IPMC team
Bruno Antonny
Group leader and Research Director, IPMC.Expertise: Biochemistry of protein membrane interactions through reconstitution approaches. Our aim in SPHERES is to get a quantitative view of the surface of LD in adipocytes in term of protein and lipid composition, relative surface occupancy, domain formation and dynamics, and reactivity to lipases.
Ana Rita Dias Araujo
Research associate (IR), IPMC.
Rita has worked in lipidomics, protein mistranslation and fungicide resistance. Her contribution to the project is 1) lipid analysis (i.e. extraction, quantification, thin layer chromatography, mass spectrometry) and related method establishment and development, and 2) lipid-protein biochemistry assays including, among others, the reconstitution of lipid droplet - purified protein systems.
Akim Bello
PhD Student, IPMC.Akim first joined the team in June 2021 as a research assistant (IE) in charge of spheroid cultures and the purification of lipid droplet-associated proteins. In February 2023, Akim enrolled in the PhD programme. He is studying the interfacial biochemistry of perilipins, lipases and other LD associated proteins.
Joëlle Bigay
Researcher (CR), IPMC.Joëlle works in biochemistry and molecular biology. She reconstitutes protein / membrane systems to study their interactions (purified proteins / liposomes of defined composition) and lipid transport activity (in particular cholesterol / PI4P exchange by OSBP) in membrane contact sites. Her contribution to the project is, among other tasks, to study the interaction of lipid droplet-associated proteins and artificial lipid droplets.
Romain Gautier
Assistant professor (MC), IPMC.Romain has expertise in molecular dynamics simulations, structural bioinformatics, and molecular modeling of membranes structures and amphipathic helices. His contribution to the project is to get an atomic view of protein-lipid interactions at the surface of LDs.
CRBM team
Alenka Copic
Group leader, CRBM.Cell Biology and biochemistry of perilipins. Aim in SPHERES is to better understand the relative roles of the various perilipins (notably Plin1 and Plin4) and their domains on the function of the LD in the mature adipocyte.
Céline Franckhauser
Research assistant (IE), CRBM.Céline is an expert in protein purification, biochemistry and cell biology. She is also the lab manager in the team of Alenka Copic.
Cyril Moulin
Post doc, CRBM.I am structural and functional biochemist, utilizing genetic approaches to study protein function and interactions in yeast. In 2024, I joined the SPHERES Project to characterize PLIN4 interactions with lipid droplets and to investigate the involvement of the three PLIN domains in regulating such interactions. I begin with the yeast model and subsequently apply the insights to human cell lines. I have been a post doc in the group of Alenka Copic since February 2022.
Nicolas Fuggetta
Research assistant (IE), CRBM.Expert in protein purification (HPLC, affinity, size exclusion, ...), protein/lipid interactions and microscopy.
I study periplin 4 interactions with artificial lipid droplets through quantitative microscopy analyses and develop a protocol to observe perilipin 4 interaction on lipid surface with atomic force microscopy. Furthermore, I am interested into characterization of the perilipin 4 structure and particularly the propensity of the amphipathic helix region to form fibrils in solution or an a lipid surface (with an in vitro aggregation assay).
Bayane Sebbagh
PhD student, CRBM.I am a PhD student in the group of Alenka Copic since February 2022. In my PhD project, I will study the structure and the function of perilipin 4 and its interaction with lipid droplets in adipocytes as well as in vitro.
Platforms, IPMC
Delphine Debayle
Research associate (IR), IPMC.Delphine heads the biomolecules platform (lipidomics/metabolomics/proteomics). Her contribution to the project is mainly linked to lipid analysis using liquid chromatography mass spectrometry.
Julie Cazareth
Research assistant (IE), MICA.
Julie leads the flow cytometry facility, part of the IPMC-MICA platform (Microscopie Imagerie Cytométrie Azur). Part of her role is to advise and assist users in the design, acquisition and analysis of their cytometry experiments. She is deeply involved in flow cytometry training for both CNRS and pharmaceutical companies' personnel. She actively participates in networks such as the French Cytometry Association (AFC). In the context of SPHERES, she defines the best strategy and performs the cytometry experiments from data acquisition to analysis.
Océane Buvry
Research assistant (IE), IPMC.Océane works in the biomolecules platform. Her contribution to the project is mainly linked to lipid analysis using liquid chromatography mass spectrometry. She does lipid and metabolite extractions, method optimisation and data processing.
Sophie Abelanet
Research assistant (IE), MICA.Sophie is an expert in microscopy and cellular imaging in the IPMC-MICA platform (Microscopie Imagerie Cytométrie Azur). She trains and supports microscopy users, and defines which strategy will best fit their needs, from sample preparation to the choice of microscope system within the facility. She is involved in the CNRS Photonic Microscopy (RTmfm) national network.
Collaborators
Frédérique Brau
Research associate (IR), MICA.Frédérique was the facility manager of the IPMC-MICA (Microscopie Imagerie Cytométrie Azur) until August 2024 and is now occuping a similar role at IRCAN (Nice). He is an expert in biophotonics and instrumental design and worked in the microscopy facility, managing and building microscopes, and develops solutions for automatized data analysis. He coordinates the MICA platform gathering 8 facilities and partners in cellular imaging around Nice. He was coordinator of the CNRS Photonic Microscopy (RTmfm) national network for four years and was involved in that community for more than ten years.
Alumni
Lucile Fleuriot
Research assistant (IE), IPMC.Lucile worked in the biomolecules platform. She performed lipid extractions and analysis using liquid chromatography mass spectrometry.
David Kovacs
Postdoc researcher, IPMC.David worked in cell biology, lipid transfer proteins, cholesterol transport, cell motility and migration, and proximity biotinylation. His contribution to the project was, among others, setting up the 3D adipocyte culture system, developing lipolysis assays with reconstituted systems, and proteomic and lipidomic data analysis.
Charbel Choufani
Research assistant (IE), CRBM.Charbel did a master 2 in quantitative biology at the University of Montpellier. He was hired in the lab as an engineer in Oct 2022. He studied the structure of perilipin 4 and developed AFM approaches at the surface of lipid droplets.
