Welcome to the Biochemistry Department Website
How are membranes organized and functioning in cells? In our department, we are addressing this question in a comprehensive manner, attacking the problem from many fronts: we are 7 groups with different strategies, model organisms (from yeast, through Dictyostelium, worms, flies, fish and human cells) and methodologies (from chemistry, biochemistry, cell biology, molecular biology, genetics, biophysics), but we all want to understand the role of lipids and proteins to organize the membrane system in the cell. Our work is therefore very interdisciplinary. As a consequence, the atmosphere in the department is highly interactive. Read more >>
The University of Geneva awarded its 2019 3R Prize to Prof. Thierry Soldati
Amoebas to replace laboratory mice
The University of Geneva awarded its 2019 3R Prize to Prof. Thierry Soldati and his collaborators Valentin Trofimov, Sébastien Kicka and Nabil Hanna in recognition of their research project entitled "Antimycobacterial drug discovery using Mycobacteria-infected amoebae identifies anti-infectives and new molecular targets”. This line of research stringently “filters” compounds that combat the infection on their in vivo efficiency, and thus aims at reducing the number of animals that will be required during later experimentation.
Image: electron microscopy photograph of an amoeba infected
with mycobacteria (coloured in blue for easy viewing). ©UNIGE
The UNIGE press release about this prize can be read here.
Additional related reading and videos:
- Jump-To-Science(UNIGE)
- TV Léman Bleu
- Techno-Science.net