Dr. Anne-Claude Gavin, EMBL, Heidelberg, Germany
Lipid metabolism: connecting the dots

Host: Karolina Pavic (karolina.pavic@utu.fi)

Anne-Claude Gavin studied biology/biochemistry at the University of Geneva, achieving a PhD in biology under the supervision of Dr Sabine Schorderet-Slatkine. She then moved to the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg to study the biochemical mechanisms that regulate the progression of the cell cycle with Dr. Angel Nebreda. In 2000, she joined the biotech company Cellzome as a funding scientist and Director of the Molecular and Cell Biology division, applying systems biology approaches to characterize cellular networks involved in human pathologies. Since 2005, she has run her own group in the Structural and Computational Biology Unit at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, where she has pioneered novel (bio)chemical methods to map cellular protein-lipid interaction networks. Her group has a strong research interest in the study of lipid metabolism and the regulation of cellular membranes homeostasis, with a special focus on the machinery involved in the creation and maintenance of lipid gradients in eukaryotic cells, and the study of mechanisms by which lipid signatures are sensed and “read” by effector proteins. From 2019, she leads her group at the CMU in Geneva, as a Louis-Jeantet professor.

Selected publications
Chiapparino A., Maeda K, Turei D., Saez-Rodriguez J. and Gavin A.C. (2016). The orchestra of lipid-transfer proteins at the crossroads between metabolism and signalling. Prog. Lipid Res. 61, 30-39.

Köberlin M.S., Snijder B. ‡, Heinz L.X., Baumann C.L., Fauster A., Vladimer G.I., Gavin A.C. and Superti-Furga G. (2015). A conserved circular network of coregulated lipids modulates innate immune responses. Cell 162, 170-183.

Saliba A.E., Vonkova I., Gavin A.C. (2015). The systematic analysis of protein–lipid interactions comes of age. Nat. Rev. Mol. Cell Biol. 16, 753-761.

Saliba A.E.*, Vonkova I.*, Ceschia S., Findlay G.M., Maeda K., Tischer C., Deghou S., van Noort V., Bork P., Pawson T., Ellenberg J. and Gavin A.C. (2014). A quantitative liposome microarray to systematically characterize protein-lipid interactions. Nat. Methods 11, 47-50.

Maeda K., Poletto M., Chiapparino A. and Gavin A.C. (2014). A generic protocol for the purification and characterization of water-soluble protein–lipid complexes. Nat. Protoc. 9, 2256-2266.

Maeda K., Anand K., Chiapparino A., Kumar A., Poletto M., Kaksonen M. and Gavin A.C. (2013). Interactome map uncovers phosphatidylserine transport by a family of oxysterol-binding proteins. Nature 501, 257-261.

Haberkant P., Raijmakers R., Wildwater M., Sachsenheimer T., Brügger B., Maeda K., Houweling M., Gavin A.C., Schultz C., van Meer G., Heck A.J. and Holthuis J.C. (2013). In vivo profiling and visualization of cellular protein-lipid interactions using bifunctional fatty acids. Angew Chem Int Ed Engl, 52, 4033-4038.