For this meeting, PIs who are directly working with structural biology in Lund were invited. After the meeting, the participants were asked to fill in a survey. One question was if the invited PIs thought that an ISB centre should be established in Lund, and 93% of the participants were positive towards the establishment of ISBC. As such a positive response was received, the working group decided to go further with the plans and submitted a letter to the University management. The letter was also received very well from the management and there are ongoing discussions on how this will be executed.
The membrane protein working group was formed towards the end of 2019 after a couple of brainstorming meetings with both local and international participants interested in the research area. The outcome of these meetings was the successful official formation of the working group, as well as identification of key topics that were aimed to be addressed, and suggestions for activities. During 2021, the group had two successful workshops, the first one focused on protein expression and sample quality control, and the second focused on sample preparation for structural biology and structure determination by different methods such as X-ray crystallography, neutron crystallography and single-particle cryo-EM. Both workshops were held online with roughly 100 participants from all over the world.
The amyloid working group organized several workshops for instance two with the focus “User-friendly analysis of spectroscopy data with Quasar - multivariate statistics and machine learning”. These activities were based on a collaboration between the French SOLEIL light source, MAXIV and the Faculty of Medicine. A meeting entitled “Heart and Mind”, focusing on cardiomyopathy and neuropathy in relation to amyloidogenesis was held in 2021. As a follow-up activity, the working group produced a conference report published in the Journal of Translational Medicine: “Recommendations for addressing the translational gap between experimental and clinical research on amyloid diseases This paper is a report of recommendations for addressing translational challenges in amyloid disease research.” prepared by the group members. The key suggestions include improving cross-cultural communication between basic science and clinical research, increasing the influence of scientific societies and journals (vis-à-vis funding agencies and pharmaceutical companies), improving the dissemination of negative results, and strengthening the ethos of science.
The time-resolved structural biology working group has during its active years concentrated on the organization of several Time-Resolved Structural Biology workshops. While the first workshop had a broad programme that highlighted what can be done with different methods, the second workshop focused more on crystallography including experiment design, results and facilities, and also more talks and discussions on data interpretation, how to avoid pitfalls, and on what developments that are important for the field. In terms of techniques the programme covered NMR, SAXS, CryoEM, crystallography, and computational methods. In addition to a longer discussion session for each half day, the coffee breaks, lunches, poster session and the workshop dinner gave ample of time for interaction between the workshop participants. This contributed to the very positive feedback that was received.
ISB Core Group Leader, WG 5–Lund Integrative Structural Biology Centre Initiative leader, and WG 4–Membrane Proteins member, LINXS Fellow
Karin Lindkvist is an expert in structural biology in particular applying X-ray crystallography. Her research encompasses both structural studies of integral membrane proteins and soluble proteins, in particular proteins important in human metabolism such as glucose transporters and glycerol channels. Lindkvist has a strong scientific network in the field of membrane protein structural biology.