Carlo Perotto
Report from the participation to the ‘FEBS Course: Chemistry of Metals in Biological
Systems’.
15-22 May 2011, Louvain-la-neuve, Belgium.
I have decided to apply for this FEBS School upon suggestion from a PhD colleague who
attended to a previous run of the same course. The course was one week long and was held in
the University town of Louvain-la-neuve in Belgium.
All the participants were either PhD students, as in my case, or post Docs coming from
various universities, mainly European. The nationalities spanned from Italians, French,
Portuguese, Spanish, Polish, Americans, English, Hungarians and Germans, which gave a
sense of internationality to the event. Both students and academics were hosted in a Mercure
Hotel, right outside the town centre, and all the lectures were held within the hotel. All the
students were paired up in double rooms. This gave the opportunity to all the participants to
live closely together for a whole week, get to know each other and build up a feeling of
community. Talking to the other PhD students/Post Docs has been a great opportunity to
know other European groups involves in the Bioinorganic Chemistry field and what their
research focus is. On the other hand the interaction with the academics, allowed the students
to present their work through a poster session and to establish new professional contacts with
world leading experts in their respective fields. I really appreciated the fact that there was no
barrier between students and professors as during the several breaks and mixers intercalating
the lectures it felt rather natural to socialise with the friendly academics.
The course was divided in two parts: a theoretical part consisting of several lectures about the
role of metals in biological system and a series of practical sections where the students were
able to familiarise with the experimental techniques used to study such systems.
The intense rhythm of the lectures (from 9 am until 9:30 pm) was made easy to follow thanks
to the variety of subjects covered and the enthusiasm conveyed by the skilled lecturers. For
every lecture extensive material (printed version of the slides, papers, additional
information…) was provided in order to allow the students to fully understand the theory and
encourage further reading. Some lectures were regarding at more general aspects of the role
of metals in biological systems, as it was the case for Prof. Robert Crichton’s compelling talk
about the metabolism of Iron, whereas others were more concerned with the theory and
applications of a particular technique.
The practical sessions were covering five different techniques: NMR, EPR, EXAFS and
Mossbauer spectroscopy and Bioelectrochemistry. They were all held in the facilities
provided by the Universite’ Catholique de Louvain, within walking distance from the hotel.
The demonstrations were done in groups of no more than 8-9 students, which allowed
everyone to have a close look at the instrumentations. Due to the unavailability of the
equipment, the EXAFS and EPR sessions were based on computer simulations and
interpretation of the spectra which, nevertheless, provided a sort of a working knowledge of
the techniques. Even though I was already familiar with NMR spectroscopy and
electrochemical techniques, I found it interesting to see how these can be exploited to study
biological systems, as it was the case for the use of paramagnetic NMR in cells demonstrated
by Dr. R. Louro or the electrochemistry study of enzymes absorbed on the surface of an
electrode shown by Dr. C. Leger.
Overall I think that the FEBS course was definitely worth attending. I have learned a lot
about the numerous fields embraced by the Bioinorganic Chemistry discipline, the various
techniques that can be used by chemists to study biological system and, what I think is the
most important aim of the course, I have had the chance to meet extraordinary scientists and
lay the foundation for future collaborations.