Mission of Science and Training in the COSI Network

COSI investigates environmentally triggered phosphorylation events and calcium signalling in the regulation of chloroplast metabolism and aims at identifying regulatory factors responsible for the coordination of cellular and chloroplast metabolism. The regulation of chloroplast function within the metabolic network of the cell will be studied in an integrated working programme, composed of five working packages (WPs) as illustrated in the figure below. These WPs cover proteomic and genetic approaches to identify involved components (i.e. protein kinases or phosphatases) in WP1 and WP2; Metabolomic and physiologic studies to analyse stress adaptation processes in WP3 and WP4; and finally cell biological techniques for live cell imaging of calcium signalling in WP5.

The integrated systematic training program of COSI is comprised of two methodological workshops (MW1 and MW2), and two complementary skills work shops (CW1 and CW2), accompanied by visits to partner laboratories. The methodological workshops will cover Bio-Imaging and Functional Genomics (MW1, LMU Munich) and Mass Spectrometry & Phosphoproteomics (MW2, Turku & Vienna). The complementary sift-skill workshops (CW1 and CW2) will provide professional training in presentation techniques, grant writing and related topics (CW1, Vienna), and also in industry-relevant skills, provided Bayer BioScience in Gent (CW2). The gained expert knowledge of different state-of-the-art research techniques is applicable to a wide range of biological problems and generates an expertise, which can be transferred to many other fields in life sciences, genomics and biotechnology.

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