Welcome to the Collagen Café!

To share the pleasure of collagen research with our colleagues. To build the international collagen research community. To hear fresh voices. Expect 2-3 Cafés per year. Please email adr@dal.ca to recommend future talks, or to volunteer for one.  


Registration (free and eternal until you ask): https://forms.gle/pakcJrYVmYHX6vg36

Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85167468654


Organizers:

Andrew Rutenberg (Dalhousie University)

Laurent Kreplak (Dalhousie University)


The 9th Collagen Café (Thursday April 25, 2024)

(zoom pre-opens at 1:45pm for testing, naming, and socializing)

starting at 2pm (ADT Halifax NS Canada time) 


2:00: Welcome + land acknowledgement + intro


2:05: (20min+10 Q&A) Markus Buehler (MIT) http://lamm.mit.edu

        “Artificial Intelligence Driven Modeling and Discovery of Structural Proteins”


2:35: (20+10) Marie-Claire Schanne-Klein (IP Paris) webpage 

        “Collagen structural imaging 

                using polarization-resolved and circular dichroism SHG microscopies”


3:05: (10+5) Joseph Deering (McGill, group of Marc McKee) webpage  

        "Fiber-oriented growth of biomineral in collagenous tissues"


3:20: (10+5) Ted Lownie (SMU, group of Sam Veres) www.vereslab.com

        “Developmental divergence of tendon”


3:35+ open discussion

EDI principles: While this Collagen Café is about developing our community and exploring research ideas, it is also about supporting, training, and offering ethical leadership for trainees and early-career researchers. We want to be visible leaders in our efforts for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) in this Café and more generally.  We encourage trainees to actively participate in the Café; we promote underrepresented groups within STEM, including women and visible minorities at all career levels; and we recognize the continuing debts we owe to the peoples historically displaced by our institutions and our homes.

Zoom etiquette: 

•    Use chat to ask questions during talks. “Raise your hand” (see participants in Zoom) to ask questions after talks (remember to unmute when you are called). Please mute otherwise. Please keep your video on if possible to give all speakers an engaged audience.

•    Rename yourself in the style of “Jo Smith (University)” (see participants & more in Zoom). You can share other information (pronouns etc.) if you would like to, of course.

•    Each talk has a duration and a discussion period.   We encourage all speakers to use headsets and to test audio before their talk. All speakers will share their own slides over Zoom.

•    In the event of technical issues that cannot be immediately resolved, we will go to the next speaker. If needed, dropped speakers can email slides to the organizers and phone into the meeting. We will try again after the next speaker has finished.

History of the Collagen Café


CC8: Nov 2023

    Melinda Duer (Cambridge) http://www.ch.cam.ac.uk/group/duer/

       “Studies of collagen molecular structure and dynamics in health and disease”

    Chris McCulloch (UofToronto) webpage 

          “Role of Fibrillar Collagen Receptors in Cell-Matrix Signaling”

    Maxime Vassaux (Rennes) webpage 

          “Heterogeneous structure and dynamics of water of an hydrated collagen microfibril”

    Clara Sacristán (Madrid) (group of Ricardo Garcia)

          “Imaging the self-assembly of collagen nanofibers by high-speed AFM”

CC7: March 2023:

        Dr. Joan Chang (Manchester, UK) https://www.wellcome-matrix.org/people/joan-chang/

                                 "Circadian regulation of collagen homeostasis"

        Prof. Jennifer Puetzer (VCU, Virginia USA) http://www.puetzerlab.com 

                                 "Driving Hierarchical Collagen Fiber Formation for Functional Musculoskeletal Replacement and Repair"

        Dr. Giulia Giubertoni (UvA, Netherlands) https://www.uva.nl/en/profile/g/i/g.giubertoni/g.giubertoni.html

                                  "Water mediates collagen-collagen interactions tuning collagen properties across all length scales"

CC6: Oct 2022:

Ricardo García (CSIC, Spain) https://wp.icmm.csic.es/forcetool/

               "High-speed nanomechanical mapping of the early stages of collagen growth by bimodal force microscopy"

Liza-Anastasia DiCecco (McMaster) https://kgrandfield.mcmaster.ca                

               Using Novel Liquid Electron Microscopy Techniques to Explore Collagen Mineralization"

Markus Kurth (Heidelberg) https://www.h-its.org/research/mbm/  

                  "A role for dihydroxyphenylalanine (DOPA) as a marker of mechanical stress and radical scavenger in tendon collagen"

 Max Renner-Rao (McGill) https://www.mcgill.ca/chemistry/faculty/matthew-j-harrington 

                                    "Directed assembly of liquid crystal tactoids in mussel byssus"

CC5: June 2022:

Peter Fratzl (Max Planck Colloids&Interfaces, Potsdam) “Chemical stress generation in collagen fibrils” 

https://www.mpikg.mpg.de/biomaterials/director/peter-fratzl

Dr. Hessam Yaghoobi (Dalhousie) "Tendon-like collagen fibres produced by multi-pin contact drawing"

(group of John Frampton  https://www.framptonlab.com/)

Marc McKee (McGill)  “The Stenciling Principle for extracellular matrix mineralization, 

    and crossfibrillar mineral tessellation in bone”https://www.mcgill.ca/dentistry/marc-d-mckee

CC4: Nov 2021: 

Natalie Reznikov (McGill) "3D collagen organization in bone" 

            https://www.mcgill.ca/bioengineering/people-0/faculty/natalie-reznikov

Benedikt Rennekamp (HITS/Heidelberg) "Where does tendon collagen break?"
                               (group of Frauke Gräter https://www.h-its.org/people/prof-dr-frauke-grater/)  

Himadri Gupta (QMUL (UK)) "Nanoscale deformation of collagen in cartilage and bone" 

            https://www.sems.qmul.ac.uk/staff/h.gupta        

CC3: May 2021: 

Frauke Gräter (Heidelberg)  “A radical tale: Collagen as a buffer of mechanical and oxidative stress.” 

 Luke Bennink (3Helix, Utah USA) “Applications of Collagen Hybridizing Peptides” 

Laurent Bozec (UofT) “Quantitative nanohistology of collagen in connective tissues” 

CC2: Nov 2020

  Matthew Harrington (McGill) pH-responsive liquid crystalline collagen guides tough fiber formation by mussels

  Alaa Al-Shaer (SFU) Sequence-dependent analysis of collagens 

  Matthew Leighton (Dal/SFU) Structural phase transitions in compressed double-twist elastomers             

Dennis Discher (UPenn)  'Use it or lose it' mechano-biology of fibers and filaments

CC1: July 2020

Nancy Forde SFU "Single-molecule investigations of collagen mechanics: towards a sequence-based understanding"

Kelsey Gsell Dal

        “How are collagen fibrils from functionally distinct tendons degraded by MMP-1, and is this influenced  by mechanical strain?”

Danielle Tokarz SMU "Polarization-Resolved Second Harmonic Generation (SHG) Microscopy of Collagen Fibrils"

Matthew Leighton Dal "Nonequilibrium growth of cross-linked collagen fibrils" 

Sam Baldwin Dal "Contact drawn collagen fibers: Advancements on a new approach to high throughput nanoscale fabrication."

Brendan Grue "The current state of collagen biomineralization"

Duane Harland and Santanu Deb-choudhury AgResearch "Keratin and collagen, a winning combination"

Sai Velamoor AgResearch     "High-pressure cryofixation followed by freeze substitution for TEM of wool follicles"

Marina Richena AgResearch 

                    "Corelating ultrastructure and chemical properties in wool fibres using TEM and synchrotron ATR-IR mapping"