With other RUs

The RU MolSys collaborates frequently with others research units within the University of Liège.

Venom peptide as b-lactamases inhibitors and bacteria killers

Coll. Profs Matagne and Galleni, ULiège
The current project aims to decipher the potential of animal venoms in the quest of finding innovative inhibitors of b-lactamases, urgently needed by the market. b-lactamase enzymes, by b-lactam rings hydrolysis, participate in the main processes of antibiotics inactivation. The secretion of such proteins by the pathogens increase their resistance against important families of antibiotics sharing a common b-lactam structural pattern (penicillins, cephalosporins for instance.). Searching for original inhibitors within animal venoms, unexplored amazing libraries in this field, and understanding their modus of operandi are plenty of sense. This thematic is unifying two areas of expertise at the University of Liège which are the characterization of venom components and their activities (Laboratory of Mass Spectrometry) and the deep research on b-lactamases performed by Prof. Matagne and Prof. Galleni in the Center for Protein Engineering.

Single-Molecule Force Spectroscopy to decipher the early step of signal transduction in membrane-bound penicillin receptors of bacteria

Coll. with Prof. B. Joris

The project aims at understanding the molecular mechanism by which the signal of the presence of the antibiotic is transduced from outside to inside the cell. Collaboration between NANOCHEM (Duwez) and the Center for Protein Engineering (B. Joris, RU InBioS).

Quantum magnetic tweezers for manipulating charge and spin

Coll. With Profs A. Silhanek and N.D. Nguyen

In this project we aim at combining three fundamental properties of quantum matter (spin, charge, and quantum flux) by using superconductor-semiconductor hybrid systems with the main objective of addressing experimentally a plethora of new phenomena so far only envisaged theoretically such as the control of spin and charge textures with fluxons. Collaboration between NANOCHEM (Duwez) for the development of AFM-based MFM techniques to investigate magnetisation at a very small scale, and the RU Cesam (A. Silhanek and N.D. Nguyen).