Members of the Extremophiles group

Arnold Driessen, Prof. Dr.

In 1987, I finished my PhD on "Amino acid transport in lactic streptococci" in the group of Prof.dr. W. N. Konings at the University of Groningen. In 1990, I went to Los Angeles for a postdoctoral stay with Prof.dr. W. Wickner. In his laboratory, I worked on the reconstitution of protein translocation in proteoliposomes. After one year, I returned to Groningen to start a new group on Protein Translocation which was subsidized by a PIONIER grant of NWO. In 1997, I became Full Professor in Microbiology on a special chair of the "Groningen Universiteit Fonds", and since 2000, I am an ALW/NWO Van der Leeuw Professor in Microbiology. I am interested in the molecular mechanisms of protein and solute transport which we study in bacteria, archaea and filamentous fungi.

 

Sonja-Verena Albers, PhD

 I started my "archaeal" carreer as a graduate student in the lab of Prof. W. Zillig at the MPI for Biochemistry, Martinsried. There I did some work on the first archaeal plasmid, pNOB8, which had been shown to be a conjugative plasmid. My Ph.D. studies in Groningen started in January 1997. My project was to determine the mechanism of sugar uptake in Sulfolobus solfataricus . We found that the most sugars are transported via binding-protein dependent ABC transporters. In June 2001 I defended my thesis. Since we found that not only some of the sugar-binding proteins of Sulfolobus, but in total 16 secreted proteins exhibit type IV pilin signal peptides, we are now trying to identify the components of this particular secretion system.

 

 

Joanna Lubelska, MSc

 I finished my biotechnological studies in Maria Sklodowska-Curie University in Lublin in Poland in the department of Virology and Immunology. I was busy with measuring the levels of several cytokines treated with different neuroleptic drugs in human lymphocytes.
I started my PhD project at the University of Groningen in February 2002. My aim is to identify specific regulatory proteins that control sugar transport (now I am focused on glucose and arabinose transport) in the thermoacidophilic archaeon Sulfolobus solfataricus.

 

 

Albert Ellen, MsC 

In December 1999 I graduated at the State University of Groningen as a molecular biologist. During my studies I first worked on the identification of the substrate binding domain of citrate/malate transporters in Lactococcus lactis in the research group of molecular microbiology, after which I joined the research group of molecular biology of plants and fungi to isolate and characterize SC1 hydrophobine of Schizophyllum commune.

After my studies I had several non-science jobs but eventually I arrived in Amsterdam to characterize fluorescent biosensors in the research group of molecular cytology under the direction of Prof. Gadella at the University of Amsterdam. The biosensors consist of a pleckstrin homology domain responsible for the cellular localization of the biosensor, attached to a(Green) Fluorescent Protein.

In October 2004 I became a member of the extremophile group in which I am working in the field of membrane and excretion proteomics. Furthermore, I am working on the development of a screening method based on Surface Plasmon Resonance for the detection of sugar binding proteins in Sulfolobus solfataricus.

 

Behnam Zolghadr, MsC

 

 

Former Members