Herguedas' lab

Structural Biology of neuronal membrane receptors

Welcome to the Herguedas' lab!

We are a structural biology and biophysics group located at BIFI institute in the University of Zaragoza established in June 2020. 

We are interested in understanding membrane proteins at the atomic level, combining protein biochemistry, biophysics and structural biology techniques.

Together with 3 research groups at BIFI we recently created Neuromol (now Neurobiosys!), a group of biophysicists, structural biologists and cell biologists interested in the characterization of proteins involved in neurodegenerative diseases. For more information please visit the Neuromol site.

"Ramón y Cajal" program  (Fondo Social Europeo, Agencia Estatal de Investigación).  RYC2018-025720-I

"Proyectos I+D+I" (Agencia Estatal de Investigación) PI Beatriz Herguedas PID2019-106284GA-I00

"Proyectos Generación de conocimiento" (Agencia Estatal de investigación") PID2022-140185NB-I00 

NEWS

Biophysics Festival in Covilha (09/05/2024)

Irene and Beatriz attended the Biophysics Festival organised by the Portuguese Young Biophysicists  in Covilha (Portugal) 

Our contribution to Science Dissemination in Heraldo de Aragón (12/03/2024)

We wrote about the potential of Electron Cryo- microscopy in the "Tercer Milenio" section of Heraldo de Aragon. 

HA_20240312_Criomicroscopia (1).pdf

International Day for Women and Girls in Science (02/2024)

Beatriz participated again in the TV program "Buenos días Aragón" to celebrate the international day for women in Science 

Irene Sánchez got a PhD Fellowship from DGA (01/01/2024)

We are extremely happy to announce that Irene Sánchez Valls, who was the first person to join the  lab, just got a PhD fellowship from DGA. She ensured her funding to continue with her doctoral studies. Congrats!

We got more funding!! (18/07/2023)

We are extremely happy to announce that the Spanish Research Agency just funded our proposal for the next 3 years.  

Our project will help us to continue looking into the structural biology of Glutamate Receptors and also get insights into the regulation of neuronal membrane enzymes

Ieva and Victoria's leaving lunch (28/06/23)

Ieva is coming back to Lithuania after her Erasmus + in our lab, where she cloned 4 new genes and learned molecular biology and protein purification techniques

Victoria just finished her degree in the lab, she did an excellent and complex project, she generated and characterised at least 8 mutants, and we have now an optimised protocol for crosslinking

Best of luck in the future!

Welcome to Ieva  Nekrošiūtė (09/01/2023)  

Ieva, from Vilnius University, will expend the next 6 months in the lab, as part of the Erasmus + Traineeship program. 

Learning Neuroscience with Jake Watson (13/10/2022)

In the middle of the "fiestas del Pilar" Jake Watson, now a postdoc at Peter Jonas Group, visited us and talk us about his research on neuronal circuits using patch clamp.

We had the opportunity to show him Zaragoza and enjoy the Pilares a lot 

Cryo-EM meeting in Madrid- 2nd edition (30/09/2022)

On 30th September 2022 we participated in a new edition of the cryo-EM workshop in Madrid, together with Ernesto Arias, Rafael Fernández Leiro and Javier García's groups. Great discussions about sample preparation with Rafa Nuñez, processing with Rafa Leiro, and beautiful structures from all the labs!


SEBBM 2022 CONFERENCE (06/09/2022)


Carlos is presenting his PhD work at the SEBBM conference in Malaga 


New summer student! (04/07/2022)- Victoria Ribón Fuster

Victoria Ribón Fuster, who is studyng the Degree in Biotechnology at Unizar, will stay in the lab for the next four weeks to focus on the cloning of different GluA4 mutants 

New summer student! (13/06/2022)- María de Sancha Maluenda

María de Sancha Maluenda, who is studyng the Degree in Biology at Universidad Complutense, will stay in the lab for the next six weeks to focus on the characterization of gria3 mutants involved in disease. 

Seminar at Centre for Cryo-electron Microscopy of Membrane Proteins (Melbourne, Australia)


On June 6th I presented the structural work on AMPA receptor heterotetramers in complex with TARP8 published recently in Nature Comms.

Video available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoZ5Zk5NrfY&t=14s




We are looking for graduates with Master's degree to join the lab in Autumn 2022

We are looking for graduates with:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pTxaPqCVsYe16K34V-G6s2-CMs5uv4IyHwZUmMl4p3U/edit


New publication (08/02/2022)

Beatriz´s last work at Ingo Greger's lab on AMPAR interactions with TARP-gamma8 in different functional states was finally published in Nature Communications. Together with Bianka Kohegyi we determined the cryo-EM structures of GluA1/2/G8 complex trapped in the open and desensitized states, and combined it with electrophysiology and MD simulations.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-28404-7


 Cryo-EM workshop in Zaragoza (19/11/2021)

On 19/11/2021 we organized a meeting together with Ernesto Arias, Rafa Fernández Leiro and Javier García Nafría's group  in Zaragoza, where we shared our experiences from cloning to grid preparation and data processing. 

The Institute for Biocomputation and Physics of Complex Systems (BIFI) is a Research Institute of the University of Zaragoza. The institute currently has 4 research areas : Biochemistry and molecular and cell biology; Biophysics; Computation and Physics.  

The Advanced Microscopy  Laboratory located at the same building as BIFI, provide us with the equipment to prepare cryo-EM grids and perform preliminary data collection


Neuromol Seminar 

The 6th of June we had a general rehearsal of the presentations of the final research projects performed in the different groups in Neuromol in 2020/2021. Good luck to Irene and Laura in your presentations!