Lab Feed and News

November 2023

🏆 Award: Antonios received the Swedish Fernström Prize!

October 2023

🙂 People: Ferenc Török (Striessnig group, Univ. of Innsbruck, Austria) is joining us as a visiting PhD student.

📰 Publication: Mínguez-Viñas T, Prakash V, Wang K, Lindström SH, Pozzi S, Scott SA, Spiteri E, Stevenson DA, Ashley EA, Gunnarsson C, Pantazis A. Two epilepsy-associated variants in KCNA2 (KV1.2) at position H310 oppositely affect channel functional expression. J Physiol. 2023 Oct 26. doi: 10.1113/JP285052. PMID: 37883018.
Link: https://physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/JP285052
X-plainer: https://twitter.com/ntoniosPantazis/status/1717855012401946985

June 2023

💰 Funding: The Swedish Brain Foundation (Hjärnfonden) funded our application FO2023-0025!

🌎 Conference: LiU-WCMM retreat

May 2023

🌎 Conference: We all attended Neuroretreat, the retreat of the LiU Center for Systems Neurobiology, in beautiful Söderköping.

April 2023

🌎 Conference: As a member of LiU-WCMM, Antonios got to attend the National Molecular Medicine Fellows retreat in Stockholm: fantastic keynote lectures, excellent colleagues and tons of inspiration!

🙂 People: Mario (Simone) Nappi (Taglialatela group, Univ. of Naples Federico II) is joining us as a visiting PhD student.

March 2023

🏆 Award: Michelle Nilsson’s article received the “Best Scientific Paper Award” by the LiU Medical Faculty Student Association.

🙂 People: Panagiota “Penny” Gkotsi (Univ. of Patras School of Medicine) is joining us as an Erasmus+ exchange student.

🙂 People: Serena Pozzi is now officially a PhD student! She will study how a new variant of the cardiac sodium channel causes an unexpected, familial, and sometimes lethal type of cardiac arrhythmia.

February 2023

🌎🏆 Conference & Award: Biophysical Society annual meeting, San Diego, CA. Michelle gave a platform presentation; Serena, Catherine and Antonios presented posters, and there was one more poster from our collaboration with the Olcese lab, UCLA. Antonios also co-chaired the Voltage-gated sodium and calcium channel platforms session. Catherine was given a travel award by the Biophysical Society!
Read more on Twitter

December 2022

🙂 People: Varsha is joining LinkoCare as Quality Control Engineer.

October 2022

💰 Funding: The Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) funded our application 2022-00574!

🙂 People: Stina Berglund is joining us for her BSc project

🙂 People: Serena Pozzi, from the University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy, is joining us as research assistant.

September 2022

🌎 🏆 Conference & Award: Europhysiology meeting, Copenhagen, Denmark. Catherine gave a platform presentation. Michelle and Varsha presented posters. All received a travel award by the Scandinavian Physiological Society.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ntoniosPantazis/status/1570441889123565569

August 2022

🌎 Conference: Ion channel mountain retreat, at the Elinder family home; Undersåker (Sweden).

June 2022

🌎 Conference: Michelle Nilsson and Catherine Wang presented at the Gordon Research Conference on Synaptic Transmission, Lucca, Italy.

🙂 People: Maria Mode (Univ. of Patras School of Medicine) is joining us for three months, as an Erasmus+ exchange student.

💰 Funding: The Swedish Brain Foundation (Hjärnfonden) funded our application FO2022-0003!

May 2022

🌎 Conference: European Calcium Channel Conference, Alpbach (Austria). Catherine gave a short oral presentation and showed a poster.

🌎 Conference: The first LiU-WCMM retreat. Spa + science. Spience?

🌎 🏆 Conference & Award: Our Division’s “Neuroretreat”. Varsha received an award for Best Poster!

🙂 People: Varsha Prakash graduates from her master’s degree, joins us as Research Assistant for the rest of the year.

April 2022

📰 Publication: Nilsson M, Lindström SH, Kaneko M, Wang K, Minguez-Viñas T, Angelini M, Steccanella F, Holder D, Ottolia M, Olcese R, Pantazis A. An epilepsy-associated KV1.2 charge-transfer-center mutation impairs KV1.2 and KV1.4 trafficking. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2022 Apr 26;119(17):e2113675119. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2113675119. Epub 2022 Apr 19. PMID: 35439054; PMCID: PMC9169947.
Link: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2113675119
Twittorial: https://twitter.com/ntoniosPantazis/status/1516514741757390853

🌎 Conference: Antonios, together with Walker Jackson, co-organized the LiU-WCMM symposium.

🙂 People: Sarah Lindström is transferring to the group of Martin Hallbeck.

🌎 🏆 Conference & Award: Biophysical Society annual meeting, San Francisco, CA. One platform presentation by Catherine, and two posters (Teresa & Michelle). Travel Awards to Catherine and Michelle, by the Biophysical Society!

November 2021

🙂 People: Teresa was awarded a prestigious Spanish national postdoctoral fellowship, the Juan de la Cierva-formación! Unfortunately, she cannot use it at our lab ☹ She is joining the laboratory of Teresa Giraldez, University of La Laguna, as postdoctoral fellow!

🎓 Graduation: Antonios became docent / associate professor! The title of his pedagogical reflection is: “Inspiring a Solution-oriented Attitude to Laboratory Trainees”

October 2021

🙂 People: Varsha Prakash is joining us for her Master’s degree project.

📰 Publication: Angelini M, Pezhouman A, Savalli N, Chang MG, Steccanella F, Scranton K, Calmettes G, Ottolia M, Pantazis A, Karagueuzian HS, Weiss JN, Olcese R. Suppression of ventricular arrhythmias by targeting late L-type Ca2+ current. J Gen Physiol. 2021 Dec 6;153(12):e202012584. doi: 10.1085/jgp.202012584. Epub 2021 Oct 26. PMID: 34698805; PMCID: PMC8552156.
Link: https://rupress.org/jgp/article/153/12/e202012584/212725/Suppression-of-ventricular-arrhythmias-by

September 2021

🌎 🏆 Conference & Award: Scandinavian Physiological Society meeting, Stockholm. Sarah, Michelle and Catherine presented posters. All of them, and Teresa, received Travel Awards by the Scandinavian Physiological Society.

February 2021

🌎 Conference: Biophysical Society annual meeting (online). Sarah gave a recorded platform presentation and Teresa presented a virtual poster from her PhD work.

September 2020

🙂 🏆 People & Award: Dr. Kaiqian (Catherine) Wang, joining us from the University of British Columbia, Canada. Catherine was selected for a Center for Systems Neurobiology stipend support.

🙂 People: Dr. Teresa Minguez-Viñas is joining us from Oxford Brookes University, UK.

📰 Publication: Pantazis A, Kaneko M, Angelini M, Steccanella F, Westerlund AM, Lindström SH, Nilsson M, Delemotte L, Saitta SC, Olcese R. Tracking the motion of the KV1.2 voltage sensor reveals the molecular perturbations caused by a de novo mutation in a case of epilepsy. J Physiol. 2020 Nov;598(22):5245-5269. doi: 10.1113/JP280438. Epub 2020 Sep 21. PMID: 32833227; PMCID: PMC8923147.
Link: https://physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/JP280438

February 2020

🌎 Conference: Biophysical Society annual meeting, San Diego, CA. Michelle presented a poster, and we were also coauthors on a poster by the Olcese lab, UCLA.

December 2019

💰 Funding: The Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet) funded our application 2019-00988!

October 2019

🙂 People: Michelle Nilsson is hired as the lab’s first PhD student. Her project will be on voltage-sensing domain function, regulation, and role in disease.

🌎 🏆 Conference & Award: Michelle Nilsson attended the Plymouth Microelectrode Techniques workshop, supported by a stipend from the Physiological Society.

September 2019

📰 Publication: Seki S, Yamamoto T, Quinn K, Spigelman I, Pantazis A, Olcese R, Wiedau-Pazos M, Chandler SH, Venugopal S. Circuit-Specific Early Impairment of Proprioceptive Sensory Neurons in the SOD1G93A Mouse Model for ALS. J Neurosci. 2019 Oct 30;39(44):8798-8815. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1214-19.2019. Epub 2019 Sep 17. PMID: 31530644; PMCID: PMC6820216.
Link: https://www.jneurosci.org/content/39/44/8798

August 2019

🌎 Conference: Scandinavian Physiological Society meeting, Reykjavik. Antonios presented a poster

June 2019

🙂 People: Sarah H. Lindström is the lab’s first hire, as principal research engineer.

📰 Publication: Venugopal S, Seki S, Terman DH, Pantazis A, Olcese R, Wiedau-Pazos M, Chandler SH. Resurgent Na+ Current Offers Noise Modulation in Bursting Neurons. PLoS Comput Biol. 2019 Jun 21;15(6):e1007154. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007154. PMID: 31226124; PMCID: PMC6608983.
Link: https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007154

May 2019

💰 Funding: Lucie Delemotte (KTH) and Antonios were awarded a NMMP Network Collaboration grant.

March 2019

🌎 Conference: Biophysical Society annual meeting, Baltimore, MD! Antonios presented a poster.

February 2019

📰 Publication: Pantazis, A., Olcese, R. (2019). Cut-Open Oocyte Voltage-Clamp Technique. In: Roberts, G., Watts, A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Biophysics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35943-9_371-1

November 2018

📰 Publication: Pantazis A, Westerberg K, Althoff T, Abramson J, Olcese R. Harnessing photoinduced electron transfer to optically determine protein sub-nanoscale atomic distances. Nat Commun. 2018 Nov 9;9(1):4738. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-07218-6. PMID: 30413716; PMCID: PMC6226468.
Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-07218-6

September 2018

🍾Lab opened! First e-mail from @liu.se sent to request a quote for COVG amplifiers. It was never answered. Surely just a minor hiccup?