Agenda

Cedric Moro is currently Research Director at Inserm, and head of the Team MetaDiab “Pathophysiology of Metabolic Disorders and Diabesity” at the Institute of Metabolic and Cardiovascular Diseases in Toulouse. Our team uses a highly translational medicine approach of the study of metabolism combining innovative cell and mouse models to decipher molecular mechanisms of metabolic disorders, and clinical studies in nutrition and exercise with deep phenotypic investigation. The team aims at understanding the biological determinants and molecular mechanisms of metabolic disorders in various pathophysiological contexts (obesity, aging, type 2 diabetes, physical inactivity). Using a highly integrative bedside-to-bench approach, we investigate novel targets and mechanisms in cell and mouse models as well as in humans. Our projects are focused on the underlying mechanisms of insulin resistance, lipid droplet and metabolic dysfunction in skeletal muscle and adipose tissue, as well as their crosstalk in metabolic regulation and diseases.

Biosketch: Goyenvalle_IM_Seminar_2025

Biosketch: Mounier_IM_Seminar_2025

Biosketch: Charlet_IM_Seminar_2025 

Biosketch: Corinne Albiges-Rizo received a PhD in Cellular and Molecular biology from the University of Grenoble in 1990. She worked as a PhD student at EMBL in Grenoble and completed her post-doctoral research as a fellow in HHMI in Chicago. She moved back to Grenoble as a CNRS Scientist. Her team is based within the Institute for Advanced Biosciences (Institut Albert Bonniot) and she also heads the department of microenvironment and cell plasticity. She was President of the French Society for Cell Biology (SBCF). Using transdisciplinary approach, her team is investigating how adhesion sites sense varied external cues to modulate downstream signaling networks and force transmission to elucidate the sensory mechanisms underlying invasion and tissue architecture. The team is specifically exploring the biological and physiological relevance of integrin activation. The question is to know how cells integrate physical and biochemical cues of their environment and intertwine signaling networks that ultimately control their shape, their contractile state, their communication capacity and their migratory behavior. To address how cells detect temporally close but spatially distant signals, such as growth factors and extracellular matrix components to control multi-decisional signaling, the team combines biomaterials, optogenetics, advanced live cell imaging including single-particle-tracking localization microscopy (SPT-PALM) along with morphometric and dynamic measurements. The team has shown the property of BMP2 signal to override the effects of soft biomaterial-induced signaling through an integrin-dependent biomechanical response and a segregation of BMP2 receptor subpopulation in adhesion sites to couple cell differentiation and cell migration.  Ongoing investigation in Corinne Albiges-Rizo’s laboratory aims at integrating integrin and BMP2 signaling into epithelial mechanics and collective migration under 2D and 3D experimental settings.

Fourel L, Valat A, Faurobert E, Guillot R, Bourrin-Reynard I, Ren K, Lafanechère L, Planus E, Picart C, Albiges-Rizo C. β3 integrin-mediated spreading induced by matrix-bound BMP-2 controls Smad signaling in a stiffness-independent manner. J Cell Biol. 2016 Mar 14;212(6):693-706. doi: 10.1083/jcb.201508018. Epub 2016 Mar 7. PMID: 26953352; PMCID: PMC4792076.

Guevara-Garcia A, Fourel L, Bourrin-Reynard I, Sales A, Oddou C, Pezet M, Rossier O, Machillot P, Chaar L, Bouin AP, Giannone G, Destaing O, Picart C, Albiges-Rizo C. Integrin-based adhesion compartmentalizes ALK3 of the BMPRII to control cell adhesion and migration. J Cell Biol. 2022 Dec 5;221(12):e202107110. doi: 10.1083/jcb.202107110. Epub 2022 Oct 7. PMID: 36205720; PMCID: PMC9552562.

Kyumurkov A, Bouin AP, Boissan M, Manet S, Baschieri F, Proponnet-Guerault M, Balland M, Destaing O, Régent-Kloeckner M, Calmel C, Nicolas A, Waharte F, Chavrier P, Montagnac G, Planus E, Albiges-Rizo C. Force tuning through regulation of clathrin-dependent integrin endocytosis. J Cell Biol. 2023 Jan 2;222(1):e202004025. doi: 10.1083/jcb.202004025. Epub 2022 Oct 17. PMID: 36250940; PMCID: PMC9579986

Biosketch:Vanina Romanello is an Associate Professor of General Pathology at the University of Padua, Italy, and a researcher at the Venetian Institute of Molecular Medicine in Padova. She has a long track record investigating the mechanisms that control muscle mass in health and disease. Over the last decade, her research has focused on mitochondria quality control pathways, establishing a causal link between muscle-specific mitochondrial network alterations, muscle loss, and Fgf21-dependent disruption of whole-body homeostasis. Furthermore, she demonstrated that Fgf21 is a novel player in mitophagy and muscle loss. Her team is currently investigating new metabolic players involved in maintaining muscle health, with particular emphasis on the role of the peroxisomal-mitochondrial interactions in muscle function under both healthy and diseased conditions.

The primary goal of the Berglund lab at the RNA Institute is to understand the molecular mechanisms of pre-mRNA splicing and toxic RNA disorders, with a focus on the most common form of adult-onset muscular dystrophy – myotonic dystrophy. We use biochemical, genomic, and cellular approaches to study the fundamental rules that govern RNA processing and how these events are disrupted in disease. Knowledge gained from basic biological studies is applied to developing therapeutic strategies, including small molecules, antisense oligonucleotides, and gene editing, for myotonic dystrophy and related devastating repeat expansion diseases. As a researcher and the Director of the RNA Institute, I work collaboratively with RNA Institute faculty to advance our mission to develop and deliver tools, analytics, and early-stage discoveries necessary for the progression of RNA-based therapeutics and diagnostics.

https://www.albany.edu/rna/research-rna-institute/berglund-lab

Dr. M.S Mahadevan worked in the area of RNA toxicity and disease for the past 30 years, with a focus on myotonic dystrophy (DM1). He was one of the discoverers of the DM1 mutation, sequenced the DMPK gene, and subsequently studied DM pathogenesis and helped establish the concept of RNA toxicity in disease with an emphasis on muscle and cardiac effects.  Recently, he used an inducible mouse models of RNA toxicity to demonstrate a dystrophic phenotype including fatty infiltration and fibrosis that is amenable to antisense oligonucleotide based therapeutics.  

Clara De Palma biosketch