Lab feed and news articles

December 2025

🎓 Course: We completed the first LiU ion channels PhD course! We welcomed 25 students from LiU, Sweden and elsewhere in Europe, for online and on-site lectures and workshops! More information on the course website. We anticipate the next course to take place during fall 2028.

🌎 Conference: We all attended the WCMM-LiU retreat at Sandvik Gård. Link

🙂 People: Antonios was promoted to senior associate (biträdande) professor!

November 2025

💰 Funding: The Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation (Hjärt-Lungfonden) funded our application 20250922!

🙂 People: Cibely Fontes de Oliveira is joining our team for part-time administrative support. Welcome, Cibely!

🙂 People: Mary Roshani is joining us for her Master’s Scientific project!

October 2025

🌎 Conference: Pei Xin, Serena and Süheda attended the Wallenberg Center for Molecular Medicine group member meeting in Stockholm.

September 2025

🌎 Conference: We took part in the “Ion Channel Mountain Retreat”, at the beautiful Renhornet house of the Elinder family.

🌎 Conference: We contributed to a poster by collaborator Mark A Hollywood (Dundalk Institute of Technology, Ireland) at the IUPS / Europhysiology conference, titled “The BK channel (hSlo) mutation K392E responsible for paroxysmal dyskinesia uncouples voltage sensor activation from pore opening”.

🙂 People: Eman Asim is joining us for her Bachelor’s Degree project!

August 2025

🌎🏆 Conference & Award: Pei Xin, Serena and Süheda attended the Forum Scientium Graduate School conference. Serena won a scientific presentation award!

🎓 Half-time: Serena Pozzi gave her PhD half-time seminar. Many thanks to Assoc. Professor Kirstine Callø (Univ. Copenhagen) and Professor Jordi Altimiras (LiU) for their expert reviews and advice.

🙂 People: Twinkle Biswas joined our team as postdoc! Dr. Biswas got her PhD at the University of Lund.

June 2025

🌎 Conference: Antonios was invited to the 15th EBSA Congress in Rome, and he gave the talk “192 conformations, or: regulation of CaV2.1 by the membrane potential”

📰 Pre-print: Yusifov T, Gasymov O, Gudratova F, Savalli N, Pantazis A, Olcese R: Heme signaling through the gating ring apparatus of the human BK channel. SSRN [Preprint] 2025. DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.5324310

💰Funding: The Swedish Brain Foundation (Hjärnfonden) funded our application FO2025-0364!

May 2025

🌎 Conference: Antonios and Suheda travelled to Alpbach, Austria for the 2025 European Calcium Channel Conference! Antonios gave a talk titled “A rich conformational palette underlies human CaV2.1-channel availability”.

📰 Publication: Angelini M, Savalli N, Steccanella F, Maxfield S, Pozzi S, DiFranco M, Cannon SC, Pantazis A, Olcese R. The molecular transition that confers voltage dependence to muscle contraction. Nat Commun. 2025 May 24;16(1)4847. doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-59649-7. Link to article

🌎 Conference: Antonios, Amaya, Serena and Suheda went to gorgeous Kolmården to attend the Center for Systems Neuroscience “Neuroretreat”! Antonios co-organized the “Ion Channels of the Nervous System” symposium, and talked about “The secret lives of presynaptic calcium channels”. Other guests were Angelika Lampert, Stephanie Schorge and Philippe Lory.

April 2025

📰 Publication: Dahlberg P[1], Pozzi S[1], Bulmer L, Golluscio A, Nilsson M, Nygren A, Larsson HP, Pantazis A[2], Gummesson A[2]. Clinical and electrophysiological characterization of a SCN5A gain-of-function mutation associated with CPVT-like arrhythmia. J Mol Cell Cardiol. 2025 Apr 8:S0022-2828(25)00059-8. doi: 10.1016/j.yjmcc.2025.04.001.
[1], [2] = equal contribution

Link: https://www.jmcc-online.com/article/S0022-2828(25)00059-8/fulltext
Blue-torial: https://bsky.app/profile/antoniospantazis.bsky.social/post/3lmovebfvak2d

🌎 Conference: Antonios talked about “Even a single carbon atom matters: deadly and unexpected consequences of a NaV1.5 variant” at the Worldwide Sodium Channel Seminar series.

🌎 Conference: Antonios talked about “The molecular mystery in a case of familial cardiac arrhythmia” at the LiU Medical Faculty “Academic Quarter” seminar series.

📰 Publication: Wang K, Nilsson M, Angelini M, Olcese R, Elinder F, Pantazis A. A rich conformational palette underlies human CaV2.1-channel availability. Nat Commun. 2025 Apr 23;16(1):3815. doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-58884-2. Links to article & press release

February 2025

🌎 🏆 Conference & Award: We went to the Biophysical Society meeting, in Los Angeles, CA! Serena and Süheda presented posters, and Süheda also gave a talk. Amaya presented a poster on her work at the Elinder group. Congratulations to Serena for receiving a travel award!

📰 Pre-print: Nappi M, Frampton DJA, Kusay AS, Wang K, Miceli F, Liin SI, Taglialatela M, Pantazis A: Two-step voltage-sensor activation of the human KV7.4 channel and effect of a deafness-associated mutation. bioRxiv [Preprint] 2025. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.02.04.636443

January 2025

📣News: Antonios was interviewed by the Östgöta taltidning audio newspaper about our latest research on CaV2.2 inhibition, its exploitation by opioid drugs, and its promise for the development of novel analgesics!

December 2024

🌎 Conference: We all attended the 2024 WCMM retreat at Sandvik Gård.

November 2024

🙂 People: S. Süheda Yaşarbaş is now formally a PhD student! Wishing her every success!

🌎 Conference: We all attended the 2024 WCMM symposium at LiU. Amaya, Pei Xin, Serena and Süheda presented posters.

October 2024

💰 Funding: The Swedish Brain Foundation (Hjärnfonden) funded our application FO2024-0299!

🙂 People: Pei Xin Boon donned a university gown for her official PhD graduation ceremony at Dundalk Institute of Technology. Congratulations!

🌎Conference: Serena & Antonios attended the LiU Circulation and Metabolism (CircM) retreat in Söderköping! Serena gave an “elevator pitch” presentation of her project on arrhythmias.

📰 Publication: Pantazis A & Brackenbury WJ. Worldwide Sodium Channel Conference, January 31st–February 2nd, 2024, Grindelwald, Switzerland. Bioelectricity. DOI: 10.1089/bioe.2024.0025
Link: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/bioe.2024.0025

September 2024

📰 Pre-print: Wang K, Nilsson M, Angelini M, Olcese R, Elinder F, Pantazis A: A rich conformational palette underlies human CaV2.1-channel availability. bioRxiv [Preprint] 2024. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.09.27.615501
Link: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.09.27.615501v1

🙂 People: Michelle Nilsson and Catherine Wang are leaving the lab. Michelle is joining the Pless lab in the University of Copenhagen as postdoctoral fellow. Catherine joined AbCellera as Research Scientist. Thank you for the many years of wonderful collaboration. We will miss you dearly, and wish you all the best!

📰 Publication: Nilsson M, Wang K, Mínguez-Viñas T, Angelini M, Berglund S, Olcese R, Pantazis A. Voltage-dependent G-protein regulation of CaV2.2 (N-type) channels.Sci Adv.2024 Sep 11. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adp6665.
Link: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adp6665
X-plainer: https://x.com/ntoniosPantazis/status/1834906836153037155

🌎Conference:We attended the first ever Linköping Ion Channel Meeting!! We enjoyed 1,5 intense days about our favorite class of proteins! Antonios helped organize it and gave a talk. Catherine, Michelle, Serena and Suheda presented posters.

August 2024

🔬 Workshop: Serena Pozzi attended the Cell Physiology Workshop in Liverpool, UK: the successor of the legendary Plymouth Microelectrode Techniques workshop! We’re grateful to the LiU Board of PhD studies for the financial support.

July 2024

🏆 Award: Alumna Dr. Teresa Mínguez-Viñas was awarded the Early Investigator Prize 2023 (Neuroscience category) by the Physiological Society, for her “outstanding research paper” on KCNA2 epilepsy-associated variants!

June 2024

🙂 People: Charmaine Ko is joining us as summer student! Supported by a Från Student Till Docent studentship, she will study epilepsy-associated variants of KCNA2.

📰 Pre-print: Nilsson M, Wang K, Mínguez-Viñas T, Angelini M, Berglund S, Olcese R, Pantazis A: Electrical and G-protein Regulation of CaV2.2 (N-type) Channels. bioRxiv [Preprint] 2024. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.06.29.600263
Link: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.06.29.600263v1

April 2024

🌎🏆 Conference & Award: Everyone (minus Antonios, who just started his parental leave) attended the annual Neuroretreat in beautiful Vadstena. Congratulations to Serena for winning best poster prize!

March 2024

🙂 People: Dr. Peixin Boon is joining us as postdoc. She graduated from the Dundalk Institute of Technology, Ireland.

🙂 People: Sümeyye Süheda Yaşarbaş (İzmir Institute of Technology, Türkiye) is joining us as research assistant

🎓 Graduation: Michelle Nilsson defended her thesis and is now a PhD! Henry Colecraft (Columbia University) served as opponent. Mia Lindskog (Uppsala Univ.), H. Peter Larsson (LiU) and Martin Hallbeck (LiU) were in the thesis committee.

February 2024

🙂 People: Orgena Dano is joining us for her MSc project

🌎 🏆 Conference & Award: We all went to the Biophysical Society meeting, in Philadelphia, PA! Catherine and Serena gave talks. Michelle, Amaya and Serena presented posters. Antonios presented a poster from our collaboration with the Taglialatela group, and there was also work from our collaboration with the Olcese group. Michelle and Amaya received travel awards!

January 2024

🌎 🏆 Conference & Award: Serena and Antonios went to the Worldwide Sodium Channel Conference, in Grindelwald, Switzerland! Serena gave a talk, presented a poster, and received a travel award!

💰 Funding: Antonios is co-applicant in a grant by Erik Smedler (Univ. of Gothenburg) by the Program for Academic Leaders in Life Science (PALS).

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.

🏆💰 Award & Funding: Michelle was awarded a PhD scholarship by the Lions Research Fund!

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?