A Report on the 3rd PEPPERSchool

CONFERENCE REPORT
3rd PEPPERSchool
in person event, 7 -11th October 2024.



The third edition of the international thematic school Peptide and Protein Engineering: from Concepts to Biotechnological Applications (PEPPERSchool) was held from the 7th to the 11th of October 2024 in Costa da Caparica Portugal, with the support of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS).

This international thematic school brings together chemists and biologists interested in engineering peptides and proteins endowed with tailored functionalities and useful for solving current societal challenges in the areas of Health, Energy and Environment. The first edition was organized at Carry-le-Rouet (France) from the 14th to the 18th of May in 2018. The school was a successful event and underlined the need of the scientific and educational community for this type of multidisciplinary teaching at the interface of chemistry and biology. This success motivated us to organize the second edition in 2021 as a virtual event (https://eventos.fct.unl.pt/pepper_school/pages/home), and now the third edition (https://eventos.fct.unl.pt/pepperschool_2024/). The school was focused on teaching the basics of the field with special emphasis on methodologies that can be easily developed and adapted in all laboratories and addressed important axes that were not covered in the previous editions, such as “Predicting protein structure with AI tools” and practical sessions on Alpha Fold and in silico simulation. During the school we learned that the Nobel Prize of Chemistry 2024 was awarded to David Baker “for computational protein design”, Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper “for protein structure prediction”. Therefore, the effort of the organizers to include a hands-on session on AlphaFold could not be more relevant and timelier.

This thematic school gathered close to 40 participants coming from different countries (Austria, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Singapore, Denmark, Germany) and from which 58% and 42% were females and males, respectively. PhD students and postdoctoral researchers represented 60% of the total participants.

The organizing committee in Portugal was composed by Dr. Margarida Dias, Dr. Arménio Barbosa and Prof. Ana Cecilia Roque, two PhD students – Cátia Soares and Carolina Natal, as well as supporting staff – Bárbara Diogo (UCIBIO, NOVA School of Science and Technology (NOVA-FCT), Portugal). The French committee was composed by Dr. Oleg Melnyk (CIIL UMR 8204 CNRS, University of Lille, France); Dr. Olga Iranzo and Dr. Pierre Rousselot-Pailley (Institut des Sciences Moléculaires de Marseille (iSm2) UMR 7313 CNRS, Aix-Marseille Université, France).

The school program included different lectures and practical sessions given by national and international experts in the field: Prof. Ali Miserez (University of Singapore, Singapore); Dr. Oleg Melnyk; Dr. Margarida Dias (UCIBIO, NOVA-FCT, Portugal); Dr. Birgit Wiltschi (Austrian Centre of Industrial Biotechnology – ACIB GmbH, Graz, Austria); Prof. Omar Boutureira (Universitat Rovira I Virgili, Tarragona, Spain); Prof. Ylva Ivarsson (Upsalla University, Sweden); Prof. Birth B. Kragelund (University of Copenhagen, Denmark); Prof. Hartmut Luecke (NOVA-FCT, Portugal); Dr. Arménio Barbosa (UCIBIO, NOVA-FCT, Portugal).

Importantly, the school also included a Contest for PhD students and Postdoctoral researchers led by Dr. Oleg Melnyk, Dr. Birgit Wiltschi and Prof. Omar Boutureira. Basically, the participants were faced with an actual research problem and had to present their strategy/approach to solve it on the last day of the school. The first (Cátia Soares, Bruno Ribeiro, Mylène Lang, Maeva Cunha and Eduardo Almeida) and second (Afonso Eva, Aurélie Dupriez, Yadira Hervis, Hakan Onur) winning teams were awarded with a copy the book – Peptide and Protein Engineering for Biotechnological and Therapeutic Applications (World Scientific) and a 3D printed model of an amino acid, respectively.

The PhD students and Postdocs had also the opportunity to share their work through a Flash Presentation and a Poster session. The jury, composed by Prof. Ali Miserez, Prof. Birth B. Kragelund, Prof. Ylva Ivarsson and Dr. Olga Iranzo, gave Best Poster Awards (monetary prize sponsored by Laborders – Portugal) to the students Andrea Calderón (University of Aveiro, Portugal) and Chiara Bottoni (Università degli Studi di Parma, Italy). In addition, the jury highlighted the excellent work of Alexis Dziedziech, Catarina Faustino, Elliot Roy Lucille Rouilly, Maeve Cunha and Carolina Natal.

The pedagogical, interdisciplinary, interactive and high-level scientific program, combined with the expertise of the lecturers, made this school a great success, as testified by the very positive feedback received from participants.

The organizing committee would like to thank the CNRS, European Peptide Society, Groupe Français des Peptides et Protéines, Sociedade Portuguesa de Química, Royal Society of Chemistry , Enzymatic, Laborspirit and LabOrders, Agilebio and NOVA.ID FCT for their financial support;  the Institute of Microbiology, Bioenergies and Biotechnology of Aix-Marseille Université for giving grants to cover the registration fees of PhD students and postdoctoral researchers, as well as to our coffee-break sponsors – Pasteis de Belém and Paladin. World Scientific Publishers are acknowledged for providing the books for the Contest awards.

The organization Committee,

Dr. Margarida Dias (NOVA School of Science and Technology, Portugal)

Dr. Olga Iranzo (iSm2 UMR CNRS 7313, Aix-Marseille Université, France)