CONFERENCE REPORT
Noncanonical amino acids (NcAAs):
Tools for biological and biophysical investigations (2nd edition)
Paris, France, 14–15 October 2024.
This two‐day international symposium focused on the ever-increasing use of non-canonical Amino Acids (ncAAs) in peptide and protein science. This event, co-organized by Sorbonne Université, CY Cergy Paris Université, and the French Group of Peptides and Proteins (GFPP), brought together about 100 attendees – chemists, biochemists, biologists and biophysicists – involved in the development of new technologies using ncAAs and their applications to biological questions. Students, researchers, professors and engineers came from 12 different countries, in Europe but also from USA or Brazil.
The program covered a wide range of topics ranging from synthetic methodologies to applications in biology and biophysics. This included methodological developments in chemical ligation of peptides, cell-free expression, aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase engineering, as well as applications in the field of chemical biology, medicinal chemistry or biophysics.
37 posters and 18 oral presentations were shared, among which 5 guest lectures by leaders in their fields. The opening talk “Why these 20 amino acids and could life function with a different set?” was presented by Klara Hlouchova. She is assistant professor and group leader in the department of cell biology of Charles University in Prague (Czech Republic). Later during the first day, Beate Koksch, professor of organic and natural product chemistry at the Freie University in Berlin (Germany), enlightened the participants on the construction and degradation of fluorinated biopolymers. Next, Jason Chin explained to the audience how he reprograms the genetic code. He is head of the Centre for Chemical & Synthetic Biology (CCSB) and a Program Manager at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC-LMB) in Cambridge (United Kingdom). The next day, Norbert Sewald, professor of organic, bioorganic chemistry, and chemical biology at the Bielefeld University (Germany), presented a methodology for late-stage peptide diversification and protein modification using enzymatic halogenation. Finally, the closing lecture on “Sugars and Proteins” was delivered by Ben Davis, professor at the University of Oxford (United Kingdom).
These communications and the scientific exchanges that followed were enthusiastically received. They also provided new networking opportunities and allowed young researchers to present their work during the poster session and discuss their research issues with each other as well as with established researchers in the field.
The scientific committee included Prof. Gregory Chaume (CYU), Dr. Maud Larregola (CYU), Prof. Olivier Lequin (SU), Prof. Emeric Miclet (SU), Dr. Pierre Milbeo (CYU), and Dr. Chiara Zanato (CYU).
The organizing committee extends its gratitude to the logistic team at Les Cordeliers as well as the students who helped during the event: Leiman Pan, Ashmi Rodrigues, Sarah Medhi, Marine Pietri, Lorenzo Meneghelli and Anthony Gineste. Special thanks go to Nadia Hbali, Oleg Melnyk and Frederic Bihel whose contributions were essential to the success of the event.
The organizers also thank their academic and association partners: Chemistry Department of Sorbonne Université, CY Advanced Studies, the 4EU+ European Alliance, CY PeptLab, GFPP, EPS, SCF-IDF, and SCF- DCO, as well as their industrial sponsors: Iris Biotech, Gyros Protein, Aralez Bio, SiChem, Eurisotop, and K-Pharma, for their generous financial support.
The NCAAs 2024 organising committee