Welcome to the SMALP Community

The next SMALP Conference is being held by Zoom on Friday February 26, 2021 from 9am-noon MST (Alberta time), and will be preceded by a SMALP Industry Club meeting from 7-8:50am MDT.

Register below to find out about the latest developments in the field of native nanodiscs, including polymer design, immobilization strategies for screening membrane targets, and analysis of protein folding, structure and assembly using fluorescence imaging, cryoEM and NMR.

Schedule on February 26, 2021 (times are EST)

Session 1 Chair: Sandro Keller, University of Graz

11:00 Dr. Jan Kubicek, Business Development, Laboratory Management, Quality Control at Cube Biotech.

11:20 Adrian Kopf, Utrecht University, who is analyzing a variety of different polymers that form nanodiscs as part of his PhD thesis.

11:40 Vanessa  Flegler, Universität Würzburg:  "The mechanosensitive channel YnaI has a gating mechanism based on flexible pore helices"  

Session 2 Chair: Youzhong Guo, Virginia Commonwealth University

12:00 Dr. Patrick A. de Jonge, Amsterdam UMC, whose studies include "Development of SMALPs as a tool for studies of phage-host interaction"

12:20 Professor Bernadette Byrne, Imperial College London; her  studies include "Modulation of PTH1R signaling by an ECD binding antibody results in inhibition of β-arrestin 2 coupling" 

12:40 Professor Paula Booth, King's College London will speak on "Co-translational folding of membrane proteins"; her lab focusses on nanodiscs and folding of membrane proteins including GPCRs, transporters and ribosome nascent chains complexes

Session 3 Chair: Sundaresan Rajesh, GSK

13:00 Dr.  Tim Dafforn, University of Birmingham, on SMALPs, recent papers include "Nano-encapsulated Escherichia coli Divisome Anchor ZipA, and in Complex with FtsZ"

13:20 Dr. James Mitchell-White who works with Ian D. Kerr at the University of Nottingham, who recently published "Application of fluorescence correlation spectroscopy to study substrate binding in styrene maleic acid lipid copolymer encapsulated ABCG2"

13:40 Dr. Jose Ortega Roldan, University of Kent on "Elucidating membrane interactions of proteins and small molecules combining solution NMR and SMALPs"

Session 4 Chair: Chanelle Brown, Virginia Tech

14:00 Dr. Greg Dodge, a postdoc with Barbara Imperiali, MIT, on "Utilizing SMALPs for biochemical and structural studies of glycoconjugate biosynthesis in human pathogens"

14:20 Dr. Sukriti Gakhar, Associate Scientist at Ascendis Pharma, previously at UC Davis and Genentech, on "Immobilization of membrane proteins using SMALPs in sol-gel based silica gel monoliths".

14:40 Discussion and Close

European SMALP Conference

The European SMALP 2022 Conference is being held in Birmingham, UK from April 6-8, and is being organized by the Biochemical Society with sponsors including Nanotemper. This will be preceded by UK workshop on membrane proteins at Aston University from April 4-6.

Conference Speakers on Sept 18:

Session 1: Solubilizing novel targets, Chair: Tim Dafforn

Alexandra Desrames, Research Engineer in the Department of Integrated Red Cell Biology, Institut National de la Transfusion Sanguine, Paris recently published Detergent-free isolation of native red blood cell membrane complexes. SLIDES

Alice Rothnie, Aston University focuses on ABC proteins, secondary active transporters, ion channels and GPCRs and recently published CD81 extracted in SMALP nanodiscs comprises two distinct protein populations within a lipid environment enriched with negatively charged headgroups. SLIDES

Session 2: Nanodisc tools, Chair: Alice Rothnie

Manuela Zoonens, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris develops tools for membrane protein studies and recently published Solubilization and stabilization of membrane proteins by cycloalkane-modified amphiphilic polymers. SLIDES

Stephen Muench, School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Leeds, Styrene maleic-acid lipid particles (SMALPs) into detergent or amphipols: An exchange protocol for membrane protein characterisation.

Session 3: Polymer design, Chair: Bert Klumperman

Hongjun Liang, Cell Physiology and Molecular Biophysics at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, focuses on membrane protein functions in synthetic proteomembranes and recently published Extraction and reconstitution of membrane proteins into lipid nanodiscs encased by zwitterionic styrene-maleic amide copolymers. SLIDES

Chanelle Brown, Doctoral Candidate with Richard Turner and Rich Gandour, Department of Chemistry, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University: Homogeneous nanodiscs of native membranes formed by stilbene–maleic-acid copolymers. SLIDES

Session 4: Biophysical methods, Chair: Michael Overduin

Francisco Barrera, Associate Professor University of Tennessee, investigates the interplay between proteins and lipids using biophysical methods and will present SMALPs allow single molecule fluorescence determination of lipid-promoted activation of the EphA2 receptor.

Each talk is 15 minutes and is followed by 5 minutes of Q&A.

An open discussion follows the talks.

The SMALP webconference is immediately preceded by a 2 hour meeting of the SMALP Industry Club where the development of novel polymer-based products, technologies, standards, assays and services for membrane proteins will be discussed by academic and commercial group leaders.

Speakers at our SMALP Conference on June 19:

10:00 Tim Dafforn, University of Birmingham: Insights into DIBMA based disc formation
10:20 Stefan Scheidelaar, Polyscience: Taking SMA one step further
10:40 Bert Klumperman, University of Stellenbosch: Iterative RAFT-mediated copolymerization of styrene and maleic anhydride: towards sequence- and length-controlled copolymers and their applications for solubilizing lipid membranes
11:00 Sandro Keller and Anne Grethen, Technische Universität Kaiserslautern: New Electroneutral Polymers for Membrane Proteins
11:20 Igor Tascon, BIOFISIKA Institute on the structural basis of proton-coupled potassium transport in the KUP family
11:40 Mark Wheatley, Coventry University: Fluorescent approaches to studying GPCR function in SMALPs
12:00 Adrian Kopf, Utrecht University: Sizing up amphipathic copolymers for membrane solubilization
12:20 Gary Lorigan, Miami University on analysis of membrane proteins by RAFT synthesized SMA
12:40 Youzhong Guo, Virginia Commonwealth University: cryo-EM structure of a human connexin channel bound to lipids at 3.0 Angstrom

The SMALP network offers polymers, methods and meetings to support the growing community of scientists and companies interested in the preparation of membrane nanodiscs formed by polymers including styrene maleic acid for biological research and drug discovery applications.

Register for a day of insightful talks from experts in the structural biology and functions of membrane proteins and nanodisc development, discussions with academic and industry leaders, and enjoy breakfast, lunch and coffee breaks on us.

These events are offered to bring together academic and industry experts, postdocs and students who are interested in membrane protein structural biology, lipidomics, proteomics, target discovery and biophysical analysis of bilayers and amphipathic polymers.

We welcome researchers from across academia and industry to join us in lively discussions and debate about the latest advances in native nanodiscs, membrane proteins, polymer chemistry, lipid biophysics structural biology, and applications for drug discovery and energy sectors.

Please fill out our survey, we'll keep your details confidential and share the results at SMALP2020 meetings: