Two Grants for CSSB’s Kosinski Group
In the last quarter of 2023, Jan Kosinski (EMBL) received two grants totaling 2.9 million euro. The grants will support two exciting new projects: one project focuses on the mechanisms of endocytosis of a parasite and the other seeks to understand the molecular complexes of protein synthesis machinery.
“It’s great to begin 2024 with two exciting new projects,” notes Kosinski “I am looking forward to working on both projects with my collaborators over the next few years.”
Resolving the unique mechanism of endocytosis in Giardia lamblia
Jan Kosinski was awarded 348,000 EUR from the German Research Foundation (DFG) to investigate the mechanisms of endocytosis in Giardia lamblia, a parasitic protozoan that infects millions of people a year through contaminated food and water. Giardia lamblia causes diarrhoea, abdominal pain, fatigue, and weight loss. However, drugs against it only work for some infections and often have substantial side effects because humans and Giardia are both eukaryotes and share similar molecular machinery. For this reason, developing drugs that target only the parasite is a challenge.
This three-year project will build on the surprising discoveries regarding endocytosis in Giardia, made by the postdoctoral researcher Lenka Cernikova in the Kosinski group. Thanks to the new grant, Dr. Cernikova and Kosinski will seek to resolve the true mechanism of this process. To this end, they will combine time-resolved cryo-electron tomography, structural modelling, and cell biology techniques including CRISPR/Cas9 genetic engineering. The molecular, structural, and mechanistic knowledge of Giardia’s endocytosis will provide a solid, evidence-based foundation for developing novel treatments against infection targeting specific features of Giardia’s endocytosis or exploiting it as a drug delivery pathway.
Mapping translation across subcellular space
Jan Kosinski together with three other researchers, Julia Mahamid from EMBL Heidelberg, Juri Rappsilber (Technische Universität Berlin) and Rachel Green (Johns Hopkins University) received an ERC Synergy grant for their project ‘TransFORM’, for which they will receive funding of 14 mln EUR (2.5 million for the Kosinski group), to be used over a period of six years. The project aims to map the molecular complexes that make up the protein synthesis machinery in the context of the cell. To this end, they will develop novel crosslinking, cryo-electron tomography, and modeling methods for structural biology in cells.
The TransFORM project will address fundamental questions related to the specific composition of these diverse molecular complexes, their significance, and their functions inside human cells. The researchers will use a variety of model systems, ranging from single cells to 3D organoids, to study how the translation machinery responds to various cellular states and stressors such as viral infections.
