All the latest news and announcements from the Vincent lab, including upcoming events.
December 2021 – UPDATE
This autumn/winter, we have welcomed two new post-docs (David Wilnow and Nalle Pentimikko), a new PhD student (Maria Mikhaylovak) and a sandwich student (Claire Lebarbenchon) to the lab. Check their bios in the ‘Current Lab Members’ section.
– J.P. & Yifan
December 2020 – UPDATE
Although 2020 has been a strange year, we have managed to have a few publications. First up is the Nature publication from Ian McGough, in collaboration with Luca Vecchia from Oxford STRUBI, about how glypicans shield the Wnt lipid. Next is a short article on Developmental Cell from Joyce Yu, showing that Planar Cell Polarity can be established in the absence of secreted Wnts. Finally, Kristina Stapornwongkul published a Science paper with the Salbreux lab, about engineering synthetic morphogens with GFP.
We have two new postdocs in the lab. Ana Bolhaquiero joined back in January and Ines Alvarez Rodrigo joined in October. Sadly Kristina is leaving us this month and will be continuing her scientific adventure at the sunny EMBL Barcelona – we are all very jealous!
Going further back to 2019, in October, we had a wonderful joint lab retreat with the Yohanns Bellaiche lab in Italy. Apart from presentations from members of both labs, we also took advantage of the good weather and went on several short hikes. Head over to the Social section for some photos.
15/03/2018 – UPDATE
With over two years since our last update, perhaps it is time to refresh the website!
We have had an exciting two years, with many new faces joining the lab, including the PhD students Joyce Yu, Ruta Ziukaite, Marc DeGennes and Kristina Stapornwongkul, and Post-Docs Carles Recansens Alvarez, Laura-Nadine Schumacher, Sophie Herszterg and Gantas Perez-Mockus. We will be updating their bios in the coming few days so you can find out more about them and their research.
Elsewhere we have had a number of publications, including Lucy’s Nature Cell Biology paper Godzilla-dependent transcytosis promotes Wingless signalling in Drosophila wing imaginal discs and Cyrille and Ruta’s eLife manuscript Dpp controls growth and patterning in Drosophila wing precursors through distinct modes of action. A full list of our research publications can be found over on our Publications page.
Whilst our Social section is looking somewhat sparse, I can assure you we have still been having fun! We had a great lab retreat in Romney Marsh on the south coast of the UK which included an impromptu swim with a seals and some porpoises. We have also had our annual Christmas parties (the less said about them the better) and a number of leaving parties/viva celebrations. I will upload a folder of pictures from the above events soon.
We are fully settled into our new home here at the Crick and enjoying the company of our new neighbours, especially the Tapon, Thompson and Prieto-Godino labs. I’ll be checking back in more regularly to keep the website in tip-top condition, but until then enjoy the updated site!
– Sam
31/01/2016 – EVENT
Gordon Research Conference and Seminar, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA – June 24th-30th 2017
We are happy to confirm the date and location of the next Developmental Biology Gordon Conference in Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts.
The main conference has been scheduled to take place June 25th-30th 2017 and will be organised by JP along with vice chair Dominique Bergmann (Stanford University). The associated seminar will start the day before the main meeting and will be co-chaired by Blair Benham-Pyle (Currently based at Stanford School of Medicine) and Vincent Lab PhD student Sam Crossman. Gordon Research Seminars are unique meetings that enable Graduate students and post-docs to discuss their unpublished research in a stimulating and non-intimidating environment and are highly recommended for early career researchers!
We are currently working hard to raise funds and design a program and we will update the website with further information when available. Meanwhile, keep the dates in your diary and feel free to email JP for GRC related questions (jp.vincent@crick.ac.uk) or Sam (sam.crossman@crick.ac.uk) if you are interested in the GRS.
Link to the official Developmental Biology GRC page – (https://www.grc.org/programs.aspx?id=11170)
Link to the official Developmental Biology GRS page – (https://www.grc.org/programs.aspx?id=17452)
Mount Holyoke College, MA
08/08/2015 – NEWS
Summer has seen a number of comings and goings in the Vincent lab.
The past few months have seen the departure of Paul Langton and Satoshi Kakugawa, otherwise known as “The Notum Team“. Following the publication of their paper at the start of the year, both have moved on to pastures new, with Paul employed as a research fellow at the University of Bristol and Satoshi now working with Biotech firm Hakuhodo Medical back in his native Japan.
Whilst we are sad to see Paul and Satoshi leave, we are delighted to welcome new arrival Ruta Ziukate, who began her Wellcome Trust funded PhD programme in August 2015. In her three years with the lab, Ruta will build tools and study the signalling mechanisms that regulate growth in Drosophila. Ruta is joined by Dominik Schienstock, who will also be starting a PhD in August 2015.
Paul and Satoshi
15/04/2015 – NEWS
Congratulations to PhD student Sam Crossman who has won first prize in the PhD student poster competition at the 2015 BSCB/BSDB joint spring meeting
A number of Vincent lab members were in attendance for a fantastic few days at the British Society for Cell Biology/British Society for Developmental Biology joint spring meeting at the University of Warwick which finished earlier today. There were great discussions, many interesting talks and a number of fun social events, including a raucous party on the final night!
The lab presented 4 posters at the meeting and we are pleased to announce that our 2nd year PhD student Sam Crossman won the PhD student poster competition. His prize is a trip to the 2015 American Society for Cell Biology meeting in San Diego, where he will have a great opportunity to present his work on the apoptotic elimination of defective cells from Drosophila embryos to a new audience. A full list of prize winners and new committee members can be found by following this link to the Node website.
In all, we had a wonderful time and are very much looking forward to next years meeting which will run from the 10th-13th of April 2016, we hope to see you there!
PhD poster prize winner Sam Crossman celebrating with his certificate.
01/04/2015 – NEWS
The Vincent lab transfers to the Crick!
As of today, the Vincent lab is officially a part of the Francis Crick Institute. We are very sad to say goodbye to the N.I.M.R but are equally excited for the future. Whilst we won’t physically move until next year, a number of changes have occurred including a new email address for everyone in the group. Lab bio’s will be modified to include up to date information in the near future but for the time being the new address for J.P. is JP.Vincent@crick.ac.uk.
12/03/2015 – EVENT
The programme for the upcoming Jacques Monod Conference, “Building, repairing, and evolving biological tissues”, is approaching completion and a list of invited speakers is now available online.
Further details can be found on the CNRS website and a poster for the event is included below. The deadline for applications is the 15th of May 2015 and we in the Vincent lab are very much looking forward to it!
06/03/2015 – PUBLICATION
We are delighted to announce the publication of our latest publication in Nature.
This publication was the product of a particularly rewarding collaboration with the lab of Yvonne Jones at the University of Oxford, which brought together amazingly diverse expertise. This led to insight that none of the groups involved could have reached on their own. In this publication, we show that Notum is an enzyme that removes palmitoleate from Wnt proteins in the extracellular space, hence dampening Wnt activity. Structural analyses reveal a hydrophobic pocket that accommodates the lipid normally found on Wnt proteins and enzymatic assays demonstrate that Notum is a carboxylesterase. Notum also possesses glycosaminoglycan binding sites, which probably help it co-localise with Wnt proteins, explaining why glypicans are needed for Notum to act. Notum is the first known extracellular protein deacylase.
Notum’s Wnt-deacylation activity, along with other means of feedback inhibition, undoubtedly contributes to the fine balancing of Wnt signalling both during development, for cell fate specification, and in adults, for example, for stem-cell maintenance. Our results provide the foundation to developing chemical inhibitors of Notum. Such inhibitors could be used to boost Wnt signalling within a physiologically relevant range, to control stem cell behaviour or to alleviate conditions associated with reduced signalling, such as neurodegeneration.
Congratulations to Vincent lab members Paul and Satoshi who worked long and hard for this publication!
A model for the extracellular regulation of Wnt signalling by Notum.
18/01/2015 – EVENT:
Léopold/Vincent joint lab retreat.
16-19 March 2015 at Île Sainte-Marguerite with the Pierre Léopold lab (http://ibv.unice.fr/EN/equipe/leopold.php).
18/01/2015 – EVENT:
Joint Spring Meeting of the British Society for Cell Biology and the British Society of Developmental Biology
12- 15 April 2015 at Warwick University
http://www.bscb-bsdb-meetings.co.uk/2837
18/01/2015 – EVENT:
Jacques Monod Conference. “Building, Repairing and Evolving biological tissues”.
13-17 Sept 2015, Roscoff, France
http://www.cnrs.fr/insb/cjm/2015/Vincent_e.html
18/01/2015 – EVENT:
Gordon Research Conference in Developmental Biology – “The Patterns that Shape Our Bodies, from Cellular Organization to Transgenerational Inheritance”
June 21-26, 2015, Mount Holyoke College, MA
https://www.grc.org/programs.aspx?id=11169
The J.P. Vincent Lab @ the Crick 