kamounlab

[kamounlab]

It’s a great pleasure to welcome Nick Desnoyer to the lab! Nick recently completed his PhD at the University of Zurich in the lab of Ueli Grossniklaus, where he worked on cell wall signalling during plant sexual reproduction. You may also know him for his creative synthetic biology project — engineering an Arabidopsis rose.

Nick is deeply passionate about science communication and outreach, and he has a unique talent for blending science and art to engage and inspire broad audiences.

Be sure to check out his website and follow him on social media here and here.

[kamounlab]

We are excited to welcome Amal Boukteb to our team. Amal was previously based at INRAT (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique de Tunisie), where she worked on parasitic plants.

She is also one of the pioneers and co-organizers of the Tunis R-Users Group. You can listen to her seminar here.

[kamounlab]

Farewell Madhu Jogi @JMadhuprakash who will be returning to the University of Hyderabad 🇮🇳 after many productive years. We are looking forward to building an enduring connection with you and your team.

Stay tuned for the upcoming structures and papers!

Madhuprakash, J., Toghani, A., Contreras, M.P., Posbeyikian, A., Richardson, J., Kourelis, J., Bozkurt, T.O., Webster, M.W., and Kamoun, S.2024. A disease resistance protein triggers oligomerization of its NLR helper into a hexameric resistosome to mediate innate immunity. Science Advances, 10:eadr2594. 

[kamounlab]

A belated welcome to our duo of Argentinian predocs. Maina Garro @mai_garro and Juan Azcue @juazcue who joined us from Santa Fe and Buenos Aires. We're thrilled to have their energy, curiosity, and fresh perspectives in the lab!

Here they are bidding farewell to another predoc Barbara Schrammel and hanging out with their latin buddies Mau and Andy. The tradition continues.

[kamounlab]

Workshop: AI-guided structural modelling workshop: Genomes to structures; Al-Ain, UAE, Tuesday, May 2025

Join us for a hands-on workshop on AI-guided structural modelling - from genomes to protein structures! This workshop covers theoretical and practical aspects of AlphaFold, including predicting monomers, protein complexes, and ligand interactions. Learn to visualize and interpret AlphaFold outputs using ChimeraX, perform structural alignments, and leverage tools like Foldseek, TM-align, and FoldMason. We’ll discuss the advantages and limitations of these cutting-edge tools, highlighting how structural predictions can drive hypothesis generation and experimental design. While illustrated with examples from plant host-pathogen interactions, the insights and skills gained here will be broadly applicable to diverse research fields.

Thanks to Andy Posbeykian, Yu Sugihara, James Canham @GetGenome and the Team at Khalifa Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology.

[kamounlab]

We never tire of celebrating preprints! Cheers to lettuce, Prf and friends! Kudos Daniel, Pai, AmirAli and Team!

Luedke, D., Pai, H., Toghani A., Harant, A., Wu, C.-H., and Kamoun, S. 2025. The autoactivity of tomato helper NLR immune proteins of the NRC clade is unaltered in prf mutants of Nicotiana benthamiana. bioRxiv, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.03.11.642614. OpenPlantNLR dataset

Pai, H., Sakai, T., Posbeyikian, A., Frijters, R., Sugihara, Y., Contreras, M.P., Kourelis, J., Adachi, H., Kamoun, S., and Toghani A. 2025. A hierarchical immune receptor network in lettuce reveals contrasting patterns of evolution in sensor and helper NLRs. bioRxiv, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.02.25.639832. OpenPlantNLR dataset

[kamounlab]

Activation of plant immunity through conversion of a helper NLR homodimer into a resistosome.

Farewell Seva @M__Selvaraj and thank you for your many contributions!

[kamounlab]

It’s that time of year! #SchoBozKa

Running strong since 2017:

Sebastian Schornack @dromius | Tolga Bozkurt @Tolga_Bzkrt | Lida Derevnina @lderevnina | Phil Carella @Phil_Carella | Jiorgos Kourelis @JiorgosKourelis

[kamounlab]

So proud of our team's embrace of transparent and early sharing of data, ideas and protocols. The future is bright! #openscience https://asapbio.org/announcing-the-winners-of-the-2024-asapbio-poster-competition

Here is a link to the poster: Evolutionary diversification of protein-protein interaction interfaces: A case study on an NLR immune receptor network #ASAPbio #openscience https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13365607

[kamounlab]

New Year Lunch 2025 @KamounLab 🇮🇳 🇮🇷 🇦🇷 🇩🇪 🇮🇹 🇺🇸 🇦🇺 🇯🇵 🇹🇳 🇫🇷 🇲🇲 🇳🇿 🇦🇹 🇬🇧 🇹🇭 🇬🇷

[kamounlab]

I just published 2024 the year in review

Let’s review the year through our team’s publications, blogs and other contributions.

https://link.medium.com/UJfDrAopxPb

[kamounlab]

We welcome Barbara Schrammel as a predoc in the lab. Soon after joining us Barbara got admitted to the PhD program at Wageningen University to work with Vivianne Vleeshouwers on potato immunity to Phytophthora infestans. Congrats and many happy years of wonderful potato adventures Barbara!!

[kamounlab]

Warmest congrats to Diane Saunders OBE! Diane has been recognised for her outstanding scientific achievements and dedication to women in STEM with the honour of Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the King’s Birthday Honours 2024.

Earlier, Diane received the 2022 Rosalind Franklin Award to promote women in wheat. Check Diane's Women in Wheat program.

[kamounlab]

A belated welcome to Ben Seager who joined us after a PhD with Alan Cowman in Melbourne 🇦🇺🦘on biophysics of the malaria parasite 🎉

In a short time, Ben has already made an impact with his impressive cryo-EM analysis skills! Plants rock! #NLRbiology https://www.tsl.ac.uk/about/people/benjamin-seager

[kamounlab]

TSL Symposium — Plant resistance to pathogens in the face of climate change

This event marks the launch of the strategic partnership between The Sainsbury Laboratory and the Khalifa Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology. Our collaboration aims to advance climate-resilient plant immunity research by uniting our expertise in plant-pathogen interactions specific to desert and dryland plants.

[kamounlab]

Incredibly proud of Chih-Hang Wu @AdamWu9527 ! This recognition is so well deserved, and the best proof is in all the research on the NRC network happening in our labs and far beyond. Here is the post from Chih-hang SFY ceremony.

#NLRbiology #NLRNetworks #PlantHealth

[kamounlab]

The calm before the storm: the autoinhibited resting state of a helper NLR.

Kudos Selvaraj, AmirAli, Pai, Mauricio and the whole Team! https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002868