Upcoming ITCs

Chaired by Anthony Hyman, Dresden, Germany and Donald Hilvert, Zurich, Switzerland

Understanding the regulation and robustness of metabolic systems is a major challenge in biology. This meeting aims to bring together experts in biomolecular condensates and enzymatic systems to discuss how condensates might influence metabolic regulation and robustness.

While the importance of compartmentalization in metabolism is well-established, it has traditionally been associated with membrane-bound compartments. However, recent discoveries have revealed that many compartments are organized as membraneless condensates. This has redirected attention towards the influence of local enzyme and metabolite concentrations on biochemical reactions. The physical principles of phase separation, reaction diffusion systems, energy consumption, and metabolite fluxes within compartments are being investigated to elucidate their impact on biochemistry.

In the 1920s, Oparin and Haldane proposed that life originated in coacervates, physically separated chemical reactions in the primordial soup. In the 1970s, biochemists recognized the need for higher-order structures to regulate multi-enzyme pathways and proposed the concept of "metabolons." The recent discovery of enzymatic compartments organized by phase separation has renewed interest in the concept of enzyme co-localization. These reversible, flexible, and adaptable condensates may represent the physical manifestation of metabolons proposed earlier, suggesting the preservation of early principles in the organization of cellular biochemistry in present-day organisms.

Invited Speakers:

• Alberti, Simon (Dresden, Germany)
• Arosio, Paolo (Zurich, Switzerland)
• Brangwynne, Clifford P. (Princeton, NJ, USA)
• Colón-Ramos, Daniel (New Haven, CT, USA)
• Dai, Yifan (St. Louis, MO, USA)
• Elsässer, Franziska (Zurich, Switzerland)
• Erb, Tobias J. (Marburg, Germany)
• Flitsch, Sabine L. (Manchester, United Kingdom)
• Hayer-Hartl, Manajit (Martinsried, Germany)
• Jain, Ankur (Cambridge, MA, USA)
• Johnson, Kenneth A. (Austin, TX, USA)
• Jülicher, Frank M. (Dresden, Germany)
• Kim, John K. (Baltimore, MD, USA)
• Knowles, Tuomas (Cambridge, United Kingdom)
• Kollman, Justin (Seattle, WA, USA)
• Kyoung, Minjoung (Baltimore, MD, USA)
• Lemke, Edward A. (Mainz, Germany)
• Lin, Yi (Beijing, China)
• Mahamid, Julia (Heidelberg, Germany)
• Moran, Joseph (Ottawa, ON, Canada)
• Nanda, Piyush (St. Louis, MO, USA)
• Pappu, Rohit V. (St. Louis, MO, USA)
• Pedley, Anthony (Iowa City, IA, USA)
• Phillips, Rob. B. (Pasadena, CA, USA)
• Preiner, Martina (Marburg, Germany)
• Racki, Lisa (La Jolla, CA, USA)
• Rodenfels, Jonathan (Dresden, Germany)
• Sartori, Pablo (Oeiras, Portugal)
• Schmidt-Dannert, Claudia (St. Paul, MN, USA)
• Spruijt, Evan (Nijmegen, The Netherlands)
• Tang, Dora (Saarbrücken, Germany)
• Webb, Bradley A. (Morgantown, WV, USA)
• Wingreen, Ned S. (Princeton, NJ, USA)
• Zhang, Jin (La Jolla, CA, USA)

Chaired by Michael Rapé, Berkeley, CA, USA and Brenda A. Schulman, Martinsried, Germany

This meeting will highlight the interdisciplinary science that is driving the discovery, mechanistic dissection, and therapeutic targeting of stress response pathways. These protective systems are required for the 37 trillion cells of our bodies to be produced and preserved at the right time and place despite challenges caused by genetic mutations, environmental toxins, or nutrient limitations. By dissecting the function and regulation of stress response pathways, we stand to learn about fundamental principles of cell fate specification, tissue organization, and organismal homeostasis. By translating such basic understanding into novel therapeutic modalities, we are bound to help many patients afflicted by currently untreatable diseases.

This conference will bring together researchers that dissect stress response signalling at all scales – from atomic resolution to human patients. It will connect scientists who use innovative platforms to discover new signalling pathways with those that alter their output for therapeutic benefit in new cellular and animal models. It will foster discussions between groups providing atomic resolution of large stress signalling complexes and those that invent new chemical or biological approaches to modulate the activity of these signalling machines in disease. Although all these areas of science have seen major breakthroughs in the past years, they have mostly worked apart from each other. We strongly believe that now is the time to introduce them to each other to lay the foundation for collaborations that deepen our understanding of stress signalling pathways from single molecules to complex organisms.

Invited Speakers:

• Bertolotti, Anne (Cambridge, United Kingdom)
• Brunet, Anne (Stanford, CA, USA)
• Dikic, Ivan (Frankfurt a.M., Germany)
• Duss, Olivier (Heidelberg, Germany)
• Ferguson, Fleur M. (La Jolla, CA, USA)
• Gur, Dvir (Rehovot, Israel)
• Haakonsen, Diane (Berkeley, CA, USA)
• Harbauer, Angelika (Martinsried, Germany)
• Hartl, F.-Ulrich (Martinsried, Germany)
• Hayer-Hartl, Manajit (Martinsried, Germany)
• Hegde, Ramanujan S. (Cambridge, United Kingdom)
• Huch, Meritxell (Dresden, Germany)
• Hur, Sun (Boston, MA, USA)
• Kampmann, Martin (San Francisco, CA, USA)
• Karagöz, Gülsün Elif (Vienna, Austria)
• Liberali, Prisca (Basel, Switzerland)
• Lima, Christopher D. (New York, NY, USA)
• Mahamid, Julia (Heidelberg, Germany)
• Mann, Matthias (Martinsried, Germany)
• Mayor-Ruiz, Cristina (Barcelona, Spain)
• McEwan, Will (Cambridge, United Kingdom)
• Münch, Christian (Frankfurt a.M., Germany)
• Nedialkova, Danny (Martinsried, Germany)
• Nomura, Daniel K. (Berkeley, CA, USA)
• Pauli, Andrea (Vienna, Austria)
• Plaschka, Clemens (Vienna, Austria)
• Pleiner, Tino (Stanford, CA, USA)
• Rutter, Jared P. (Salt Lake City, UT, USA)
• Schaefer, Anne (Cologne, Germany)
• Shiber, Ayala (Haifa, Israel)
• Simonsen, Anne Gjoen (Oslo, Norway)
• Thomä, Nicolas (Lausann, Switzerland)
• Turco, Margherita-Yayoi (Basel, Switzerland)
• Walter, Peter (San Francisco, CA, USA)
• Weissman, Jonathan S. (Cambridge, MA, USA)
• Werner, Achim (Bethesda, MD, USA)
• Wernig, Marius (Stanford, CA, USA)
• Wilfling, Florian (Frankfurt a.M., Germany)

Chaired by Jan-Erik Siemens, Heidelberg, Germany and James Poulet, Berlin, Germany

Temperature profoundly affects every aspect of life, from enzymatic reactions to physiological processes and behaviour. Brief hot or cold changes in temperature can evoke powerful sensations ranging from pleasurable warmth, to aversive cold, and imprint long lasting memories. Long-term changes in environmental temperature require adaptation among all species, prompting adjustments in behaviour and core physiological parameters in order to survive. The thermal environment thereby acts as a regulator of functions essential for survival, including our metabolism, circadian rhythms, cardiac function, and behaviour. However, a holistic understanding of the link between thermal sensation, thermal adaption/acclimation, and core physiology – systems thermobiology – is missing.

This conference attempts to bridge this fundamental knowledge gap and aims to bring together scientists who study different levels and aspects of temperature – and in particular how temperature interacts with the nervous system – in humans and model organisms. Due to seminars and discussions on core body temperature, energy metabolism, sensation, plasticity, adaptation (acclimation), and behaviour, we believe that this ITC will foster new concepts and research directions that address the complex and diverse functions of biological thermal systems.

Invited Speakers:

• Ackerley, Rochelle (Marseille, France)
• Barth, Alison L. (Pittsburgh, PA, USA)
• Cannon, Barbara (Stockholm, Sweden)
• Chen, Xiaoke (Stanford, CA, USA)
• Crucianelli, Laura (London, United Kingdom)
• Fenselau, Henning (Cologne, Germany)
• Filingeri, Davide (Southampton, United Kingdom)
• Gallio, Marco (Evanston, IL, USA)
• Garrity, Paul (Boston, MA, USA)
• Gracheva, Elena (New Haven, CT, USA)
• Haesemeyer, Martin (Columbus, OH, USA)
• Haggard, Patrick (London, United Kingdom)
• Hrvatin, Siniša (Cambridge, MA, USA)
• Julius, David (San Francisco, CA, USA)
• Knight, Zachary A. ( San Francisco, CA, USA)
• Lewin, Gary R. (Berlin, Germany)
• Lima Machado, Natalia (Boston, MA, USA)
• Marder, Eva (Waltham, MA, USA)
• Matarazzo, Valéry (Marseille, France)
• Ryan, Tomás (Dublin, Ireland)
• Schreiber, Susanne (Berlin, Germany)
• Seebacher, Frank (Sidney, NSW, Australia)
• Tattersall, Glenn J. (St. Catharines, ON, Canada)
• Tupone, Domenico (Bologna, Italy)
• Vestergaard, Mikkel (Berlin, Germany)
• De La Iglesia, Felix Viana (Santiago de Compostella, Spain)
• Vincis, Roberto (Tallahassee, FL, USA)
• Voets, Thomas (Leuven, Belgium)
• von Breukelen, Frank (Las Vegas, NV, USA)
• Wang, Hong (Nanshan, Shenzhen, China)
• Whitmire, Clarissa (St Lucia, QLD, Australia)
• Wisden, William (London, United Kingdom)
• Wittbrodt, Jochen (Heidelberg, Germany)
• Zampieri, Niccolò (Berlin, Germany)
• Zimmermann, Katharina (Erlangen, Germany)

Chaired by Alexander Stark, Vienna, Austria and Michael M. Bronstein, Vienna, Austria

Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods promise to revolutionize the way research in biological and biomedical sciences is done. We are already witnessing unprecedented progress in diverse fields including protein prediction and design, gene-expression analyses, image processing, drug design, and many others. Breakthroughs are likely to come from synergies between new experimental wet-lab technologies and new machine learning approaches, each designed for optimal mutual fit.

The conference aims to bring together internationally leading experts in biological and biomedical research and machine learning / artificial intelligence that might otherwise rarely meet. We hope to explore synergies between the fields and novel approaches on the wet-lab and dry-lab sides that optimally utilize their combined potential towards achieving future breakthroughs.

Invited Speakers:

• Aerts, Stein (Leuven, Belgium)
• Barzilay, Regina (Cambridge, MA, USA)
• Beguir, Karim (London, United Kingdom
• Borgwardt, Karsten (Martinsried, Germany)
• Chatterjee, Pranam D. (Durham, NC, USA)
• Chin, Jason (Cambridge, United Kingdom)
• Collins, James J. (Cambridge, MA, USA)
• de Boer, Carl (Vancuver, BC, Canada)
• Durdu, Sevi (Basel, Switzerland)
• Gambetta, Maria Cristina (Lausanne, Switzerland)
• Hernández-Lobato, José Miguel (Cambridge, United Kingdom)
• Hsu, Patrick D. (Palo Alto, CA, USA)
• Jumper, John M. (London, United Kingdom)
• Kelley, David (South San Francisco, CA, USA)
• Koo, Peter (Cold Spring Harbor, NY, USA)
• Kuleshov, Volodymyr (New York, NY, USA)
• Kundaje, Anshul (Palo Alto, CA, USA)
• Lotfollahi, Mo (Hinxton, Cambridge, United Kingdom)
• Luukkonen, Sohvi (Linz, Austria)
• Mostafavi, Sara (Seattle, WA, USA)
• Noé, Frank (Berlin, Germany)
• Ovchinnikov, Sergey (Cambridge, MA, USA)
• Pe'er, Dana (New York, NY, USA)
• Regiv, Aviv (San Francisco, CA, USA)
• Rives, Alexander (New York, NY, USA)
• Saka, Sinem K. (Heidelberg, Germany)
• Schnabel, Julia A. (Garching, Germany)
• Schölkopf, Bernhard  (Tübingen, Germany)
• Schreiber, Jacob (Worchester, MA, USA)
• Shendure, Jay (Seattle, WA, USA)
• Stegle, Oliver (Heidelberg, Germany)
• Theis, Fabian (Neuherberg, Germany)
• Toth-Petroczy, Agnes (Desden, Germany)
• Treutlein, Barbara (Basel, Switzerland)
• Uhler, Caroline (Cambridge, MA, USA)
• Welling, Max (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
• White, Andrew (San Francisco, CA, USA)
• Zhong, Ellen (Princeton, NJ, USA)
• Zhuang, Xiaowei (Cambridge, MA, USA)
• Zitnik, Marinka (Boston, MA, USA)