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Highlights of 2011 This was clearly the year for the flavin enthusiasts in the Macheroux group: the 17 th International Symposium on Flavins and Flavoproteins was hosted by the University of California at Berkeley, USA, in July. Silvia Wallner, Thomas Bergner and Peter Macheroux presented posters revolving around “yellow enzymes”. 4 From left to right: Katharina Durchschein, Silvia Wallner, Thomas Bergner, Thomas Stoisser, Barbara Holl- Macheroux, Karl Gruber & Pauline Macheroux In September, Peter Macheroux was nominated as one of the top ten lecturers of Graz University of Technology. The official ceremony took place on November 8 th in the aula of the university. At the board meeting in October, the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) approved a new research project to investigate the mechanism of bacterial bioluminescence (Project P24189: “Bacterial bioluminescence”). Two former members of the group received fellowships to continue their scientific career: Dr. Andreas Winkler, currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Max-Planck Institute of Molecular Medicine in Heidelberg received an “Erwin- Schrödinger” stipend for 2012, and Dr. Sonja Sollner, currently at the Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna, was awarded a “Hertha-Firnberg” stipend. Both alumni were members of the PhD program “Molecular Enzymology”. Despite contracting budgets and stiff competition, this PhD program received excellent reviews and was extended for a second time until 2014. Three groups of the institute (Günther Daum, Albin Hermetter and Peter Macheroux) participate in this NAWI Graz interuniversity program. Norman Medal Award Ceremony at the 9 th Euro Fed Lipid Congress in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Left K. Schurz, President of the DGF, right G. Daum. In 2011, three new PhD students joined the group of Günther Daum: Claudia Schmidt, Barbara Koch and Birgit Ploier started their studies on topics related to neutral lipid metabolism in the yeast. In 2011, Günther Daum started his third three year term as a Board Member of the Austrian Science Fund FWF. He also continued his work as President of the International Conference
on the Bioscience of Lipids (ICBL) and Chairman of the Yeast Lipid Conference (YLC). Among the various invitations to research institutions and conferences a visit at the Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants in Lucknow and to the Jawaharla Nehru University, Delhi, India, was definitely one highlight. In September 2011, Günther Daum received the Normann Medal, the highest Award of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Fettwissenschaft (DGF), for his long term studies on biochemistry and cell biology of yeast lipids and biomembranes. Basic research in Albin Hermetter’s group focused on lipid (patho)physiology in human and animal cells. The respective projects were components of the research consortia GOLD/ GEN- AU (FFG), OXPHOS/ EuroMEMBRANE (ESF, FWF) and the PhD program “Molecular Enzymology” (FWF). A. Hermetter was invited to co-edit a special issue entitled “Oxidized phospholipidstheir properties and interactions with proteins” for Biochim. Biophys. Acta. Lingaraju Marlingapla Halasiddappa who is a PhD student in the PhD program “Molecular Enzymology” spent eight months in the Department of Biological Chemistry at Weizman Institute in Rehovot, Israel, to do research in the field of sphingolipid enzymology. He received an award for his oral presentation “Ceramide Synthases in Oxidized Phospholipid-induced RAW 264.7 Macrophage Cell Death” at the International Charleston Ceramide Conference in Villars, Switzerland, March 2011. 5 Lingaraju Marlingapla Halasiddappa, PhD student In 2011 Karin Athenstaedt continued her work at our institute as an independent researcher. Her work is devoted to lipid metabolism in yeast. One of the highlights in Karin Athenstaedt’s scientific work in 2011 was attendance of the Gordon Conference (Molecular & Cellular Biology of Lipids) in Waterville Valley, NH, USA, where she had the opportunity to meet many experts in the field and to set the stage for collaborative activities. In the group Chemistry of Functional Foods directed by Michael Murkovic in 2011 a PhD thesis was ongoing in which the polymerization of furfuryl alcohol is investigated. Furfuryl alcohol is formed during heating of foods, e.g. during roasting of coffee. It can be activated metabolically which might result in the induction of tumors. The polymerization removes the furfuryl alcohol from the foods and reduces the bioavailability. In 2011 several international students (Lithuania, Egypt, Hungary, Slovak Republic) were coming to the lab for carrying out specific experiments related to, e.g. new technologies of heating, oxidation of oils in the bulk phase and in emulsions, and the application of asparaginase for reduction of the acrylamide formation.
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