Category: Not extinct

The 13th International Colloquium on Endocytobiology and Symbiosis was held in Kyoto from September 10 to 14, 2016. A fine poster advertised the colloquium.

The organiser was Junichi Obokata of Kyoto Prefectoral University. My painstakingly generous local host was Mitsumasa Hanaoka of Chiba University. I am so grateful to them both, as to the colloquium staff and fellow participants.

At Mitsumasa’s invitation I gave a seminar in his laboratory in Chiba, immediately after getting off the train from Narita airport on 8 September, and a longer and better version on 9 September at Kyoto University. Both seminars were entitled Mitochondria, ageing and separate sexes, and elicited excellent questions.

My plenary lecture at the colloquium itself was an account of progress with a consistent theme over a number of years and in different laboratories, countries, and universities, including recent results published in 2016. This lecture was entitled Why chloroplasts and mitochondria retain their own genomes and genetic systems: Co-location for Redox Regulation of gene expression.

The full programme of the Colloquium is available, and includes abstracts.

Photosynthetic and Respiratory complexes: from structure to function in Verviers, Belgium, from August 13 to 16, 2016. A satellite conference organised by Egbert Boekema and Pierre Cardol. The programme was full of interest.

I gave a Plenary Lecture soon after arrival: Redox control of thylakoid protein phosphorylation and reaction centre gene transcription. Molecular recognition redistributes mobile light-harvesting antennae and adjusts the stoichiometry of photosystems I and II.

The 17th International Congress on Photosynthesis Research. Photosynthesis in a Changing World took place in Maastricht, The Netherlands, from 7 to 12 August 2016. The organisers were Roberta Croce and Herbert van Amerongen.

My own contribution, in the session Evolution of Photosynthesis, was about photosynthesis in a radically changing world. It was entitled Conserved two-component transcriptional redox regulation in cyanobacteria and chloroplasts. Implications for the origin and evolutionary trajectory of oxygenic photosynthesis.

The full programme of the Congress.

Photosynthetic Electron and Proton Transfer in Plants and Algae took place in Arnhem on the 4th to the 7th of August 2016.

Many thanks to the organisers; Anja Krieger, Jeremy Harbinson, and Giovanni Finazzi; as to all participants.

My own presentation had the title Redox control of chloroplast protein phosphorylation and reaction centre gene transcription. Regulatory coupling between photosynthetic electron transport and gene expression.

Energy, ageing, fidelity and sex. Oocyte mitochondrial DNA as a protected genetic template

A lively audience packed into a small lecture theatre in the beautiful UNAM Campus Juriquilla.

Good questions introduced many ideas new to me. I thank Dr Alfredo Varela, the newly-appointed director of the Institute of Neurobiology, for generous hospitality. This included an afternoon of presentations and discussion of current research in Alfredo’s laboratory.

Mexico Lectures April–May 2016

Mitochondria, ageing, separate sexes

Regulation of photosynthesis. Control of chloroplast DNA transcription and membrane protein phosphorylation

I felt at home in the research laboratory of Dr. Carlos Gómez of the Department of Biochemistry. I saw a French Press, spectrophotometers and fluorimeters, SDS-PAGE, sucrose gradient centrifugation, and cultures of fascinating cyanobacteria. I learned that Spirulina, once a Mexican speciality and export, is now called Arthrospira. Krisha Rao in King’s College London once gave me a brick-red Spirulina ferredoxin preparation, I seem to recall at 10 mM. I now know Krishna had purified it from Sprulina obtained in Mexico when Krishna worked as a visitor in Carlos’s lab.

Unfortunately I overran again. This seminar was a daunting task, the title requiring me to reach back to a time before most of the audience had been born. It was not all history. The research included Iskander Ibrahim‘s results, published in February this year, on phosphoryl group transfer from cyanobacterial Histidine Kinase 2. So this lecture presented both older and newer work than any lecture in my Mexico tour. An attentive audience again came up with fine questions.

Mexico Lectures April–May 2016

Regulation of photosynthesis

A formidably well-informed audience volunteered numerous good questions during and after my presentation Energy, ageing, fidelity and sex. Oocyte mitochondrial DNA as a protected genetic template. I sensed a degree of polite scepticism. Good. There is no point in explaining things to people who already agree. Such an appreciative and critical audience is definitely good for morale. What a contrast with the department in which Fanis and I were once colleagues.

Lunch was followed by a guided walking tour of the spectacular UNAM campus. Warmly recommended. It’s not my place to comment, but the “Autonomous National University of Mexico” (which it is) should surely be better known internationally. Go there if you ever get the chance. It’s a great place. We’d seen that already on 27 April.

I am most grateful to my host in IFC-UNAM, Xochitl Pérez Martínez, pictured here with Fanis Missirlis.

Mexico Lectures April–May 2016

Mitochondria, ageing, separate sexes