Collegio Alessandro Volta | University of Pavia | www.collegiovolta.org

The Division of the University in charge of Technology Transfer and Public Engagement (Terza Missione) has secured funding for 41 summer internships for 2016.  Interns will receive a basic salary and will work in high-tech companies active in computer, physical and biotech sciences in the Boston areas.  Undegraduate, MSc and PhD students are all eligible for applications.  College students interested in the scheme should contact directly This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. at the University Technology Transfer office in order to obtain further details and should do so without delay because the time available in order to finalise the scheme is very limited unfortunately.  Students in Engineering, Physical, Biological and Pharmaceutica Sciences are especially encouraged to consider this opportunity. 

Francesco Svelto, Deputy Chancellor for Technology Transfer at the University of Pavia and his colleagues Lucia Marazzi, Sofia Baggini and others have organised a series of meetings in which new high tech business meet College communities and illustrate the path to a successful high-tech copmpany.  The next event of this series will take place at Volta in the College lecture theatre on the 5th of April 2016 at 7.00 pm. followed by refreshments.  The poster of the event can be downloaded here.

This is an important series aimed at bridging the gap between academia and business and particulary significant and time in a country that displays a very high youth unemployment (approaching 40%) and extends to a large number of graduates both from the Humanities and the Sciences.

All College students are warmly invited to attend and participate in the event.

The sixth Arturo Falaschi lecture, an annual event organised by the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the National Research Council (CNR) will be given by Tomas R Lindahl in the College lecture theatre on the 24th of March 2016 at 11.00 am. The poster of the lecture can be downloaded here.

Tomas Robert Lindahl is a Swedish scientist who, after graduating in Medicine at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm became interested in the chemistry of DNA and DNA repair.  He discovered several pathways of DNA repair and demonstrated that DNA could be effectively repaired in the test tube in the presence of the key pathway components.  He also made fundamental contributions to the identification and characterisation of several DNA ligases and exonucleases.  He was director of the Clare Hall Laboratories of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now Cancer Research UK) at South Mimms from 1986 to 2005 and was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2015, the Royal Society's Royal Medal in 2007, the Copley Medal in 2010, and the INSERM Prix Etranger in 2009.

All College students are warmly invited to attend the lecture.

24 March 2016. 
T Lindahl, F Crick Institute, London.

The sixth Arturo Falaschi lecture will be given by Tomas R Lindahl in the College lecture theatre on the 24th of March at 11.00 am and is entitled: The Intrinsic Fragility of DNA. The lecture is organised on an annual basis by the Institute of Molecular Genetics in Pavia of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) and the sixth one has been co-organised with Collegio A Volta. The poster of the lecture can be downloaded here.

A number of agents in the cell cause continuous damage to DNA: water, reactive oxygen, S-adenosyl- methionine and a number of others. A large genome such the one of our species (3 x 10^9) accumulates each day thousands of DNA base changes due to hydrolysis, oxidation, methylation, etc.  A number of DNA repair systems have evolved in Nature that counteract this remarkable chemical fragility of the genetic material. These include processes such as base excision repair that are now understood to operate as well in somatic hypermutation and diversification of antibody gene.  Distinct pathways of DNA repair operate on bases that have undergone oxidative damage or methylation and these will also be discussed during the lecture as will the implications of inadequate repair for the development of cancer.

Tomas Robert Lindahl is the sixth Arturo Falaschi lecturer.  Born in Sweden on 28 January 1938 T Lindahl studied Medicine at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Shortly after his degree, however, T Lindahl shifted to basic research and specifically to the study of DNA stability and repair. Living cells have DNA molecules that carry an organism's genes. For the organism to live and develop, its DNA must remain stable but is not. From the mid 1970s, through studies of bacteria, Tomas Lindahl showed how certain protein molecules, repair enzymes, remove and replace damaged parts of DNA. These discoveries have increased our understanding of how the living cell works, the causes of cancer and aging processes. In  early studies he measured DNA decay, including rates of base loss and cytosine deamination and went on to discover several important DNA repair proteins and determined their mechanisms of action including uracil-DNA glycosylase an enzyme specialised in the repair of specific types of DNA damage and in subsequent studies T Lindahl and his colleagues were able to reconstitute entire DNA repair systems in the test tube. He further led work that resulted in the isolation and characterisation of a number of DNA ligases, including DNA ligases I, III and IV and exonucleases DNase III (TREX1) and IV (FEN1). Finally, he unveiled a special pathway involved in the processing of the mutagenic DNA adduct O6-methylguanine (O6mG) which he showed to be repaired without removal of the guanine from DNA and the unexpected activity of AlkB as an iron-dependent enzyme carrying out oxidative demethylation. T Lindahl was director of the Clare Hall Laboratories of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now Cancer Research UK) at South Mimms from 1986 to 2005. He was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2015, the Royal Society's Royal Medal in 2007, the Copley Medal in 2010, and the INSERM Prix Etranger in 2009.