Upcoming ITCs

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)
• Avsec, Ziga (London, United Kingdom)
• Chatterjee, Pranam D. (Durham, NC, USA)
• de Boer, Carl (Vancouver, BC, Canada)
• Durdu, Sevi (Basel, Switzerland)
• Gagneur, Julien (Munich, Germany)
• Gambetta, Maria Cristina (Lausanne, Switzerland)
• Hernández-Lobato, José Miguel (Cambridge, United Kingdom)
• Hsu, Patrick D. (Palo Alto, CA, USA)
• Hyman, Tony (Dresden, Germany)
• Jaakkola, Tommi S. (Cambridge, MA, USA)
• Koo, Peter (Cold Spring Harbor, NY, USA)
• Kreshuk, Anna (Heidelberg, Germany)
• Kundaje, Anshul (Palo Alto, CA, USA)
• Lander, Eric S. (Cambridge, MA, USA)
• Lin, Zeming (New York, NY, USA)
• Lotfollahi, Mo (Hinxton, Cambridge, United Kingdom)
• Luukkonen, Sohvi (Linz, Austria)
• Mirdita, Milot (Seoul, South Korea)
• Mostafavi, Sara (Seattle, WA, USA)
• Noé, Frank (Berlin, Germany)
• Pe'er, Dana (New York, NY, USA)
• Rückert, Daniel (München, Germany)
• Saka, Sinem K. (Heidelberg, Germany)
• Schreiber, Jacob (Worchester, MA, USA)
• Schwaller, Philippe (Lausanne, Switzerland)
• Stegle, Oliver (Heidelberg, Germany)
• Theis, Fabian (Neuherberg, Germany)
• Tong, Alexander (Vienna, Austria)
• Toth-Petroczy, Agnes (Desden, Germany)
• Treutlein, Barbara (Basel, Switzerland)
• Uhler, Caroline (Cambridge, MA, USA)
• Wählby, Carolina (Uppsala, Sweden)
• Weissman, Jonathan (Cambridge, MA, USA)
• Zeng, Hongkui (Seattle, WA)
• Zhang, Yang (Singapore, Singapore)
• Zitnik, Marinka (Boston, MA, USA)

Chaired by Nathalie Q. Balaban, Jerusalem, Israel and Deborah T. Hung, Cambridge, MA, USA

Antibiotics rank among the greatest life-saving discoveries, saving more lives than perhaps any other medical intervention in history. This fact makes their increasing failure one of the most alarming developments. Indeed, the failure of antibiotic treatments and the emergence of antibiotic resistance worldwide calls for action. Central to combatting this disturbing trend is the need for a fundamental understanding of the basic biological principles underlying the factors that contribute to antibiotic inefficacy and the evolution of resistance. The study of the failure of antibiotic treatments both in the clinic and the laboratory can reveal fundamental aspects of microorganism physiology and infection biology, and in turn, provide new avenues of research for finding better treatments.

The conference will convene leading experts spanning the broad interdisciplinary aspects of antibiotic failure, from health policy and infectious diseases to microbial physiology, metabolism, evolutionary biology, systems biology and biophysics. The objective is to foster a comprehensive, integrated discussion, that spans basic molecular mechanisms to population dynamics, on the effectiveness of antibiotic treatments, pinpoint the causes of their failures, and identify significant gaps in our understanding. Our goal is also, through the focus on combating antibiotic resistance, to gain a deeper basic science understanding of the physiology of microorganisms. This interdisciplinary effort is essential for mapping existing knowledge, identifying emerging concepts and technologies, and charting a way forward to not only preserve and restore our antibiotic arsenal, but also to develop even more effective strategies and therapies.

Invited Speakers:

• Bree B. Aldridge (Boston, MA, USA)
• Dan I. Andersson (Uppsala, Sweden)
• Roi Avraham (Rehovot, Israel)
• Fernando Baquero (Madrid, Spain)
• Tommaso Biancalani (San Francisco, CA, USA)
• Lucas Boeck (Basel, Switzerland)
• Tobias Bollenbach (Cologne, Germany)
• Sebastian Bonhoeffer (Zurich, Switzerland)
• Ana Rita Brochado (Tübingen, Germany)
• Eric D. Brown (Hamilton, ON, Canada)
• Sir Stewart T. Cole (Oxford, United Kingdom)
• Jean-Marc Ghigo (Paris, France)
• Zemer Gitai (Princeton, NJ, USA)
• Yonatan Grad (Boston, MA, USA)
• Wolf-Dietrich Hardt (Zurich, Switzerland)
• Susanne Häußler (Braunschweig, Germany)
• Matthias Heinemann (Groningen, The Netherlands)
• Sophie Helaine (Boston, MA, USA)
• Jo Hobbs (North Haugh, St Andrews, United Kingdom)
• Scott J. Hultgren (St. Louis, MO, USA)
• Ralph Isberg (Boston, MA, USA)
• Bavesh Kana (Parktown, Johannesburg, South Africa)
• Roy Kishony (Haifa, Israel)
• Kimberly Kline (Geneva, Switzerland)
• Bruce R. Levin (Atlanta, GA, USA)
• John McKinney (Lausanne, Switzerland)
• Lucas Andrade Meirelles (Lausanne, Switzerland)
• Rolf Müller (Saarbrücken, Germany)
• Dianne K. Newman (Pasadena, CA, USA)
• Csaba Pál (Szeged, Hungary)
• Sivan Pearl Mizrahi (Rehovot, Israel)
• Kevin Pethe (Singapore, Singapore)
• Jason Rosch (Memphis, TN, USA)
• Jon Stokes (Hamilton, OT, USA)
• Nassos Typas (Heidelberg, Germany)
• Jörg Vogel (Würzburg, Germany)
• Annelies Zinkernagel (Zurich, Switzerland)

Chaired by Arne Skerra, Freising, Germany and Hendrik Dietz, Garching, Germany

Proteins are the structurally and functionally most versatile biomacromolecules, and they form the basis of life on earth. Proteins occur, for example, as enzymes, transcription factors, hormones, antibodies, electron or ion transporters and membrane receptors both inside and outside of cells. They govern metabolism, sensing, physiology, the immune response, the nervous system as well as the motion of cells and organisms. Molecular biology and biotechnology have enabled the preparation and analysis of proteins both in the natural state and with modified amino acid sequences, thus establishing the field of protein engineering.

More recently, the introduction of non-canonical amino acids – beyond the natural set of 20 building blocks – has opened new avenues in synthetic biotechnology, including the engineering of proteins with light-responsive function. Taking advantage of a rapidly increasing knowledge base of experimentally determined three-dimensional structures of proteins, computational protein design has evolved as a viable strategy. Supported by advanced synthetic gene libraries and combinatorial selection approaches, it has become possible to create proteins with optimized or novel folds, beyond those found in nature, as well as prescribed catalytic and binding functions. This conference aims to gather leading scientists in the areas of biotechnology, biology, chemistry and physics to discuss state of the art and future developments in this revolutionary era of protein science.

Invited Speakers:

• Jan Terje Andersen (Oslo, Norway)
• Uwe T. Bornscheuer (Greifswald, Germany)
• Peter Hegemann (Berlin, Germany)
• Stefan W. Hell (Göttingen, Germany)
• Donald Hilvert (Zurich, Switzerland)
• Birte Höcker (Bayreuth, Germany)
• Roman Jerala (Ljubljana, Slovenia)
• Kai Johnsson (Heidelberg, Germany)
• Alena Khmelinskaia (Munich, Germany)
• Shohei Koide (New York, NY, USA)
• Kathrin Lang (Zurich, Switzerland)
• Kresten Lindorff-Larsen (Copenhagen, Denmark)
• Andreas Plückthun (Zurich, Switzerland)
• Florian Praetorius (Klosterneuburg, Austria)
• Sai Reddy (Basel, Switzerland)
• Alanna Schepartz (Berkeley, CA, USA)
• Julia Shifman (Jerusalem, Israel)
• Jan Steyaert (Brussels, Belgium)
• Robert Tampé (Frankfurt, Germany)
• Peter M. Tessier (Ann Arbor, MI, USA)
• Dirk Trauner (Philadelphia, PA, USA)
• Michael Traxlmayr (Vienna, Austria)
• Tim Whitehead (Boulder, CO, USA)
• Andrew Woolley (Toronto, ON, Canada)

Chaired by Asya Rolls, Tel Aviv, Israel and Omri Barak, Haifa, Israel

More information will follow soon.