
24th EMBL PhD Symposium
7-9th December, 2022
EMBL, Heidelberg and Virtual
The Spectra of Life
Dimensional breadth in biological research
The programme will be divided into four sessions, each catering to one specific biological scale.
From hostile desert conditions to ice cold waters - life can go to extreme measures to survive. How resilient are ecosystems? While we can pick and choose the environment in the lab, this only begins to explore the landscape of possible habitats that nature thrives in. |
The genetic code forms the basis of all the life we know. While the individual building blocks might seem simple to understand, putting them together at a large scale leads to a level of complexity that we are only starting to comprehend. With all interesting patterns of behavior emergent from the many routes of evolution and degrees of genetic variation, life shows complexity at every scale. |
Whether investigating quantum effects in biology or impact of unicellular organisms on whole ecosystems, how we describe living systems can scale from particles to biomes. Every layer of magnitude reveals new insights. Our understanding at all sizes matters. |
Biological processes take place from fast molecular reactions to slow evolutionary steps. From the formation of biomolecular condensates, transgenerational epigenetics, to the fitness landscapes over evolution – every time scale, is of the essence. |
Programme
Change is the only constant. This schedule too, is under constant updation.
Time |
Topic |
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09:00 - 11:30 | Registration at ATC and coffee |
11:30 - 11:45 | Introduction to Symposium Program by Organising Committee |
Session 1: Extremes |
11:45 - 12:30 | Ikram Blilou King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia Unlocking mysteries of the hidden half. |
12:30 - 13:30 | Lunch |
13:30 - 14:15 | EMBO Women in Science: Elizabeth Murchison University of Cambridge, United Kingdom Horizontal gene transfer in transmissible cancers. |
14:15 - 15:00 | Buzz Baum MRC LMB, United Kingdom The evolution of cell division: from archaea to eukaryotes |
15:00 - 15:30 | Coffee break & Sponsor exhibitions |
15:30 - 16:00 | Welcome Address: Edith Heard Director general, EMBL, Germany |
Session 2: Time |
|
16:00 - 16:45 | EMBO Young investigator Lecture: Jan Philipp Junker MDC, Germany Including temporal information in single-cell transcriptomics to identify mechanisms of heart regeneration. |
16:45 - 17:30 | Fyodor Kondrashov Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan Experimental assays of GFP-based studies of the fitness landscapes |
17:30 - 19:00 | Poster session 1 |
19:00 - 20:30 | Dinner |
20:30 - 22:00 | Networking event |
22:00 | End of the day - Last bus |
Time |
Topic |
---|---|
Session 2: Time |
|
09:00 - 09:45 | Gerhard Hummer MPI for Biophysics, Germany Molecular simulations in the era of AI and exascale computing. |
09:45 - 10:30 | Andrea Cipriano Stanford University, USA Going back in time: Partial reprogramming and the epigenetic of aging and rejuvenation. |
Session 3: Complexity |
|
10:30 - 11:15 | EMBO Young investigator Lecture: Prisca Liberali Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, Switzerland Design principles of tissue organisation: symmetry breaking and self-organization in intestinal organoids. |
11:15 - 11:45 | Coffee break & Sponsor exhibitions |
11:45 - 12:30 | Sandra Smit Wageningen University and Research, The Netherlands Analayzing genetic variation using rich pangenome graphs. |
12:30 - 13:15 | Luxendo - Light Sheet Microscopy / |
Euro Bio-Imaging - Research infrastructure landscape, services and FAIR data / | |
EMBL tour | |
13:15 - 14:15 | Lunch |
14:15 - 15:00 | Denis Walsh University of Toronto, Canada The Agential Perspective: Countermapping the Modern Synthesis. |
15:00 - 15:45 | The EMBO Keynote Lecture: Tobias Erb MPI for terrestrial microbiology, Germany Bringing inorganic carbon to life: From new-to-nature carboxylases to artificial chloroplasts. |
15:45 - 16:15 | Coffee break & Sponsor exhibitions |
16:15 - 17:00 | Jean Fan Johns Hopkins University, USA Multi-scale Analysis of Spatially Resolved Transcriptomics Data. |
17:00 - 17:45 | Participant talks |
17:45 - 19:15 | Poster session 2 |
19:15 - 20:45 | Dinner |
20:45 - 21:30 | Networking event |
21:30 - 24:00 | PhD Symposium ‘Party’ - TBD |
Time |
Topic |
---|---|
Session 4: Size |
|
09:00 - 09:45 | EMBO Young investigator Lecture: Tanmay Bharat MRC LMB,United Kingdom Molecular Logic of Prokaryotic Surface Layer Structures. |
09:45 - 10:30 | Clarice D Aiello University of California, USA From nanotech to living sensors: unraveling the spin physics of biosensing at the nanoscale. |
10:30 - 11:00 | Coffee break & Sponsor exhibitions |
11:00 - 11:45 | EMBO Young investigator Lecture: Paul Guichard Universite de Geneve, Switzerland Combining cryo-microscopy and expansion microscopy to reveal the molecular architecture of the centriole. |
11:45 - 12:45 | Panel discussion : Inclusion and diversity in Science |
12:45 - 13:15 | Awards and closing remarks |
13:15 - 14:15 | Lunch and departures |
Speakers
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Andrea CiprianoStanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine
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Buzz BaumMRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology
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Clarice D. AielloUCLA Samueli School of Engineering
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Denis WalshUniversity of Toronto
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Edoardo CalizzaSapienza University, Rome
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Elizabeth MurchisonUniversity of Cambridge
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Fyodor KondrashovOkinawa Institute of Science and Technology
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Gerhard HummerMax Planck Institute of Biophysics
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Ikram BlilouKing Abdullah University of Science and Technology
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Jan Philipp JunkerMax Delbruck Center for Molecular Medicine
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Jean FanDepartment of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University
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Paul GuichardUniversité de Genève
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Prisca LiberaliFriedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research
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Sandra SmitWageningen University
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Tanmay BharatMRC LMB
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Tobias ErbMax-Plank Institute for terrestrial microbiology
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Frequently Asked Questions
The EMBL PhD Symposium is organized by EMBL PhD students to serve as a gathering that connects young researchers and high-profile scientists alike. This year, our Symposium centers on the theme “The Spectra of Life: Dimensional Breadth in Biological Research.”
The symposium is scheduled to take place from the 7th to the 9th of December 2022.
The symposium will be at EMBL Heidelberg, and the address is: Meyerhofstraße 1, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany. If however, one cannot attend in person, virtual participation is also possible!
Accomodation is not included in the registration fee. One can however check out EMBL recommended hotels here
While the symposium is mainly aimed toward PhD students, everyone is invited to attend!
Please feel free to contact info.phdsymposium@embl.de
Yes! All registrants intending to attend the symposium in person are welcome to submit their abstracts. They can indicate if they want to give a talk or a poster presentation. The flash talks will be selected by the organizing committee after the submission deadline.
Only registered applicants can submit abstracts. You can find the link for abstract submission in the confirmation email.
While we encourage abstract submissions, we don’t require abstracts to participate in the symposium.
The deadline for abstract submission is 14th September, 2022.
The deadline for registration is 26th October, 2022.
The deadline for registration for online attendance is 22nd November, 2022.
Please find additional information including FAQs, terms and conditions, COVID-19 safety policy, finding accommodation in Heidelberg and travelling to EMBL on the Information for Participants page
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