Scientific Speakers

Mechanosensitive nuclear pores
Martin is a Professor and Director at the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics. He earned his doctorate from the Technical University of Munich in 2006 after conducting PhD research at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at ETH Zurich, he led a research group at EMBL Heidelberg before joining the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics as a Director in 2019. His contributions to structural and integrative biology have been recognized with numerous prestigious awards, including the Walther Flemming Medal and multiple ERC Investigator Grants.
Martin’s research focuses on the ‘molecular sociology’ of macromolecular complexes, using cryo-EM, structural proteomics, and computational modeling to understand how large cellular assemblies function in their native environment. His work provides fundamental insights into the dynamic organization of cellular architecture, including Nuclear Pore Complex structure and function, and advancements in Integrative Structural Biology methods.

Nuclear import of the human proteasome
David leads a research group at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna, where he also serves as Technology Platform Head. He completed his PhD and postdoctoral research at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen.
After joining IMP as a fellow in 2017, David established his independent research group in 2020. His work focuses on visualizing molecular machines in action using advanced cryo-EM techniques to understand the structural dynamics of macromolecular complexes.
David's research investigates how molecular machines, particularly the 26S proteasome, adapt to different cellular cues such as differentiation and stress. His lab integrates structural biology, biophysics, computational analysis, and functional genetics to uncover the fundamental mechanisms of the ubiquitin proteasome system.

The Ribosome as a sensor of cell stress
Professor Anne Willis graduated with a degree in Biochemistry from the University of Kent and obtained a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of London while working in the Imperial Cancer Research Fund laboratories (now CRUK) on DNA repair with Dr Tomas Lindahl.  She then moved to Cambridge to work with Professor Richard Perham in the Department of Biochemistry, where she also held a Junior Research Fellowship and then a College Lectureship at Churchill College Cambridge. 
 
Anne was appointed to a lectureship in Biochemistry at University of Leicester in 1992 progressing to Professor in 2004; from 2000-2005 Anne she also held a BBSRC Advanced Fellowship. In 2004, Anne was appointed Director of Cancer Research Nottingham and Chair of Cancer Cell Biology and from 2008-2013 held a BBSRC Professorial Fellowship.
 
In 2010 Anne became Director of the MRC Toxicology Unit, which is now part of the University of Cambridge.  Anne’s research in the Unit is directed towards understanding the role of post-transcriptional control in response to toxic injury with a focus on RNA-binding proteins, regulatory RNA motifs and therapeutic RNAs.
 
In 2015 Anne was appointed as member of EMBO, was awarded an OBE for services to biomedical sciences and supporting the careers of women in science in 2017, and appointed Fellow of the British Toxicology Society in 2018.

The surprising ways cells respond to stalled ribosomes
Onn Brandman is an Associate Professor of Biochemistry and, by courtesy, Chemical and Systems Biology at Stanford University. He grew up in California, USA and earned his undergraduate and master’s degrees in computer science at the University of California, San Diego, and Stanford University. After several years in the software industry focusing on artificial intelligence, he returned to academia to pursue a Ph.D. in Chemical and Systems Biology from Stanford and postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California San Francisco. His lab studies how cells sense and respond to stress. Areas of focus include Ribosome-associated Quality Control (featuring Carboxy-terminal tailing “CAT tailing”, a form of ribosome-mediated protein synthesis that occurs without mRNA), stress-mediated translation control, the heat shock response, the ubiquitin proteasome system, and biophysical responses to stress. He loves cycling and endeavors to explore by bike wherever he travels.

Questioning the link between cancer initiation and early embryonic programmes
Dr Ficz is a Principal Investigator and Reader at Barts Cancer Institute in London. She did her postdoc at Babraham Institute in Cambridge where she published high impact studies on mammalian epigenetic mechanisms in early development (Ficz et al., Nature 2011, Ficz et al 2013 Cell Stem Cell). As a group leader she has embarked on the journey to investigate the epigenetic nature of cancer initiation, securing an MRC New Investigator grant (£680,000), resulting in a study that has unveiled parallels between early development and cancer epigenetic mechanisms, Patani et al. 2020 Nature Communications. As a senior author, she has also pioneered epigenetic editing experiments in primary cells in vitro and in vivo, using Crispr/dCas9 system (Saunderson et al 2017 Nature Communications, Saunderson et al 2023 PNAS). These studies demonstrated that ectopic DNA methylation propagates in vitro and in vivo and results in changes in cell behaviour.

Creating to understand: leveraging stem-cell-based models to elucidate embryo design principles
Jesse Veenvliet is a developmental biologist and Max Planck Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany. Started in May 2021, his lab focuses on stembryogenesis—using stem-cell-derived models to study principles of robustness in mammalian embryo development, in particular body axes formation. Before this, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin, where he investigated the molecular basis of mammalian axis elongation and developed trunk-like-structures, an advanced stem-cell-based model of the embryonic trunk. Jesse earned his Ph.D. in Molecular Neuroscience from the University of Amsterdam and UMC Utrecht, studying dopaminergic subset specification. Before his M.Sc. in Experimental and Clinical Neuroscience at Utrecht University, he studied Medicine at Radboud University Nijmegen.

How cells deal with stress: divergent fates for old and new mRNAs
Karsten Weis obtained his Ph.D. at the EMBL in Heidelberg in 1996 where he worked with external pageAngus Lamond. Immediately after his Ph.D. he moved to UCSF where he held an independent position as a external pageUCSF fellow. In 1999, he joined the faculty of UC Berkeley as an Assistant Professor. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2003 and to Full Professor in 2006. After almost 15 years at UC Berkeley, Karsten Weis moved to the ETH Zürich in the fall of 2013 to join the Institute of Biochemistry.

Superresolution microscopy for dynamic structural biology
Jonas Ries joined the Max Perutz Labs at the university of Vienna in 2023 as a professor for advanced microscopy and cellular dynamics. His vision is to develop new super-resolution technologies to visualize not only the structure, but also the dynamics of molecular machines in living cells on the nanoscale. 
With a background in physics, he completed his PhD in Biophysics at the TU Dresden in the group of Petra Schwille and was a Postdoctoral fellow at the ETH Zurich in the group of Vahid Sandoghdar.
From 2012-2023, his group at the EMBL has pushed super-resolution microscopy towards structural scales by increasing its 3D resolution, throughput and by developing software that extract maximum information from superresolution data. One focus of the group is to use these techniques to investigate the dynamic structural organization of the machinery that drives clathrin-mediated endocytosis.

Advanced technologies for high precision functional genomic
Simona Giunta is an Associate Professor of Human Genomics and Head of the Laboratory of Genome Evolution at the University of Rome Sapienza. With research experience spanning three continents, she has established a niche in human centromere mutagenesis, building on her expertise in genome stability and chromosome dynamics. The Giunta Lab employs innovative multidisciplinary approaches from long-read sequencing to super-resolution imaging to investigate centromere instability in human diseases. Simona earned her Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge with Prof. Steve Jackson, followed by a UICC Fellowship at CSIRO (Australia). After a decade as Research Scientist at the Rockefeller University (USA), she received the Rita Levi-Montalcini Professorship, Marie Curie Fellowship, and AIRC Start-Up Grant to establish her lab in back in Italy. Recognized among the “10 Italian Professors Who Will Shape Our Future” by L’Espresso, her accolades include the International Next Generation Women Empowerment award, New York Academy of Sciences & AMED Interstellar award and the ERC Starting Grant. As a mother of three, she is a passionate advocate for science communication and gender equality in academia.

Biology and Mechanism of the Transposon-Host conflict
Julius Brennecke earned his Diploma in Molecular Biology from the University of Heidelberg in 2000 and obtained a Ph.D. from EMBL Heidelberg in 2004. After completing his doctorate, he pursued his postdoctoral research at EMBL and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, USA. In 2009, Brennecke established his own research group as a Junior Group Leader at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology (IMBA) in Vienna, Austria. Since 2014, he is a Senior Group Leader at IMBA, where his research focuses on mechanisms of genome defense, particularly the piRNA pathway and its role in silencing transposable elements in germ cells. His studies have provided fundamental insights into how cells use small RNA-based mechanisms to safeguard genomic integrity and ensure the stability of inherited genetic information.

Overcoming Chromatin Barriers to Change Cell Fate
Dr. Zaret is the Joseph Leidy Professor at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and has been the Director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at UPenn since 2014.  His laboratory investigates how genes are regulated and different cell types are specified in embryos, disease, and regeneration.  They focus on the dynamics in signaling, transcription factors, and chromatin structure during liver and pancreas development and maturation, and during reprogramming of somatic cells to pluripotency and other cell fates.  Their goal is to more efficiently reprogram stem cells and somatic cells for biomedical purposes.  Dr. Zaret is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an Associate Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization, and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Spatial biology from molecules to tissues: high-dimensional investigation of cellular organisation
Sinem is a Group Leader at European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg. She received her BSc. in Molecular Biology and Genetics at Middle East Technical University, Turkey in 2008. Her PhD at University of Goettingen, Germany, focused on investigating nanoscale protein organization in cellular membranes with super-resolution and multi-modal imaging. She then moved to the US as an HFSP and EMBO postdoctoral fellow and developed multiplexed imaging methods at Harvard University Wyss Institute. In 2021, she established her research group at EMBL. Her lab develops and applies new methods for spatial multi-omics to resolve cellular states and spatio-molecular organization across scales and under various pathological conditions. She is a co-inventor of multiple detection methods that utilize DNA nanotechnology, including SABER and Light-Seq technologies.

Dynamic Chromosomes during the onset of Life
The Mango lab has a longstanding interest in the molecular mechanisms that govern C. elegans embryogenesis and currently focuses on nuclear organization during the first hours of life. The lab is particularly interested in the role of parents and environment in shaping the next generation. Her prior work on embryogenesis established the concept of organ selector genes in development and elucidated the regulatory logic for organ gene expression in response to a pioneer factor.
Susan Mango studied at Harvard and Princeton universities. She began working on C. elegans embryogenesis as a postdoctoral fellow with Judith Kimble at UW-Madison/HHMI. Dr. Mango has held faculty positions at the Huntsman Cancer Institute, UT, USA and Harvard University, MA, USA; she is currently Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology at the Biozentrum at the University of Basel, Switzerland. Dr. Mango has received multiple awards, including a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur fellowship, and she was recently elected to EMBO.

Deep learning in developmental biology
Patrick Müller is Professor of Developmental Biology at the University of Konstanz, Affiliate Member of the Excellence Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, and Co-Founder of EmbryoNet AI Technologies. After his PhD at the International Max Planck Research School and the MPI for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, he pursued postdoctoral research at Harvard University. From 2014 to 2021, he led a Max Planck Research Group at the Friedrich Miescher Laboratory in Tübingen. Patrick’s research integrates developmental biology, systems biology, and artificial intelligence to elucidate self-organizing mechanisms underlying embryonic development and disease. His work has been recognized through a number of awards, including ERC Starting and Consolidator Grants, an EMBO Young Investigator Award, and an HFSP Career Development Award. Patrick is passionate about leveraging computational approaches and cutting-edge technology to advance our understanding of developmental processes.

Synaptic mechanisms in long-term memory formation
Thomas Christian Südhof is a neuroscientist whose work has described how neurons communicate with each other at synapses, and how such communication becomes impaired in disease. Südhof obtained his M.D. in medicine and doctoral degree in biophysics from the University of Göttingen. He trained as a postdoctoral fellow with Drs. Mike Brown and Joe Goldstein at UT Southwestern in Dallas, TX. After postdoctoral training, Südhof stayed as a faculty at UT Southwestern in Dallas, where he was the founding chair of the Department of Neuroscience. In 2008, Südhof became the Avram Goldstein Professor in the School of Medicine at Stanford University. Südhof’s research originally focused on the mechanisms by which an action potential in a presynaptic neuron triggers the secretion of neurotransmitters, which initiates synaptic transmission. This work revealed a general mechanism of regulated secretion. More recently, Südhof’s studies have centered on the question of how synapses in brain are formed and how their properties are shaped, resulting in the identification of trans-neuronal signaling mechanisms that control synaptic connections in brain. Moreover, Südhof’s work has addressed how these synaptic connections become impaired in disorders such as schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease, with the hope of gaining insight into possible new therapeutic avenues.

Molecular regulation of neurotransmitter release sites for presynaptic plasticity
Alexander Walter is an Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen, where he leads an ERC- and Novo Nordisk Foundation–funded research program on the dynamics and molecular mechanisms of synaptic plasticity. He completed his doctorate within the IMPRS Neurosciences in Göttingen, working in Erwin Neher’s lab on the biophysics of exocytosis in chromaffin cells. After postdoctoral training in Amsterdam and Berlin, he established a DFG Emmy Noether group in 2015 at the Leibniz Research Institute for Molecular Pharmacology. He later completed his habilitation in physiology at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. His current lab uses Drosophila melanogaster to study how synapses adapt during learning, stress, and metabolic change—combining imaging, electrophysiology, RNA and protein biochemistry, and modeling. He’s passionate about collaborative, curiosity-driven science and still considers Göttingen his scientific home base.

Mitochondria-ER contact sites in neurons as hubs of organellar homeostasis
Prof. Harbauer studied Molecular Medicine at the Universität of Freiburg. She did her PhD thesis at the local Institute for biochemistry and molecular biology in the group of Prof. Meisinger working on the regulation of mitochondrial protein import.  She continued her studies as a post-doctoral fellow in the lab of Prof. Tom Schwarz at the Harvard Medical School, Boston, where she explored mitochondrial quality control in axons. Since September 2019 Prof. Harbauer is a Max Planck Research Group Leader at the MPI for Biological Intelligence in Martinsried. At the same time, she holds an appointment as a tenure-track professor for “Neurons and Metabolism” at the TU Munich.

Immune activation in neurodegenerative disease
Michael Heneka studied medicine in Tübingen, Lausanne, and London from 1990-1996, obtaining his medical degree from the University of Tübingen. He completed his neurology residency and habilitation, becoming a professor of Molecular Neurology at the University of Münster in 2004 and later a professor of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Bonn in 2008. With over 25 years of experience in neurodegenerative disease research, Heneka has focused on dementia, Alzheimer's disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, and Parkinson's disease. He established neurodegenerative outpatient units at Münster and Bonn, and led the Neuroinflammation Research Group at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Disease from 2010 to 2022. In January 2022, he moved to the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine. Heneka has published over 350 peer-reviewed manuscripts, served on various scientific boards, and organized international meetings and summer schools. He has received awards for his research in ALS and Alzheimer's disease and has been recognized as a highly-cited researcher since 2018.

Tales of algae: from fundamental discovery to application
Sabeeha Merchant holds the Warren C. Eveland Chair at the University of California in Berkeley. Merchant’s discoveries in chloroplast and trace element metabolism have influenced scholarly thought from biogeochemistry and biological oceanography to photosynthesis, plant biochemistry and human nutrition. Her accomplishments are recognized by a Guggenheim fellowship, major awards from the American Society of Plant Biologists, the National Academy of Sciences and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and election to the National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Leopoldina. Merchant was recently selected as a Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Investigator in Aquatic Symbiosis.

 

Mitochondrial proteostasis signaling during stress
Christian studied Biochemistry at the University of Tübingen and the Max Planck Institutes in Martinsried and Tübingen (Germany). He obtained his PhD from the University of Cambridge (UK) in 2011, working on protein aggregation and prion-like processes in neurodegenerative diseases with Anne Bertolotti at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology. For his postdoctoral work, Christian joined Wade Harper’s laboratory at Harvard Medical School to study cellular protein quality control and the mitochondrial unfolded protein response. From 2016-2024, Christian was an independent group leader and since 2023 endowed Lichtenberg-Professor at the Institute of Biochemistry 2. In 2024, Christian became the director of the new Institute of Molecular Systems Medicine at the Goethe University Frankfurt.

Multiscale Computational Microscopy
Rommie E. Amaro holds the Distinguished Professorship in Theoretical and Computational Chemistry at the University of California, San Diego. She grew up on the south side of Chicago and received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering (1999) and her Ph.D. in Chemistry (2005) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Rommie was a NIH postdoctoral fellow with Prof. J. Andrew McCammon at UC San Diego from 2005-2009 and started her independent lab at the University of California, Irvine in 2009. In 2011 she moved to UC San Diego. She is the recipient of an NIH New Innovator Award, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the ACS COMP OpenEye Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, the ACS Kavli Foundation Emerging Leader in Chemistry, the Corwin Hansch Award, and the 2020 ACM Gordon Bell Special Prize for COVID19. Rommie’s scientific interests lie at the intersection of computer-aided drug discovery and biophysical simulation. Her scientific vision revolves around expanding the range and complexity of molecular constituents represented in atomic-level molecular dynamics simulations and the development of novel multiscale methods for elucidating their time dependent dynamics.

Network-based approaches to study context-specific signalling
Evangelia Petsalaki is a Group Leader at EMBL’s European Bioinformatics Institute since 2017. Her group’s focus is on understanding the regulation of human cell signalling response specificity. Her group has developed several tools and methods that enable the data driven exploration of signalling processes from large datasets. They have made contributions in our understanding of how the cell’s state and environment affects signalling responses. She did her PhD at  the Structural and Computational Biology Unit at EMBL Heidelberg on structural bioinformatics. She then moved to Toronto where she did her postdoc with Tony Pawson and Fritz Roth at the Lunenfeld Tanenbaum Research Institute, on systems biology and yeast genetics.