Cell scientist to watch – Jacky Goetz
2017
Journal of Cell Science
graduated in pharmacology and cell biology from the University of Strasbourg in France and moved to Canada to the laboratory of Ivan Robert Nabi at the University of Montreal and later the University of British Columbia, to work on the interaction between the endoplasmic reticulum and mitochondria, as well as the glycosylation of membrane proteins. In 2007, he received his PhD from both the University of Montreal and the University of Strasbourg. For his postdoc, Jacky moved to the Spanish
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... nal centre for cardiovascular research (CNIC) in Madrid and the laboratory of Miguel Angel del Pozo to study the tumour microenvironment. Subsequently, Jacky joined the laboratory of Julien Vermot at the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology (IGBMC) in Strasbourg to pursue his interests in mechanotransduction. In 2012, he won the French Society for Cell Biology (SBCF) Young Scientist Award and, in 2013, he started his own research group -'Tumor Biomechanics'in Strasbourg to work on intravital imaging methods and biomechanical forces during tumour progression. What inspired you to become a scientist? I don't think I was 'meant' to become a scientist, unlike others. My two siblings and I grew up in the countryside in very modest surroundingsmy dad was a car mechanic and my mum raised the three of us. Science was never a topic, I only cared about football. But things changed when my biology teacher showed us the 3D structure of proteins. I was 16 years old, absolutely fascinated and this was the beginning of my interest in science and, particularly, imaging approaches. "...I [...] love to communicate scienceto give seminars, and to talk about our discoveries in the lab." What motivates you now? My scientific interest lies in observing and unravelling unexpected features of biology and, in particular, of metastasis formation. For quite some time I have been fascinated by the mechanism of metastasis and I like to study it in vivo at a high spatiotemporal resolution. But I also love to communicate scienceto give seminars, and to talk about our discoveries in the lab. Another aspect that motivates me is that I see science as an art. We all have our own way to think about and design our experiments, to analyse the results and to assemble figures, which is actually one of the things I enjoy the most. What questions are your lab trying to answer just now? Our research approaches are divided into three main axes. First, we develop pioneering imaging approaches, such as intravital correlative light and electron microscopy (CLEM). We work on this in the zebrafish and mouse in collaboration with Yannick Schwab (EMBL, Heidelberg); the idea is to visualise and record the dynamics of an event within living tissue, and then go back to this tissue once it is embedded in resin to perform electron microscopy, which allows for a really high resolution. The second approach is to apply our interest in mechanobiology to tumour progression. We want to know to what extent biomechanical forces actually do contribute to the mechanism of tumour metastasis formation. Together with Sébastian Harlepp (IPCMS, Strasbourg)who does optical tweezer experimentswe are able to measure forces in living zebrafish embryos. Our third approach is to understand how tumour cells secrete exosomes and prime metastatic niches. We apply CLEM, but also next-generation sequencing to these extracellular vesicles, to work out how exosomes are capable of priming these niches at a distance from the primary tumour.
doi:10.1242/jcs.205518
fatcat:zqohzf3udjczzdnekjpjs7d3ku