IGBMC : Institut de la Génétique et de la Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded The Gregori Aminoff Prize in crystallography 2012 to Marat Yusupov and Gulnara Yusupova (IGBMC) and Harry F. Noller (University of California Santa Cruz, USA) “for their crystallographic studies on ribosomes, translators of the code of life”.

Specialized on the ribosome, a complex cellular structure responsible for the protein synthesis, Marat Yusupov team has just published their results about the mechanisms of one of the stages of protein synthesis, the decoding. The decoding of the genetic information on the ribosome is a universal process, which exists in all living cells from bacteria to higher eukaryotes, and enables the ribosome to ensure this process reliability. These data published on March 21st 2012 in Nature are bringing to light a physical phenomenon that allows the ribosome to select with accuracy amino acids corresponding with the genetic information. They are bringing other vision of decoding mechanism on the ribosome than it was published one decade ago and which is a reference.

On Februar 23rd 2012 in Brussels, representatives of the 7 member states signed the accession agreement of INSTRUCT, a European infrastructure in integrative structural biology, in the presence of M. Robert-Jan Smits, Director general for research and innovation of the European Commission. Structural data of multiple technologies from different time and size scales, in vitro and in a cellular context will allow a better understanding of how proteins, protein complexes or pathogens are dynamically interacting in their functional environment.