Project Overview

We exploit Dictyostelium infected with mycobacteria to investigate how pathogens reprogram metabolic lipid flows and impact the functional plasticity of the mycobacteria-containing vacuole membrane composition.

This project takes advantage of an ischemia model of highly regenerative spiny mice (Acomys) to ask how extracellular vesicles are formed in response to tissue damage and how they affect cardiac repair.

We use microscopy-based screens to identify principles controlling the functional plasticity of lipid metabolism and inter-organelle lipid exchange, with a primary focus on sphingolipids, sterols, and storage lipids.

We analyze the role of the membrane environment on regulatory mechanisms of Gasdermin recruitment and pore formation at the plasma membrane in pyroptosis, an inflammatory form of regulated cell death.

We determine the function and regulation of the key enzyme in sphingolipid metabolism, the serine palmitoyltransferase (SPT) enzyme complex to understand metabolic sphingolipid fluxes.

We study the contact sites of the vacuolar membrane formed by the protein Cvm1, as a model to understand how contact site plasticity can determine membrane homeostasis.

We explore how Salmonella infection and secretion of its effectors reprograms the mammalian endosomal membrane system to promote replication in its intracellular niche.

We determine how imbalances in organellar lipid codes caused by pathogenic variants of sphingomyelin synthase SMS2 affect secretory pathway function in osteogenic cells to unravel the mechanistic basis of a severe bone disease.

We investigate the regulation of organelle identity by a guanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEF) complex involved in planar cell polarity, termed Fuzzy-Inturned, and its substrate, Rab23 GTPase using a structure-function based approach.

Using cryo-electron microscopy, we analyze the structure, dynamics and function of plasma membrane ABC transporters to understand their regulation by the membrane environment.

We focus on the biogenesis and plasticity of labyrinth channels at the plasma membrane of Drosophila kidney-like nephrocytes and their link to the endolysosomal system during growth and aging.

We focus on class I/II cytokine receptors with important functions in hematopoiesis and immunity to understand how receptor assembly and effector recruitment is regulated by membrane properties and subcellular localization.

We focus on signaling endosome biogenesis in the endolysosomal system and clarify the role of the lipid kinase complex Fab1 and its regulation by the nutrient regulated TORC1 kinase complex.

We focus on the role of lateral segregation for the regulation and functional plasticity of proton and nutrient transport systems in the yeast plasma membrane.