FEBS Press Awards
The FEBS Letters Award 2022
FEBS Letters is pleased to announce that the FEBS Letters Award 2022 will be presented to Dr Nicholas Mullin and Prof. Ian Chambers (University of Edinburgh) for their outstanding paper:
Phosphorylation of NANOG by casein kinase I regulates embryonic stem cell renewal
Nicholas P. Mullin, Joby Varghese, Douglas Colby, Julia M. Richardson, Greg M. Findlay, Ian Chambers (2021), FEBS Lett, 595: 14-25. doi.org/10.1002/1873-3468.13969
In this work, the authors show that NANOG, a key transcriptional regulator of pluripotency, is phosphorylated by casein kinase I and this impacts DNA binding and its ability to promote self-renewal. These novel findings indicate how phosphorylation may influence NANOG homeodomain interactions that underpin embryonic stem cell self-renewal. Self-renewal is a defining feature of stem cells and this new study adds to a better understanding of the epigenomic regulation of this process.
The award-winning article was selected by a special committee, formed by appointed members of the Editorial Board, plus one external member. The Award Committee members were: Laszlo Nagy, Nicola Gray, Mandy Jeske, Daniela Ruffell, and Michael Brunner (Editor in Chief and Chair).
Prof. Chambers presented a plenary lecture about this work at the IUBMB–FEBS–PABMB Congress in Lisbon, Portugal, 9-14 July 2022, where he was officially presented with the prize.
For more information about this award, please see the FEBS Letters Award
The FEBS Open Bio Article Prize 2022
We are pleased to announce that the inaugural 2022 FEBS Open Bio Article Prize will be awarded to Sofia Lövestam (MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK) as the first author of the following outstanding paper:
Seeded assembly in vitro does not replicate the structures of α-synuclein filaments from multiple system atrophy
Sofia Lövestam, Manuel Schweighauser, Tomoyasu Matsubara, Shigeo Murayama, Taisuke Tomita, Takashi Ando, Kazuko Hasegawa, Mari Yoshida, Airi Tarutani, Masato Hasegawa, Michel Goedert, Sjors H. W. Scheres. FEBS Open Bio. 2021 Apr;11(4):999-1013. doi:10.1002/2211-5463.13110
The propagation of conformational strains by templated seeding is central to the prion concept. Seeded assembly of α-synuclein into filaments is believed to underlie the prion-like spreading of protein inclusions in a number of human neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson's disease, dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and multiple system atrophy (MSA). The authors previously determined the atomic structures of α-synuclein filaments from the putamen of five individuals with MSA. In the winning article, the authors used filament preparations from three of these brains for the in vitro seeded assembly of recombinant human α-synuclein. They observed that the structures of the seeded assemblies differ from those of the seeds, suggesting that additional, currently unknown factors play a role in the propagation of the seeds.
The winning article was selected during a meeting hosted by the journal’s managing editor Duncan Wright by a jury comprised of three members of the journal’s Editorial Board: Ivana Novak (Split), Sandro Sonnino (Milan), and Alex Wlodawer (Frederick).
Sofia Lövestam was invited to submit an abstract on her current work for presentation at the IUBMB–FEBS–PABMB Congress held in Lisbon, Portugal, 9–14 July 2022.
For more information about this award, please see the FEBS Open Bio Article Prize.
The FEBS Journal Richard Perham Prize 2021
The prize was awarded for the below outstanding paper published by Antonio Barbáchano, Alberto Muñoz and co-authors in The FEBS Journal in 2020. One of the senior authors, Dr Antonio Barbáchano (Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas 'Alberto Sols', Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Madrid, Spain), presented a plenary lecture about this work at the IUBMB–FEBS–PABMB Congress on 9–14 July 2022.
Vitamin D differentially regulates colon stem cells in patient-derived normal and tumor organoids
Asunción Fernández-Barral, Alba Costales-Carrera, Sandra P. Buira, Peter Jung, Gemma Ferrer-Mayorga, María Jesús Larriba, Pilar Bustamante-Madrid, Orlando Domínguez, Francisco X. Real, Laura Guerra-Pastrián, Miguel Lafarga, Damián García-Olmo, Ramón Cantero, Luis Del Peso, Eduard Batlle, Federico Rojo, Alberto Muñoz and Antonio Barbáchano. FEBS J, 2020, 287: 53–72. doi:10.1111/febs.14998
Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to enhanced colorectal cancer (CRC) risk and mortality. Human colonic stem cells – known as crypt stem cells – are essential in gut homeostasis and their alteration is a feature of CRC. Alberto Muñoz, Antonio Barbáchano and colleagues generated a living-biobank of stem-cell-derived normal and tumor colon organoids from CRC patients. They show that vitamin D upregulates stemness-related genes and the undifferentiated phenotype in normal organoids, whereas it induces differentiation in tumor organoids. These findings uncover a regulatory role of vitamin D on crypt stem cells, with relevance to CRC development.
For more information about this award, please see The FEBS Journal Richard Perham Prize
Other FEBS Press Awards
For details on all FEBS awards, click here.