Lydia Mata-Cantero now holds a permanent position at GSK-Madrid.

Sofia Lobato-Gil
PhD - University of the Basque Country - Bilbao 2017

As part of her PhD, Sofia used mass spectrometry-based proteomics strategies to define protein NEDDylation. The major goal of this work was the implementation of a methodology to identify NEDD8 signatures by mass spectrometry. The obtained results underlined a crucial role of NEDD8 in the regulation of proteotoxic stress.



Sofia Lobato-Gil is now a post-doctoral fellow at the IMB (Institute of Molecular Biology), Mainz, Germany (supervisor Dr. Petra Beli).


Elisa da Silva-Ferrada
PhD - University of the Basque Country - Bilbao 2014

During her PhD, Elisa contributed to the development and optimisation of the SUMO-traps (SUBEs) and their application to isolate and study SUMOylated proteins in the regulation of essential cancer cellular factors. She then went on a postdoc at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Coimbra, where she studied the molecular interactions between ubiquitin-like proteins and autophagy in regulation of the gap-juction protein Conexin 43 using ischemia-reperfusion models.



Elisa is now working as a USP Development Production Lead Scientist at Viralgen Vector Core.

Roland Hjerpe
PhD - University of the Basque Country - Bilbao 2008

During his PhD, Roland worked on developing the Tandem Ubiquitin Binding Entities (TUBEs) and applied them to p53 regulation. He then went on for a postdoc in at the MRC-PPU in Scotland, before joining Sygnature in 2017.

Roland is now working as a team leader at Sygnature Discovery, a contract research organization (CRO) specializing in pre-clinical drug discovery.






Project managers

Clémence Coutelle-Rebut (2018-2022) – European project manager for the UbiCODE innovative training network

Research engineers

Laurie Ceccato-Bonnafé (2016-2019) – currently : research associate at Evotec (Toulouse – France)
Clara Louche (2020) – currently : engineer in fundamental microbiology at Institut MICALIS – INRAE (Jouy-en-Josas – France)

Undergraduate students

2016
INSA Toulouse – Engineering final projects
Lillas Courtot – currently : PhD student at the Cancer Research Center of Toulouse (CRCT – Toulouse – France)
Grégoire Quinet – currently : PhD student at the Institute of Advanced Technology in Life Science (ITAV – Toulouse – France)

2015
Paul Sabatier University of Toulouse – Master students’s internships
Jenifer Espinoza
Anastasia Tolcan – currently: PhD student at the Institute of Physico-chemical Biology  (IBPC – Paris – France)
Charly Courdy – currently : PhD student at the Cancer Research Center of Toulouse (CRCT – Toulouse – France)