In this Spotlight written by Dr. Anna Sherwood and edited by Dr. Daniel L. Kiss, Prof. Lafontaine reflects on a career dedicated to understanding ribosome biogenesis, from foundational discoveries in yeast to translational advances in human disease. He discusses his lab’s work on ribosomopathies such as Diamond-Blackfan anemia, insights into…
In January 2026, I was invited by Prof Tao CHENG to attend the 6th Annual Meeting of the Chinese Alliance for Society of Hematology (CASH) meeting in Tianjin, and by Prof Ling-Ling CHEN to gave a RISE lecture in Shangaï. This was a great opportunity to see good friends. Thank…
Thank you to Pascal Vrebos, journalist and interviewer, and to Stéphanie Tuetey of the F.R.S.–FNRS Communications Unit, for organizing the interview at the LN24 studio in Brussels on November 6, 2025. “Behind the scenes”, discovering the green screen setup at LN24
Exploring RNA modifications to revolutionise cancer care The European Epitranscriptomics of Cancer Academy (EURECA) Network is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Network (MSCA-DN) funded by the European Union. EURECA is a training and research programme focused on RNA modifications in cancer. These chemical changes to RNA, once overlooked, are now recognised as important drivers of cancer…
Together with the team of Cliff Brangwynne (Princeton) and Sebastian Klinge (Rockefeller), we have started to crack the blue print of the nucleolus. See Details here
Final Program here
TRANSLACORE, a European network to coordinate research on translation regulation in cancer “Translation at the Crossroads: A European Perspective on Protein Synthesis and Cancer” This Special Collection of RNA Biology brings together original research articles and reviews from members of the European COST Action TRANSLACORE (CA21154), a network dedicated to…
Final Program here For details, See here
Full Program of Lisbon2025 For details, See https://helicasesconference.com/
For details, See https://events.unibo.it/ribomod2025 Full Program of RIBOMOD2025 Abstract Book of RIBOMOD2025 Initial Feedback to the Community – July 2025 The RNA Biology poster prize at RIBOMOD2025 was awared to Brittney M Remnant (York U., Canada) for her work on “The variant La protein Mlp1 is a snoRNA binding protein…
Translacore is a COST action (CA21154) aiming to develop a European network of excellence to foster basic research on mRNA translation in cancer. Translacore training school in Bioinformatics with Prof. Ola Larsson’s team, September 11-14, 2023, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden Biennale 2023: Where Science Meets Art, “Cycle of Health and…
In an amazing collaboration with the Eva Maria Novoa Lab (CRG, Barcelona, Spain), … Milenkovic et al. demonstrate that rRNA modifications are differentially modified across tissues, developmental stages, and in disease. The authors show that rRNA modification patterns, also termed “epitranscriptomic rRNA fingerprints” are sufficient to accurately identify tissue of…
with friends Deena Iskander (Imperial College London, U.K.), Amee Georges (ANU, Canberra, Australia), Alan Warren (U Cambridge, U.K.), and Lorenzo Montanaro (U Bologna, Italy)
Digital Holographic Microscopy (DHM) was applied to detect membraneless biomolecular condensates and membrane-bound organelles without staining. The nucleolar optical thickness was defined for characterizing the material state of the nucleolus. Ribosome biogenesis is initiated in the nucleolus, a multiphase biomolecular condensate formed by liquid-liquid phase separation. The nucleolus is a…
Thank you to the organizers for their invitation as Session Chair Video recording of “RNA Modification” Session Introduction: with friends Tom Meier (Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, U.S.A.) and Yi-Tao Yu (U Rochester, U.S.A.)
Thank you for an outstanding “China-UK Workshop on Molecular Haematopoiesis“ organized by my dear colleagues: Prof Tao CHENG, Prof Xiaofan ZHU, Prof Lihong SHI, and Dr Yang WAN (Institute of Hematology & Blood Diseases Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, National Key Laboratory for Blood Science, Tianjin Institute of Health…
Thank you to my dear colleagues Prof. Tsustomu Suzuki and Prof. Tsuyoshi Osawa for their invitation.
We are part of two European consortia: RiboEurope and DBAGeneCure aiming to understand the molecular basis and to develop therapeutics (gene therapy) for Diamond-Blackfan anemia (DBA). Diamond-Blackfan anemia is a bone marrow failure syndrome manifested notably by failure to produce red blood cells. Please watch our two educational video clips…
Watch our Conference at CSHL Asia “RNA Biology 2022”, December 5-9, Awaji Yumebutai, Japan https://www.yumebutai.co.jp/lang/en.html
Nucleolar surveillance is a p53-dependent anti-tumoral pathway activated upon ribosome biogenesis dysfunction. It had remained unclear why liquid tumours respond better to ribosome biogenesis inhibitors than solid ones. In collaboration with the team of Tsuyoshi Osawa (U. Tokyo), we have revealed the importance of the intra tumoral concentration of the…
Co-organizers: Ute Kothe, Dieter Kressler, Denis Lafontaine, Tom Meier, Vikam Panse To Register, please visit the official EMBO website
On the cover: In this issue of Molecular Cell, Finet et al. (pp. 404–419) use a transcriptome-wide approach to reveal that the dihydrouridine RNA modification (the snail) is present on eukaryotic mRNAs. They show that dihydrouridylated codons are translated more slowly by the ribosome (blue shapes) and that modification of the…
Ribosomes are essential nanomachines responsible for protein production in all cells. Ribosomopathies are diseases caused by improper ribosome formation due to mutations in ribosomal proteins or ribosome assembly factors. Such diseases primarily affect the brain and blood, and it is unclear how malfunctioning of a process as general as ribosome…
The nucleolus is the most prominent nuclear body and serves a fundamentally important biological role as a site of ribonucleoprotein particle assembly, primarily dedicated to ribosome biogenesis. Despite being one of the first intracellular structures visualized historically, the biophysical rules governing its assembly and function are only starting to become…
Using the iNo score to discriminate normal from altered nucleolar morphology, with applications in basic cell biology and potential in human disease diagnostics Ribosome biogenesis is initiated in the nucleolus, a cell condensate essential to gene expression, whose morphology informs cancer pathologists on the health…
The meeting took place in Leipzig, Germany, 17-19 September 2018 Invited speaker in the “Nuclear Dynamics & Communication” session.
The 11th International Ribosome Synthesis meeting will take place in Magog, Mont Orford, near Montreal, Canada form the 1-5 August 2018 at Manoir des Sables. Co-organizers: Sherif Abou Elela (U. Sherbrooke, Canada) Ute Wieden-Kothe (U. Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada) Denis LJ Lafontaine (U. Brussels, Belgium) Tom Meier (Albert Einstein, New York,…
Pellegrino et al., have shown that haemanthamine inhibits both ribosome biogenesis and function, providing for the first time the molecular basis of the anticancer properties of this natural compound used for centuries in folk medicine. The ribosome biogenesis inhibition triggers an antitumoral surveillance response leading to p53 stabilization (nucleolar stress).…
Second edition of the international EuroDBA meeting: “Building global bridges”
Small nucleolar RNAs (snoRNAs) are emerging as a novel class of proto-oncogenes and tumor suppressors; their involvement in tumorigenesis remains unclear. The box C/D snoRNAs U3 and U8 are upregulated in breast cancers. Here we characterize the function of human U3 and U8 in ribosome biogenesis, nucleolar structure, and tumorigenesis.…
The chemically most complex modification in eukaryotic rRNA is the conserved hypermodified nucleotide N1-methyl-N3 aminocarboxypropyl pseudouridine (m¹acp³Ψ) located next to the P-site tRNA on the small subunit 18S rRNA. While S-adenosylmethionine was identified as the source of the aminocarboxypropyl (acp) group more than 40 years ago, the enzyme catalyzing the…
In Collaboration with Daniel Fisher (Montpellier Institute of Molecular Genetics – CNRS, Université de Montpellier), we showed that Ki-67 plays an important role during nucleologenesis. Specifically, we showed that Ki-67 is important for PR (Perichromosomal Region) formation: During mitosis, the nucleolus undergoes a dramatic cycle of disassembly and reassembly.…
“Kill The Sammson, Kill The Melanoma” In a work led by Jean-Christophe Marine (VIB, KU Leuven) we contributed to the characterization of the lineage-specific long non-coding RNA Sammson. Sammson is only expressed in melanoma cells. When Sammson’ expression is shut, melanoma cells die, principally of loss of mitochondrial function. Focal…
Eukaryotic rRNA are modified frequently, although the diversity of modifications is low: in yeast rRNA, there are only 12 different types out of a possible natural repertoire exceeding 112. All nine rRNA base methyltransferases and one acetyltransferase have recently been identified in budding yeast, and several instances of crosstalk between…
Organizing committee: Sander GRANNEMAN (University of Edinburgh)Katrin KARBSTEIN (The SCRIPPS Research Institute, Florida)Denis LAFONTAINE (University of Brussels)Tom MEIER (Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York)Joost ZOMERDIJK (University of Dundee) Keynote lectures:Prof David TOLLERVEY, Wellcome Trust Center for Cell Biology, U. EdinburghProf Nenad BAN, ETH, Zurich