2019
Jose Luis Llácer Guerri
Jose Luis Llácer Guerri
http://www3.ibv.csic.es/index.php/es/investigacion/genomica/urp
Affiliation: Instituto de Biomedicina de Valencia (IBV-CSIC)
Fields or areas of research Biología Estructural , Cryo-EM , X-ray crystallography
Dr Jose Luis Llacer received his PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Valencia in 2012. His predoctoral research experience was acquired at the Instituto de Biomedicina de Valencia (IBV-CSIC; PI: Vicente Rubio) acquiring significant experience in protein biochemistry and X-ray crystallography, while working on signal transduction systems and control of transcription in bacteria. He determined the crystal structures of three protein-proteincomplexes, the first to have been done in the laboratory where he carried out his PhD work. All this work was reflected in seven research papers (four of them as first author, J Bac 2001, J Bac 2007, PNAS 2007, Curr Opin Struct Biol 2008, PNAS 2010, FEBS J 2014, Front Mol Biosci 2018), several communications to different meetings and conferences and few awards. From 2012 to 2018, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of the Nobel Laureate Dr Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC-LMB), in Cambridge, where he learnt and used cryo-electron microscopy (cryoEM) as a tool to study the various steps in eukaryotic translation initiation by determining the structures of different translation initiation complexes of the small ribosomal subunit (40S) with most of initiation factors, representing different stages of this complex process (Cell 2014, Mol Cell 2015), being the most recent work a structure at very high resolution (3A; Elife 2018) showing in detail how the AUG codon is recognized by the tRNAi and how different ribosomal elements and the different initiation factors stabilize or modulate the codon-anticodon interaction. He also crucially contributed to understand structurally translation initiation in prokaryotes, by obtaining 12 different cryoEM structures, representing distinct steps along bacterial initiation (Cell 2016). Finally he also played a key role in the determination of the structure of the large subunit of the yeast mitochondrial ribosome by cryoEM (Science 2014). It has to be noted that this was the first time an structure was built de novo and refined in an EM map and therefore this can be considered as a pioneer work in the EM-field. All this postdoctoral work has been reflected in five research papers (all of them as shared first author) and a few communications to meetings. In addition Dr Llacer has been awarded with several fellowships and awards including the Josep Tormo prize (2008), a FEBS posdoctoral fellowship (2012, very competitive, success rate < 5%), the first position in the Biomedicine area of the Ramón y Cajal tenure track program in Spain (2017, success rate < 8%) and obtained an A qualification on the ERC Starting Grant step 1 of the LS1 panel (2018 call; very competitive, success rate < 20%). In 2018 he got a permanent position as Cientifico Titular at IBV-CSIC where he will continue studying the regulation of translation from a structural point of view and foster the implementation of cryoEM in Valencia, helping introduce it in the research projects of other groups. Dr Llacer has also codirected 1 PhD thesis in 2018.
People associated with the project as predoctoral research staff: 1