Clifford P. Brangwynne
Princeton University
USA
EMBO | EMBL Symposium
This conference will take place at EMBL Heidelberg, with the option to attend virtually. Proof of COVID-19 vaccination or recovery is required for on-site attendance. Please see EMBL’s COVID-19 safety policy for on-site events.
Phase separation is emerging as a common biophysical basis underlying many important cellular functions. This conference will bring together scientists from soft matter, polymer physics, molecular biology, structural biology, and cell and developmental biology to study condensates in biology and disease. Goals are
“I have never been to a conference where every single talk was relevant, exciting, and well done. This is particularly phenomenal given the interdisciplinary nature of this field.” – Carlos Castaneda, Syracuse University, USA
“Although Intrinsically Disordered Proteins and Phase Separation have been around for a number of years, this meeting felt like the kick-off for a novel area in molecular biology.” – Roland Dosch, University Medical Center Göttingen, Germany
“This was the best conference I have attended in years, bringing together biophysicists and biologists in an exciting and challenging format. I learnt a lot and have made great contacts for new collaborations.” – Sarah Mizielinska, Kings College London, UK
Keynote speaker
Speakers
Centre for Genomic Regulation
Spain
EMBL Heidelberg
Germany
Brown University
USA
University of Padua
Italy
Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences
Germany
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light
Germany
Osaka University
Japan
(Virtual Speaker)
Washington University in St. Louis
USA
Institute of Biology Valrose
France
Institute of Molecular Biology
Germany
Max Perutz Labs Vienna
Austria
Chinese Academy of Sciences
China
(Virtual Speaker)
EMBL Heidelberg
Germany
Université de Montréal
Canada
Johns Hopkins University
USA
Duke University
USA
Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics
Germany
ETH Zurich
Switzerland
TU Dresden and Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics
Germany
IMB & JGU Mainz
Germany
IMB & JGU Mainz
Germany
EMBL Heidelberg
Germany
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Time | Speaker |
---|---|
12:00 – 14:00 | Registration and Lunch |
12:40 – 13:30 | Pre-conference workshop – registration required Unraveling the Biophysical Principles Underlying Biomolecular Assemblies Using Optical Tweezers |
14:00 – 14:15 | Opening remarks by scientific organisers |
14:15 – | Session 1: Diverse functions and dysfunctions of condensates Session chairs: Konstanze Winklhofer and Monica Gotta |
14:15 – 14:45 | The mechanics of chromatin evolution, adaptation and design Stephen Michnick – Université de Montréal, Canada AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
14:45 – 15:15 | Nucleosomes as liquid-like organisers of chromatin Rosana Collepardo Guevara – University of Cambridge, UK AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
15:15 – 15:45 | PAR induced FUS condensation and PAR as a polymer Sua Myong – Johns Hopkins University, USA AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
15:45 – 16:15 | Coffee Break and Meet the speakers |
16:15 – 16:45 | Protein Disorder in regulation of chromosome surface properties Sara Cuylen-Häring – EMBL Heidelberg, Germany LIVE TALK ONLY |
16:45 – 17:00 | How TDP-43 condensation modulates RNA processing Martina Hallegger – The Francis Crick Institute/UCL, UK AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
17:00 – 17:15 | Heat stress protection by translation factor condensates Christine Desroches Altamirano – Technische Universität Dresden, Germany AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
17:15 – 17:35 | Flash talks (á 2 min) #51 – Ahmed, Junaid, #55 – Bartolucci, Giacomo, #73 – Erkamp, Nadia, #87 – Hemmerich, Peter, #105 – Li, Mo, #107 – Lipinski, Wojciech, #109 – Mann, Guy, #137 – Scheidt, Tom, #145 – Sun, Daxiao, #149 -Usluer, Sinem, #153 – Vogel, Laura, #157 – Yewdall, Amy |
17:35 – 19:30 | Poster Session 1 (odd numbers) |
19:30 – 21:00 | Dinner at EMBL Canteen |
21:00- 22:15 | After dinner drinks |
Time | Speaker |
---|---|
09:15 – 12:15 | Session 2: Polymer perspective on phase separation Session chairs: Tanja Mittag & Vasily Zaburdaev |
09:15 – 09:45 | A stickers and spacers model for phase separation of low complexity domains Alex Holehouse – Washington University in St. Louis, USA AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
09:45 – 10:00 | Hierarchical assembly encodes functional structure within liquid condensates Jeremy Schmit – Kansas State University, USA AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
10:00 – 10:15 | Evolved molecular interactions can stabilize many coexisting condensates David Zwicker – Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Germany AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
10:15 – 11:00 | Coffee Break and Meet the speakers |
11:00 – 11:15 | How condensates affect chemical reactions Christoph Weber – University of Augsburg, Germany AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
11:15 – 11:30 | Distinct features of nucleolar proteins contribute to driving forces for assembly and ribosomal RNA flux Matthew King – Washington University in Saint Louis, USA AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
11:30 – 11:45 | Sequence-dependent condensation of the pioneer transcription factor Klf4 Sina Wittmann – Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Germany AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
11:45 – 12:00 | Phase separating RNA binding proteins form heterogeneous distributions of clusters in subsaturated solutions Mrityunjoy Kar – MPI-Cell Biology and Genetics, Germany AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
12:00 – 12:15 | Data-driven modeling of liquid-liquid phase behavior of intrinsically disordered proteins Giulio Tesei – University of Copenhagen, Denmark AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
12:15 – 13:45 | Lunch |
Session 3: Biophysics and advanced techniques Session chairs: Alexander Buell and Claus Seidel | |
13:45 – 14:15 | Viscoelastic Biomolecular Condensates with Programmable Mechanics Priya Banerjee – University at Buffalo, SUNY, USA AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
14:15 – 14:45 | Coacervates as models for membrane-free condensates Dora Tang – Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Germany AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
14:45 – 15:00 | Dynamic arrest and aging of biomolecular condensates are modulated by low-complexity domains, RNA and biochemical activity Paolo Arosio – ETH Zürich, Switzerland AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
15:00 – 15:30 | Coffee Break and Meet the speakers |
15:30 – 15:45 | Visualizing the conformations and dynamics of FG-Nucleoporins in situ Miao Yu – JGU & IMB Mainz, Germany AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
15:45 – 16:00 | Microfluidic methods for the biophysical characterization of biomolecular condensates Timothy Welsh – University of Cambridge, UK AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
16:00 – 16:15 | Eukaryotic cytoplasm is widely structured via mesoscale condensates Martin Wühr – Princeton University, USA AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
16:15-16:35 | Flash talks ( á 2 min) #62 – Cereghetti, Gea, # 66 – Cochard, Audrey, #68 – Dean, Kellie, #70 – Rossi, Francesca, #76 – Ganser, Laura, #114 – Milovanovic, Dragomir, #124 – Patel, Rini Ravindran, #148 – Tsanai, Maria, #150 – Vallbracht, Melina, #154 – Weinmann, Robin |
16:35 – 18:40 | Poster Session 2 (even numbers) |
18:40 | Free evening |
Time | Speaker |
---|---|
09:15 – 12:30 | Session 4: Phase separation in development and disease Session chairs: Dragomir Milovanovic & Maria Hondele |
09:15 – 09:45 | A novel membrane-less organelle required for paternal epigentic inheritance René Ketting – IMB Mainz, Germany (Virtual speaker) AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
09:45 – 10:15 | Multiscale multiphase condensates buffer repressed mRNAs to promote robust translation control Arnaud Hubstenberger – Institute of Biology Valrose, France AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
10:15 – 10:45 | Proteostasis in the female germline by an endolysosomal super-organelle Elvan Böke – Centre for Genomic Regulation, Spain AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
10:45 – 11:15 | Coffee Break and Meet the speakers |
11:15 – 11:30 | Liquid or solid – Do material properties of RNP granules matter in vivo? Mainak Bose – EMBL Heidelberg, Germany LIVE STREAM ONLY |
11:30 – 11:45 | Signaling-dependent phase separation of transcriptional repressors in live embryos Nicholas Treen – Princeton University, USA AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
11:45 – 12:00 | Phase-separated EML4-ALK compartments facilitate cellular signalling and depend upon an active kinase conformation Josephina Sampson – University of Leeds, UK AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
12:00 – 12:15 | Dissecting the interactome of human TDP-43 in a yeast model for TDP-43 proteinopathies Ralf Braun – Danube Private University, Austria AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
12:15 – 12:30 | One size doesn’t fit all: distinct organization of condensates in renal cell carcinoma Cai Danfeng – Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, USA LIVE STREAM ONLY |
12:30 | Lunch to go |
12:30 – 17:00 | Free afternoon and sightseeing |
12:30-13:30 | Final Poster Prize Selection Meeting |
Session 5: Function and regulation of phase separation Session chairs: Simon Alberti & Dorothee Dormann | |
17:00 – 17:30 | Construction mechanism of nuclear paraspeckle as an isolated RNP micell Tetsuro Hirose – Osaka University, Japan (Virtual Speaker) LIVE STREAM ONLY |
17:30 – 18:00 | Transcription factor condensation and nucleo-cytoplasmic partitioning Lucia C. Strader – Duke University, USA AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
18:00- 18:30 | The role of liquid-liquid phase separation in nuclear ubiquitin signalling Alwin Köhler – Max F. Perutz Laboratories, Austria AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
18:30 – 19:00 | The life of an mRNA is controlled by DEAD-box ATPases Karsten Weis – ETH Zurich, Switzerland AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
19:00 – 19:15 | Break |
19:15 – 20:15 | Keynote lecture: A fluid paradigm for biological organization Clifford P. Brangwynne – Princeton University, USA AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
20:15 – 21:30 | Dinner at EMBL Canteen |
21:30 – 22:30 | After dinner drinks |
Time | Speaker |
---|---|
09:15 – 12:30 | Session 6: Protein structure in the condensed state Session chair: Katja Luck & Michael Heymann |
09:15 – 09:45 | How chaperones regulate protein phase separation in membrane-less organelles Cong Liu – Chinese Academy of Sciences, China (Virtual Speaker) AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
09:45 – 10:15 | Visualizing molecular architectures of stress-induced cellular condensates Xiaojie Zhang – EMBL Heidelberg, Germany AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
10:15 – 10:45 | Seeing the atomic determinants of phase separation in function and disease Nicolas Fawzi – Brown University, USA AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
10:45 – 11:15 | Coffee Break and Meet the speakers |
11:15 – 11:30 | Arginine methylation of RG/RGG-rich RNA-binding proteins: new insights into regulation of LLPS and metabolism Tobias Madl – Medical University of Graz, Austria AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
11:30 – 11:45 | Multi-scale simulations to elucidate the effects of disease-linked TDP-43 phosphorylation on phase behaviour Lukas Stelzl -Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
11:45 – 12:00 | The CAG triplet repeat hairpin stability is subject to cellular localization, condensate association and ATP concentration Simon Ebbinghaus – TU Braunschweig / BRICS, Germany AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
12:00- 12:15 | Liquified – how the DEAD-box RNA helicase DDX3X influences stress-inducible ribonucleoprotein granules Irmela Trussina – Technische Universität Dresden, Germany AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
12:15 – 12:30 | Structurally driven phase separation of an RNA-binding protein Yair S. Harel – Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
12:30 – 12:45 | Structure-function relationships in mitochondrial transcriptional condensates Marina Feric – National Institutes of Health, USA AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
12:45 – 14:15 | Lunch |
Session 7: Cellular Biophysics Session chairs: Edward Lemke & Susanne Wegmann | |
14:15 – 14:45 | The FG phase and transport selectivity of nuclear pores Dirk Görlich – Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Germany |
14:45 – 15:00 | At contact sites, bio-condensates and membrane-bound organelles remodel mutually Roland Knorr – Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
15:00 – 15:15 | RNA polymerase II clusters form in line with surface condensation on regulatory chromatin Lennart Hilbert – Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
15:15 – 15:30 | Assembly of a liquid phase implicated in the regulation of motility at the front of migrating cells Ivan de Curtis – San Raffaele Scientific Institute and Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Italy LIVE STREAM ONLY |
15:30 – 16:00 | Coffee Break and Meet the speakers |
16:00 – 16:15 | Making and breaking active and silenced chromatin subcompartments to infer structure-function relationships Karsten Rippe – DKFZ, Germany LIVE STREAM ONLY |
16:15 – 16:30 | Membrane protein phase separation in nuclear membrane fusion Alexander van Appen – Max Planck Society, Germany AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
16:30 – 17:00 | Sequence-based prediction of biomolecular condesates and mutations disrupting membraneless organelles Monika Fuxreiter – University of Padova, Italy AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM |
17:00 – 17:15 | Feedback Survey Session (Q&A) Moderator: Edward Lemke |
17:15 – 17:30 | Closing remarks and Poster prizes |
17:30 – 21:00 | BBQ & Live Music (Lazy Fur) |
On-site Registration Fees include admission, conference materials, COVID-19 safety measures, meals and coffee breaks. Participants are expected to book and pay their own accommodation and travel expenses.
Virtual Registration Fees include access to all of the talks (livestreamed and on demand) and facility to submit questions.
On-site Academia | €700 |
On-site PhD Student | €600 |
On-site Industry | €900 |
Virtual Academia | €175 |
Virtual PhD Student | €125 |
Virtual Industry | €225 |
NO visa support letters will be issued until payment of the registration fee is confirmed.
Accredited journalists may be eligible to register for a reduced press rate or in some cases for complimentary registration. Registrants may be required to provide accreditation or equivalent proof of press membership after registration. Please contact Lea Hohmann for more information.
Registration will be on a first-come first-served basis. Your place can only be confirmed after payment of the registration fee. If you are added to our waiting list, please consider taking advantage of our offerings to participate virtually.
On-site participants: Types of payments accepted are international bank transfers and credit card payments.
Virtual participants: We are only able to accept card payments. In exceptional cases we can accept bank transfers. Please contact events@embl.de for details.
Only registered participants attending the on-site event are eligible to submit an abstract. Abstracts will not be accepted from virtual participants.
After you have logged in and successfully registered, you will receive an email asking you to submit your abstract. Click on the link provided and enter your abstract in the text box provided. Alternatively you can submit your abstract by clicking on the link on the confirmation page directly after registering. The same login credentials are used for both processes.
Please note:
Title: The title should not exceed 20 words. Only the first word of the title should start with a capital letter and the rest of the title should be in lowercase.
Authors and Affiliations: Please fill in the author’s details as requested in the online form. The compulsory details are: First Name, Last Name, Organisation Name (Affiliation or Company), Country and Email. Mark only one author as the role of First author and please don’t forget to indicate who will be presenting. The order of the authors will be listed as follows: First Author, Co-First Author (alphabetically if multiple), co-author(s) (in the order added by the submitter).
Presentation Types: When submitting your abstract, you can apply for an oral or poster presentation. A selection process will take place with the results announced 2-3 weeks after the abstract submission deadline.
Please check our FAQs pages for further information on how to submit an abstract.
Limited financial assistance is provided by the EMBL Advanced Training Centre Corporate Partnership Programme and EMBO in the form of both registration fee waivers and travel grants. Availability is limited to participants attending on-site events in Heidelberg and will be indicated during the abstract or motivation letter submission process.
Your place in the meeting is only confirmed by paying the registration fee, which is mandatory even when receiving a fee waiver.
The fee waiver will cover the registration sum that you have paid to attend the course or conference.
The travel grant will cover the cost of travel (airfare, train, bus, taxi, accommodation, visa, and/or registration fees*) and is provided up to specified caps which are normally as follows:
– up to €400 for participants travelling to an EMBL Course, EMBL Conference or EMBO|EMBL Symposium from within Europe.
– up to €1000 for participants travelling to an EMBL Course, EMBL Conference or EMBO|EMBL Symposium from outside Europe.
– up to €500 for any participant travelling to an EMBO Practical Course or EMBO Workshop.
– up to €1000 for any participant working in Chile, India, Singapore or Taiwan travelling to an EMBO Practical Course or EMBO Workshop.
*Registration fees are only covered for EMBO Practical Courses or EMBO Workshops
The organisers may reduce the grant cap to accommodate more participants. Recipients will be notified of their travel cap amount when they are informed of the outcome of their application. Original receipts must be provided with your signature for all costs incurred within two months of completion of travel. Scanned copies cannot be accepted.
You may apply for financial assistance when submitting your motivation letter for courses, and abstract for conferences. In your application you will be asked to answer questions regarding why your lab cannot fund your attendance and how your attendance will make a difference to your career. Application for financial support will not affect the outcome of your registration application.
For the Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds Travel Grant, there is a pre-application question during the motivation letter submission process, and if selected you will be requested to complete a standard form and documentation consisting of your travel expense estimation.
The scientific organisers will select the recipients of all financial assistance during the motivation letter or abstract selection process. Results will be announced approximately 6-8 weeks before the event start date, however for some events this may be delayed. Selection results do not impact your admission to the meeting. Selection is based on your current work or study location, the reasons for needing financial support and the impact this event will have on your career.
Costs will be reimbursed after the meeting only once a reimbursement form and original receipts (from travel costs) have been received.
View our list of external funding opportunities and information on attending a conference as an event reporter.
For further information about financial assistance please refer to the FAQ page.
Accommodation is not included in the conference registration fee.
As further changes in our events are possible due to COVID-19, you should book flights, trains and hotels with flexible options and favourable cancellation conditions.
The hotels below have rooms on hold for participants until 7 April 2022, in some cases at special rates. Please quote the booking code EES22-04 and confirm the exact price of the room with the hotel directly.
Conference shuttle buses are free of charge for participants, and depart from designated bus stops near the hotels to EMBL and back, mornings and evenings.
The bus stops for this conference are:
View Conference shuttle bus stops and hotels in a larger map. Please note that not every bus stop will be used for every event.
Address: EMBL, Meyerhofstraße 1, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany. For further information on getting to EMBL Heidelberg visit Public Transportation to the Venue. For information about accommodation and local transportation please refer to the FAQ page.
Please note that only on-site participants are able to submit abstracts and participate in the poster sessions.
We are using an event platform for this conference. More information about the platform will be shared ahead of the conference.
Additional information can be found in our Code of Conduct.
It is important to stay healthy and move around, especially when you are attending an event virtually. We have put together a few coffee break stretches and yoga videos in the conference platform for you to enjoy during the event.
Please use the Q&A function in the event platform.
If you have any other questions, you can go to the Help Desk in the event platform. Click on ‘more’ on the top menu and click Help Desk.
The programme is planned based on the Europe/Berlin time zone, unless otherwise stated. Please take your time zone into consideration when planning your attendance.
Please find additional information including FAQs, terms and conditions, COVID-19 safety policy and travelling to EMBL on our Information for Participants page.
COVID-19 information for onsite events at EMBL Heidelberg can be found in our COVID-19 FAQs.
Event supporter
Bronze sponsor
Media partners
EMBO Journal, an EMBO Press journal
International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Journal of Cell Science, a The Company of Biologists journal
Open Biology, a Royal Society journal
Sponsorship opportunities
We offer a variety of event sponsoring possibilities, with the flexibility to select a set sponsorship package or combine individual sponsorship options to suit your event budget. Discounts are available for companies sponsoring multiple events at EMBL Heidelberg. View other conferences, or contact sponsorship@embl.de for further information.
If you are interested in becoming a media partner of this event, please visit our media partnerships webpage.
EMBO | EMBL Symposia promote scientific communication and collaboration in the European research area. They provide scientists with a platform to discuss and exchange ideas on forward-looking topics and new developments in the life sciences.
Topics emphasise upcoming developments and the interdisciplinary nature of related fields. Jointly funded and organised by EMBO and EMBL – and complementary to their respective courses, workshops, and conference programmes – the symposia promote scientific communication and collaboration.
All symposia are held in the EMBL Advanced Training Centre (ATC) in Heidelberg, Germany, or virtually.
Date: 9 - 12 May 2022
Location: EMBL Heidelberg and Virtual
Venue: EMBL Advanced Training Centre
Deadline(s):
Abstract submission: Closed
Registration (On-site): Closed
Registration (Virtual): Closed
Organisers:
Contact: Lea Hohmann