Melanie Blokesch

Melanie Blokesch (born 1976) is a German microbiologist. Her research focuses on Vibrio cholerae, the bacterium causing cholera. She is a professor of life sciences at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), where she heads the Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology.[1]

Professor

Melanie Blokesch
Melanie Blokesch in 2020
Born1976 (age 46–47)
CitizenshipGermany
Academic background
Doctoral advisorAugust Böck
Other advisorsGary K. Schoolnik
Academic work
DisciplineBiology
Sub-disciplineMicrobiology
InstitutionsÉcole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
Main interestsMicrobiology
V. cholerae
Cholera
Horizontal gene transfer (HGT)
Websitehttps://www.epfl.ch/labs/blokesch-lab/

Career

Blokesch studied biology and microbiology at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich where she received her diploma in 2000. She then joined August Böck's laboratory as a doctoral student and in 2004, graduated with her PhD awarded summa cum laude on "[NiFe]-Hydrogenases of Escherichia coli: Functions of Proteins involved in Metal Center Assembly".[2] In 2005, she went to work as postdoctoral research fellow with Gary K. Schoolnik in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine at Stanford University.[3] In 2009, she became Assistant Professor in the Global Health Institute at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, where she was promoted as Associate Professor in 2016 and Full Professor in 2021. Since 2009, she has been the director of the Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology.[1][4][5][6]

Research

Blokesch's research group investigates the pathogenic bacterium Vibrio cholerae that afflicts humans and has been responsible for major pandemics throughout history. She is interested how the natural environment of the bacterium is linked to its potential to evolve into a human pathogen.[7]

Her group studies how V. cholerae acquires new capabilities via horizontal gene transfer (HGT).[8] They found the pilous fraction of the DNA-uptake machinery also enables the adherence to chitinous surfaces, such as exoskeleton of arthropods, also under conditions of water currents.[9][10] Further they discovered that V. cholerae actively forages for DNA by killing neighboring cells via type VI secretion system (T6SS) while being able to spare kin cells.[11][12][10] Thereby DNA chunks even beyond the length of 150kb are taken up and exchanged against regions of the bacterium’s genome.[13] They started also working on the HGT capabilities of Acinetobacter baumannii, another human pathogen, known for frequently being resistant to a variety of antibiotics, and mostly associated with high infection rates in hospital settings.[7][14]

In order to better understand the interaction of host and pathogen, they also investigate routes of transmission in endemic cholera hot-spots. They discovered several virulence factors that might be used by V. cholerae in a Trojan horse-like manner to replicate in aquatic amoebae, and thereby could facilitate transmission.[15][16]

The research of Blokesch and her group has been featured in international news outlets such as La Razón,[17] Radio Télévision Suisse,[18] The Times of India,[19] National Geographic Magazine[20] and Deutschlandfunk.[21]

Distinctions

Blokesch was elected as a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) in 2019[22] and of the European Academy of Microbiology in 2018.[23] In 2017, she was selected among 25 life changing women ("25 Frauen, deren Erfindungen unser Leben verändern") by four German news outlets (Edition F, ZEIT online, Handelsblatt and Gründerszene).[24] She has been editor of variety of scientific journals such as eLife,[25] PLoS Genetics,[26] Molecular Microbiology,[27] and PLoS Biology.[28] Since 2019 she has been a member of the Swiss National Research Council,[29] the Specialised Committee Interdisciplinarity and the Sinergia Evaluation Committee of the Swiss National Science Foundation.[30]

Selected publications

References
  1. "23 professors appointed at ETH Zurich and EPFL | ETH-Board". www.ethrat.ch. Retrieved 2020-09-23.
  2. Blokesch, Melanie; Böck, August (2002-11-23). "Maturation of [NiFe]-hydrogenases in Escherichia coli: The HypC Cycle". Journal of Molecular Biology. 324 (2): 287–296. doi:10.1016/S0022-2836(02)01070-7. PMID 12441107.
  3. Meibom, K. L. (2005-12-16). "Chitin Induces Natural Competence in Vibrio cholerae". Science. 310 (5755): 1824–1827. Bibcode:2005Sci...310.1824M. doi:10.1126/science.1120096. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 16357262. S2CID 31153549.
  4. "BLOKESCH Lab – Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology". www.epfl.ch. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
  5. Marvig, Rasmus L; Blokesch, Melanie (2010). "Natural transformation of Vibrio cholerae as a tool - Optimizing the procedure". BMC Microbiology. 10 (1): 155. doi:10.1186/1471-2180-10-155. ISSN 1471-2180. PMC 2890613. PMID 20509862.
  6. "15 new professors appointed at ETH Zurich and EPFL | ETH-Board". www.ethrat.ch. Retrieved 2021-06-03.
  7. "Research". www.epfl.ch. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
  8. Dubnau, David; Blokesch, Melanie (2019-12-03). "Mechanisms of DNA Uptake by Naturally Competent Bacteria". Annual Review of Genetics. 53 (1): 217–237. doi:10.1146/annurev-genet-112618-043641. ISSN 0066-4197. PMID 31433955. S2CID 201278448.
  9. Seitz, Patrick; Blokesch, Melanie (2013-10-29). "DNA-uptake machinery of naturally competent Vibrio cholerae". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 110 (44): 17987–17992. Bibcode:2013PNAS..11017987S. doi:10.1073/pnas.1315647110. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 3816411. PMID 24127573.
  10. Adams, David. W.; Stutzmann, Sandrine; Stoudmann, Candice; Blokesch, Melanie (2019-06-10). "DNA-uptake pili of Vibrio cholerae are required for chitin colonization and capable of kin recognition via sequence-specific self-interaction". Nature Microbiology. 4 (9): 1545–1557. doi:10.1038/s41564-019-0479-5. ISSN 2058-5276. PMC 6708440. PMID 31182799.
  11. Metzger, Lisa C.; Stutzmann, Sandrine; Scrignari, Tiziana; Van der Henst, Charles; Matthey, Noémie; Blokesch, Melanie (2016-04-21). "Independent Regulation of Type VI Secretion in Vibrio cholerae by TfoX and TfoY". Cell Reports. 15 (5): 951–958. doi:10.1016/j.celrep.2016.03.092. PMC 4858559. PMID 27117415.
  12. Borgeaud, Sandrine; Metzger, Lisa C.; Scrignari, Tiziana; Blokesch, Melanie (2015-01-02). "The type VI secretion system of Vibrio cholerae fosters horizontal gene transfer". Science. 347 (6217): 63–67. Bibcode:2015Sci...347...63B. doi:10.1126/science.1260064. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 25554784. S2CID 20297980.
  13. Matthey, Noémie; Stutzmann, Sandrine; Stoudmann, Candice; Guex, Nicolas; Iseli, Christian; Blokesch, Melanie (2019-09-03). Mignot, Tâm; Weigel, Detlef (eds.). "Neighbor predation linked to natural competence fosters the transfer of large genomic regions in Vibrio cholerae". eLife. 8: e48212. doi:10.7554/eLife.48212. ISSN 2050-084X. PMC 6783263. PMID 31478834.
  14. Blokesch, Melanie (2017-04-27). "In and out—contribution of natural transformation to the shuffling of large genomic regions". Current Opinion in Microbiology. 38: 22–29. doi:10.1016/j.mib.2017.04.001. PMID 28458094.
  15. Van der Henst, Charles; Vanhove, Audrey Sophie; Drebes Dörr, Natália Carolina; Stutzmann, Sandrine; Stoudmann, Candice; Clerc, Stéphanie; Scrignari, Tiziana; Maclachlan, Catherine; Knott, Graham; Blokesch, Melanie (2018-08-27). "Molecular insights into Vibrio cholerae's intra-amoebal host-pathogen interactions". Nature Communications. 9 (1): 3460. Bibcode:2018NatCo...9.3460V. doi:10.1038/s41467-018-05976-x. ISSN 2041-1723. PMC 6110790. PMID 30150745.
  16. Van der Henst, Charles; Scrignari, Tiziana; Maclachlan, Catherine; Blokesch, Melanie (2015-09-22). "An intracellular replication niche for Vibrio cholerae in the amoeba Acanthamoeba castellanii". The ISME Journal. 10 (4): 897–910. doi:10.1038/ismej.2015.165. ISSN 1751-7362. PMC 4705440. PMID 26394005. S2CID 16465742.
  17. "El cólera "roba" ADN para hacer más daño". La Razón (in Spanish). 2015-01-02. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
  18. Femmes de science : Mélanie Blokesch - Play RTS (in French), retrieved 2020-09-24
  19. "Cholera bacterium kills other bacteria to steal their DNA". The Times of India. January 3, 2015. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
  20. "Cholera Bacteria Kill Each Other With Spears To Steal DNA". Science. 2015-01-01. Retrieved 2020-10-07.
  21. "Mikrobiologie - Cholera tötet fremde Zellen mit einem Speer". Deutschlandfunk (in German). Retrieved 2020-10-07.
  22. "EMBO elects 56 new Members". EMBO. 11 June 2019. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
  23. "FEMS Expert: Prof Melanie Blokesch". FEMS. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
  24. "Die 25 Frauen, deren Erfindungen unser Leben verändern". EDITION F (in German). 2017-06-12. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
  25. "Editors for Microbiology and Infectious Disease". eLife. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
  26. "PLOS Genetics: A Peer-Reviewed Open-Access Journal". journals.plos.org. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
  27. "Molecular Microbiology". Wiley Online Library. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
  28. "PLOS Biology: A Peer-Reviewed Open-Access Journal". journals.plos.org. Retrieved 2020-09-24.
  29. "SNSF Research Council: nine new members elected - SNF". www.snf.ch. Retrieved 2020-10-07.
  30. "Members of the Research Council - SNF". www.snf.ch. Retrieved 2020-10-07.
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