September 1, 2019
Sveinn starts on his PhD journey.
News
April 8th, 2025
Pétur gives seminar at the Junior ISBUC lunch talk. Thanks for the invitation!
March 1st, 2025
Upasana joins us as a postdoctoral researcher. She comes from Washington University in St. Louis, where she completed her PhD with Andrea Soranno and Gregory Bowman. She will work on pluripotency factors using both single-molecule techniques and computational approaches, in collaboration with Kresten Lindorff-Larsen. Welcome, Upasana!
February 1st, 2025
Mads and Frida start their project work in the group, Mads on his MSc project focusing on SuperSox and Frida on her BSc project focusing on Sox2 conserved IDR residues. Welcome, Mads and Frida!
December 12th, 2024
The Carlsberg Foundation has approved our application for Research Infrastructure, funding our purchase of the newest and most advanced single-molecule microscope on the market, the Luminosa from PicoQuant. Installation is expected to happen in June 2025!
October 1st, 2024
Jens Nicolai gets a new role and Aida Curovic joins the lab, at UCPH. Jens Nicolai continues on his project with transcription factors Sox2 and Nanog but now as a PhD student, and Aida joins our team as Laboratory technician. Congrats on the new role, Jens, and welcome Aida!
September 30, 2024
Hafrún completes her BSc project, congratulations Hafrún!
September 25th, 2024
Pétur was a speaker at a COST smFRET Workshop in Lisbon, Portugal. Great discussions with the community about the future of smFRET science.
September 13th, 2024
The FLEX fluorescence microscope from Exciting Instruments was installed in the lab at UCPH. Thank you Mahmoud and Rob for coming over, we look forward to the “exciting” science we´ll do with the microscope!
September 11th, 2024
Kjartan successfully defends his MSc thesis. Congratulations, Kjartan!
September 1st, 2024
Pétur joins the University of Copenhagen as Associate Professor of Biochemistry. The research laboratory will be at the UCPH Biocenter with the Section for Biomolecular Sciences, Department of Biology, and affiliated with several groups and initiatives such as the Structural Biology and NMR Laboratory (SBiNLab), Protein Biology Group (PBG), the Linderstrøm-Lang Centre for Protein Science, and Integrative Structural Biology at UCPH (ISBUC). Pétur will also continue to be affiliated with the University of Iceland.
July 1st, 2024
Pétur is promoted to full professor!
June 1st, 2024
Pétur gets the annual Innovation and leadership award, along with other ERC grantees, from the University of Iceland.
June 1st, 2024
Grant news! Kiddi gets a project grant from the Icelandic Cancer Society and Mahtab gets a PhD grant from the University of Iceland Eimskipasjóður. Congratulations, Kiddi and Mahtab!
June 1st, 2024
Hafrún Hákonardóttir joins the group for a BSc project studying FoxA1 cancer variants. Welcome, Hafrún!
June 1st, 2024
Ásdís completes her BSc project on neuronal pioneer factor Ascl1. Congratulations, Ásdís!
May 31st, 2024
Sveinn defended his PhD thesis on Sox2, with opponents Sebastian Deindl (Uppsala) and Sarah Shammas (Oxford). Congratulations, Sveinn!
Both Sebastian and Sarah had fantastic talks the day before the defense. It was a pleasure to have them visit.
May 8th, 2024
Kinga defended her MSc thesis entitled “Designing and reconstructing chromatin landscapes in vitro for single-molecule fluorescence studies”. Examiner was Dr. Linda Viðarsdóttir. Congratulations, Kinga!
March 1st, 2024
Shrutarshi Mitra joins our group as a postdoctoral researcher. He will be working on basic helix-loop-helix transcription factors. Welcome, Shrutarshi!
February 9-15, 2024
Pétur travelled to Philadelphia and presented our research both at the Biophysical Society Annual Meeting and at the Penn Institute for Regenerative medicine, where he caught up with the Zaret group.
February 16th, 2024
Our paper on pioneer factor Sox2 was published in Nature Communications, see here. Congratulations Sveinn and Kinga!
September 28th, 2023
Sigga, Sveinn, Kiddi, and Pétur travelled to Denmark to take part in the REPIN expert meeting. Two days filled with exciting science, great people, swimming in the cold ocean at 7 am, and dinosaur history.
September 22nd, 2023
Professor Kenneth Zaret from the University of Pennsylvania visited us. He gave a fantastic talk on cell fate decisions as part of the GPMLS seminar series and spent the afternoon with our group discussing pioneer transcription factors. We look forward to our continuing collaborations with Ken!
August 31st, 2023
We say farewell to Matti, who joins the group of Ben Schuler for his PhD studies, and Andrea who moves on to new adventures. Good luck, Matti and Andrea!
We welcome two new team members: Jens Nicolai will be doing his PhD studies working on Sox2 and Niclas Ritter is an Erasmus exchange student who will work on the HMG proteins. Welcome, Jens and Niclas!
August 22nd, 2023
The group had a retreat in Bláskógabyggð. Two days of talking science, hiking, good food, and swimming in Laugarvatn lake followed by sauna!
July 31st, 2023
Matti, Kateryna, Sveinn, and Pétur attended the EBSA congress in Stockholm. Posters were presented and Pétur chaired the Protein Dynamics session with Prof. Mikael Akke from Lund. Fantastic meeting!
July 10th, 2023
We had the pleasure of an unexpected visit from Professor Ben Schuler and he gave us an amazing talk on the latest results from his lab. Thanks for the visit, Ben!
July 17th, 2023
Kjartan travels to Ken Zaret’s group on Philadelphia for his exchange studies. Good luck, Kjartan!
July 7th, 2023
Sveinn wins Best poster flash talk award at the COST conference “Non-globular proteins in the era of machine learning”. Congratulations, Sveinn!
July 5th, 2023
Our collaboration with Ciro Cecconi, Serena Carra, and Sander Tans on Hspb8 has been published in JACS, see here.
June 26th, 2023
A preprint describing our work with Sox2 is now on BioRxiv. You can read it here.
June 26th, 2023
This great group has graduated from our lab! Our Bsc students; Elísa, Ester, Magnús, and Mariya, and the first Msc student graduating from our lab, Matti.
Congratulations to all of you, we wish you all the best in the future!
June 26th, 2023
The Icelandic Cancer Society has funded the continuation of our work with MITF, to understand its intrinsically disordered regions. Find out more about it here.
May 12th, 2023
We of course participated in School of Engineering and Natural Sciences yearly cleaning competition!
This year we didn’t win the trophy but we sure did have a lot of fun! Go team yellow!
January 25th, 2023
The lab received a generous grant from Rannís to continue mapping the molecular mechanism of chromatin opening by Ascl1.
March 6th, 2023
Andrea Guala joins our lab, welcome!
He will be starting as a research assistant before starting his PhD journey working with Ascl1.
January 6th, 2023
We Kickstart the new year by welcoming our new BSc. students this semester; Elísa Sól Oddgeirsdóttir, Ester Borgarsdóttir, Magnús Arnar Rúnarsson, and Mariya Petrova Monova.
Elísa will be working alongside Mahtab to characterize the potential interactions between HMG-A and DNA using single-molecule FRET (sm-FRET). Magnús’s research focuses on FoxA1, its oncogenic mutations, and their effects on biophysical properties with Kristinn.
Ester will take on the histone expression, purification, and octamer assembly with Kinga and focuses on setting up a streamlined octamer production in our lab. Last, but not least, Mariya will be focusing on creating nucleosome arrays to study the binding of PU1 to larger chromatin structures using sm-FRET with guidance from Sigríður.
We wish them all the best for their projects!
November 2nd, 2022
We are hiring!
The Department of Biochemistry, University of Iceland, invites applications for a research position in molecular biosciences towards a PhD degree. This project, which is funded with a grant from the European Research Council (ERC), is a multi-national collaboration with research groups in Europe, USA, and Australia, and offers the candidate a possibility for short research visits abroad. The work will mainly take place in the newly established Protein Science Core facility in Askja- Building of Natural Sciences, a research unit within the Science Institute, located in the heart of the Science Gardens in Reykjavík.
Further description and application can be found here.
September 27th, 2022
Heidarsson´s Research lab has received a grant for 1.5 million Euros, or over 200 million Icelandic kr, from the European Research Council (ERC) for a research project aiming at better understanding the predominant factors in cellular reprogramming mechanisms. Read more about it here.
September 1st, 2022
Hanna and Laura start their Bsc. projects, which is in collaboration with the SBiNLab at the University of Copenhagen.
June 25th, 2022
Dagur and Kjartan graduated, now BSc in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry. Congratulations!
October 28th, 2021
Kristinn Ragnar (Kiddi) was awarded a grant from Göngum Saman Cancer awareness fund, a total of 3 million ISK, for studying pioneer factors involved in cancer. Congratulations, Kiddi!
October 1st, 2021
Kateryna joins the group as a postdoctoral researcher, for working on interactions between disordered proteins and chromatin. Welcome, Kateryna!
September 24, 2021
Sveinn had an awesome talk about his PhD project at the Spekigleði event organized by the Graduate School in Molecular Life Sciences.
September 1-2, 2021
Sveinn, Sigga, and Pétur attended the REPIN retreat where both Sveinn and Sigga presented their work in posters and Sveinn had a great talk on Sox2. Great to spend time with colleagues in a beautiful setting north of Copenhagen, and to see all the exciting work being done in this consortium!
See more on REPIN here.
August 24th, 2021
Dagur and Kjartan both finished their summer projects and continue in the group for their BSc research, working on pioneer transcription factors!
July 30th, 2021
Our chapter about molecular disorder on a nucleosomal landscape is online! Congratulations to Sveinn and Sarah who worked with Jordan McIvor and Davide Mercadante in a cross-global collaboration. See the paper here.
June 19th, 2021
Matti and Kinga graduated. Matti has now BSc in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry and Kinga finished her second BSc. Congratulations to both of you!
June 2nd, 2021
Dagur starts his summer internship in the group, welcome Dagur!
June 2-3rd, 2021
Sveinn and Sigga presented their results on pioneer factors at the Biomedical and Health Sciences Conference!
May 21st, 2021
The Icelandic Cancer Society awards us a project grant to understand the role of IDRs and phosphorylations in the transcription factor MITF, in collaboration with the group of Eiríkur Steingrímsson. Read the full announcement here (in Icelandic).
March 31st, 2021
Sarah leaves us for her next career steps after a very productive 7 months! Good luck in your future research, Sarah!
February 1st, 2021
Hrafnhildur completes her BSc project on NCS-1 with a thesis full of single-molecule FRET results! All the best for your future science!
January 15, 2021
The new year starts well with a generous project grant from Rannís, which funds our research into extremely disordered transcription factors. Congratulations everyone!
December 1, 2020
The group has fully relocated to our new home in Askja- Building of Natural Sciences, in the heart of Biotech in Vatnsmýri. We now enjoy a brand new facility with state-of-the-art instruments, great Molecular Biology neighbours, and all topped with a view of downtown Reykjavík, Harpa music-house, and Mount Esja!
November 15, 2020
Mahtab joins the group as a research assistant. Welcome, Mahtab!
September 25, 2020
Kinga completes her NSN funded project with style. Congratulations, Kinga!
September 1, 2020
Sarah joins us as a research assistant. Welcome Sarah!
August 24, 2020
Hrafnhildur joins the group for a BSc project. Welcome, Hrafnhildur!
August 4, 2020
Sigga starts her PhD project, funded by a University of Iceland doctoral scholarship. Welcome, Sigga!
July 27, 2020
MicroTime 200 waits patiently for installation in Askja.
June 2, 2020
Welcome to Kinga and Matthías, who will be working with us this summer!
May 12, 2020
New Agilent 1260 Infinity II HPLC instrument is installed.
January 6, 2020
Dagur and Einar start their BSc projects.