Category: Not extinct

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

Why chloroplasts and mitochondria retain their own genomes and genetic systems

I felt I had to truncate the advertised title, that of my 2015 PNAS paper. I feared that the original title would put too much text on the first slide, tending to sap the will to live amongst members of a general audience.

I needn’t have worried.

My ever-generous host, Fanis, delivered a fulsome introduction, pointing out that I had changed my title without permission, while being, really, over-complimentary. Where and how we came to be joint authors of a low-impact letter in a high-pact journal is a story in itself, but off-topic, except by distant inference, for the CoRR Hypothesis. Members of the audience seemed to be engaged, some perhaps just waiting for the next joke. But the questions were great, and right on-topic. “What about the kinetoplast?”; “How about mitosomes?”. The message had clearly been received, and understood. I had too much to say, and over-ran; something I regard as serious discourtesy, not say say a sign of terminal self-importance. Perhaps it would be even worse to say “Sorry; no time for questions like that”.

The lunch afterwards was superb, out of doors, and a selection of Mexican foods to go in wraps of tortilla, I think. My family members would have loved it, and known what more of the treats were called than do I.

Such generosity, and such nice people. I wish I’d taken a photo. Specific poster shown here, instead. Thanks to Fanis, too, for that.

Mexico Lectures April–May 2016

Chloroplasts and mitochondria

A redox switch hypothesis for the evolutionary origin of oxygenic photosynthesis

It could be quite wrong. If it is, this great lab may well be the first to find out. I told them this at the outset, and asked them to let me be the first to know. This caused amusement, while I was actually quite serious. I’ll doubt I’ll ever get used to becoming an unintended comedian.

Fantastic place, though. I had a receptive audience. There were perceptive questions and helpful discussions with my host, Valeria Souza, as with five members of her team of talented researchers. They signed my souvenir poster about Cuatro Ciénegas. Maybe that’s an ideal place to look for the protocyanobacterium?

I thank them all.

What a pleasure.

Mexico Lectures April–May 2016

The origin of atmospheric oxygen

79TH HARDEN CONFERENCE:
Oxygen Evolution and Reduction – Common Principles

A poster | Orange_portrait_poster