Team leader

Dr. Sandrine Ollagnier-de Choudens Director of research at the CNRS Laboratoire Chimie et Biologie des Métaux CEA-Grenoble 17 avenue des Martyrs 38 054 Grenoble Cedex 09 Phone: (33) 4 38 78 91 22 Biography

Secretary
Nathalie Atta
Laboratoire Chimie et Biologie des Métaux
CEA-Grenoble
17 avenue des Martyrs
38 054 Grenoble Cedex 09
Phone: (33) 4 38 78 91 02
Fax: (33) 4 38 78 91 24


Team members

Mohamed Atta CEA Researcher	Victor Duarte CNRS Researcher	Catherine Gerez UGA Assistant Professor	Vincent Nivière CNRS Researcher	Sandrine Ollagnier de Choudens Head since Jan. 2016 CNRS Researcher

Lama Shamseddine CEA PhD Student	Christian Basset CEA Technician	Christelle Caux CNRS Assistant Engineer	Philippe Carpentier CNRS Research Engineer	Ingie Elchennawi CEA PhD Student

Presentation

Our research team is composed of biochemists and one crystallographer interested in metal-catalyzed biotransformations. The research projects are located at the interface between chemistry and biology, as far as concepts but also methods are concerned. Our research activity aims at understanding at a molecular level the reactivity of metal-containing proteins and the assembly of their metallic sites. Our metal of interest is IRON (Fe), encountered in Iron-sulfur clusters, hemes and binuclear iron sites. Most of our projects have applications in the health field, with the discovery and synthesis of new antimicrobial agents.
We use biochemistry, spectroscopy, crystallography and chemistry methods (in collaboration with LCBM teams) to study our metal-containing proteins. As far as possible, we are collaborating with biologists/microbiologists to understand the biological processes to which we are interested in from in vitro to in vivo.


FrenchBIC
Our team is part of the FrenchBIC, a CNRS network of about 200 French researchers from 25 research units, who work on all aspects of bioinorganic chemistry / metals in biology.


Research topics

Iron-Sulfur Cluster biogenesis
Radical-SAM enzymes
Iron-containing enzymes and antibacterial agents
Iron-containing enzymes and cellular detoxification processes
Metalloenzymes and Plastic degradation

Specialized techniques

Most of the experiments are performed under controlled atmospheres using glove boxes for anaerobic cell growth, protein purification, enzymatic assays, spectroscopic analysis (UV-visible absorption), protein-protein interaction (BLI device) and preparation of samples for EPR, Mössbauer and EXAFS spectroscopies. Crystallogenesis of proteins can also be performed under anaerobiosis in the BioCat team which is in charge of a platform of crystallogenesis and crystallography dedicated to metallo-proteins.