Past conferences

Chaired by Maja Schuldiner, Rehovot, Israel and Blanche Schwappach-Pignataro, Hamburg, Germany

One of the hallmarks of eukaryotic cells are their membrane-bound organelles that create biochemically distinct environments within the cellular milieu. Organelles enable a diversification of functions that is extremely beneficial to the cell. However, it also creates the cell’s most severe problem – how to ensure successful communication between membrane-bound entities to coordinate cellular function.

The 2024 Titisee spring-meeting will showcase the varied ways in which organelles communicate and coordinate – through contact sites, signalling cascades, and vesicular trafficking pathways. We will also focus on how these means of communication are hijacked during infection and on the cellular consequences of their breakdown during ageing and disease progression. Our overarching goal is to bring together experts from multiple disciplines that usually do not meet to uncover fundamental principles of intracellular organization and communication.

Speakers

• Antonny, Bruno (Valbonne, France)
• Bayer, Emmanuelle (Bordeaux, France)
• Bohnert, Maria (Münster, Germany)
• Broichhagen, Johannes (Berlin, Germany)
• Carvalho, Pedro (Oxford, United Kingdom)
• Chacinska, Agnieszka (Warsaw, Poland)
• Costello, Joseph (Exeter, United Kingdom)
• Cruz-Zaragoza, Luis Daniel (Göttingen, Germany)
• Firat Karalar, Elif Nur (Istanbul, Turkey)
• Forrester, Alison (Namur, Belgium)
• Frickel, Eva-Maria (Birmingham, UK)
• Gonzalez Montoro, Ayelen (Osnabrück, Germany)
• Griffiths, Gillian M. (Cambridge, UK)
• Hariri, Hanaa (Detroit, MI, USA)
• Hermann, Johannes (Kaiserslautern Germany)
• Jabs, Sabrina (Kiel, Germany)
• Kim, Peter K. (Toronto, ON, Canada)
• Klemm, Robin W. (Oxford, United Kingdom)
• Kukulski, Wanda (Bern, Switzerland)
• Laufman, Orly (Rehovot, Israel)
• McDowell, Melanie (Frankfurt/Main, Germany)
• Misgeld, Thomas (Munich, Germany)
• Nuebel, Esther ( Salt Lake City, UT, USA)
• Padinjat, Raghu (Bangalore, India)
• Pernas, Lena (Los Angeles, CA, USA)
• Ramakrishnan, Lalita (Cambridge, United Kingdom)
• Rapaport, Doron (Tübingen, Germany)
• Reggiori, Fulvio Mario (Aarhus, Denmark)
• Rehling, Peter (Göttingen, Germany)
• Sheiner, Liach (Glasgow, United Kingdom)
• Shpilka, Tomer (Worchester, MA, USA)
• Sigismund, Sara (Milano, Italy)
• Spang, Anne (Basel, Switzerland)
• Stenmark, Harald (Oslo, Norway)
• Walter, Peter (San Francisco, CA, USA)
• Wang, Meng (Ashburn, VA, USA)
• Winklhofer, Konstanze F. (Bochum, Germany)

Chaired by Benjamin L. Ebert (Boston, MA, USA) and Peter Campbell (Hinxton, Cambridgeshire, UK)

Somatic mutations accumulate in all cells as we age – these mutations begin to accumulate from the moment of conception and continue steadily throughout life in all tissues, even post-mitotic cells. There is cell-to-cell, organ-to-organ, person-to-person, and country-to-country variation in mutation rates and signatures, with much of this variability remaining unexplained. By the time we reach 70 years of age, our bodies will carry in the order of 100 quadrillion somatic mutations, generating huge clonal diversity among cells, providing the substrate for selective processes to enhance or suppress the growth of individual somatic clones.

The meeting will cover the characterization of somatic mutations in healthy and diseased tissues, across many organ systems, spanning the age range from foetal development to the elderly. We will consider the roles that somatic mutations play in the earliest stages of cancer evolution, the functional decline associated with advancing age, and the pathogenesis of diseases other than cancer. We will explore how somatic mutations and selective landscapes could be manipulated, initially in experimental models but ultimately in vivo in humans, to modify the pace of ageing and cancer development.

Invited Speakers:

• Beck, David B. (New York, NY, USA)
• Cabezas-Wallscheid, Nina (Freiburg, Germany)
• Cheek, David (Boston, MA, USA)
• Cvejic, Ana (Cambridge, UK)
• Dick, John (Toronto, ON, Canada)
• Ernst, Aurélie (Heidelberg, Germany)
• Fernandez-Antoran, David (Cambridge, UK)
• Garaycoechea, Juan I. (Utrecht, The Netherlands)
• Gleeson, Joe (La Jolla, CA, USA)
• Goodell, Margaret (Houston, TX, USA)
• Graham, Trevor (London, UK)
• Grayson, Peter (Bethesda, MD, USA)
• Herms, Albert (Barcelona, Spain)
• Izzo, Franco ( New York, NY, USA)
• Jaiswal, Siddhartha (Stanford, CA, USA)
• Janes, Sam (London, UK)
• Ju, Young Seok (Daejon, Korea)
• Knappskog, Stian (Bergen, Norway)
• Kregar, Lori D. (Cambridge, UK)
• López-Bigas, Núria (Barcelona, Spain)
• Manz, Markus (Zurich, Switzerland)
• Martincorena, Inigo (Cambridgehire, UK)
• Maslov, Alex (Bronx, NY, USA)
• Niemeyer, Charlotte (Freiburg, Germany)
• Ogawa, Seishi (Kyoto, Japan)
• Ólafsson, Sigurgeir (Reykjavik, Island)
• Patel, Ketan J. (Oxford, UK)
• Poetsch, Anna (Dresden, Germany)
• Rahbari, Raheleh (Cambridgehire, UK)
• Sanders, Mathijs (Rotterdam, The Netherlands)
• Sankaran, Vijay (Boston, MA, USA)
• Walsh, Christopher (Boston, MA, USA)
• Weeks, Lachelle Dawn (Boston, MA, USA)
• Zucman-Rossi, Jessica (Paris, France)

Chaired by Caswell Barry (London, United Kingdom) and Matthew Botvinick (London, United Kingdom)

The last decade has seen phenomenal advances in the field of machine learning (e.g. deep learning, RL) and its application in AI. While these changes have already had considerable impact on most areas of science, they hold a special resonance for neuroscience. Not only does AI share a common lineage with neuroscience but there is the exciting prospect that machine learning and the brain may employ similar computations to process information. For these reasons machine learning provides a means to emulate neural functions and the circuits supporting them, providing insights and hypotheses to drive our understanding of perception, behaviour, and cognition. Equally, AI tools provide a means to discover, segment, and track distinct neural and behavioural states – yielding more efficient experiments and accelerating the pace of discovery. At the same time, this understanding of the brain’s incredible efficiency and flexibility feeds back into the design of more effective AI approaches, architectures and models.

This link between neuroscience and AI highlights the critical need for a dialogue between individuals whose research spans these two fields – who can pose and test hypotheses about the brain but are also able to apply the lessons learnt to generate further advances in machine learning. This conference, featuring the leaders in the field, will provide an ideal relaxed and informal setting for this dialogue to flourish.

Invited speakers

• Agüera y Arcas, Blaise (Seattle, WA, USA)
• Bakermans, Jacob J.W. (Oxford, United Kingdom)
• Behbahani, Feryal (London, United Kingdom)
• Bethge, Matthias (Tübingen, Germany)
• Binz, Marcel (Tübingen, Germany)
• Boureau, Y-Lan (New York, NY, USA)
• Clopath, Claudia (London, United Kingdom)
• Daw, Nathaniel (London, United Kingdom)
• Dayan, Peter (Tübingen, Germany)
• DiCarlo, James (Cambridge, MA, USA)
• Dobs, Katharina (Gießen, Germany)
• Doeller, Christian (Leipzig, Germany)
• Eckstein, Maria K. (London, UK)
• Faisal, A. Aldo (London, UK)
• Fiete, Ila (Cambridge, MA, USA)
• Gershman, Samuel (Cambridge, MA, USA)
• Huys, Quentin (London, United Kingdom)
• Körding, Konrad P. (Philadelphia, PA, USA)
• Kriegeskorte, Nikolaus (New York, NY, USA)
• Lampinen, Andrew K. (London, United Kingdom)
• Milford, Michael (Brisbane, QLD, Australia)
• Pouget, Alexandre (Geneva, Switzerland)
• Saxe, Andrew (London, United Kingdom)
• Schrimpf, Martin (Lausanne, Switzerland)
• Stachenfeld, Kimberley (London, United Kingdom)
• Summerfield, Christopher (Oxford, United Kingdom)
• Sun, Chen (Montréal, QC, Canada)
• van Gerven, Marcel (Nijmegen, The Netherlands)
• Wang, Jane X. (London, United Kingdom)
• Whittington, James C.R. (Oxford, United Kingdom)
• Yamins, Dan (Stanford, CA, USA)
• Zylbertal, Asaph (London, UK)

Chaired by Leonid A. Mirny (Cambridge, MA, USA) and Job Dekker (Worcester, MA,USA)

Cells organize their genomes in three-dimensional space to facilitate and regulate a wide array of chromosomal functions ranging from gene regulation and DNA replication to chromosome condensation and segregation during cell division. During the last decade we have witnessed a revolution in our ability to measure the structural organization of chromosomes at increasing resolution and detailed views of the folded state of chromosomes can now be obtained even from single cells. These insights are now leading to new questions about the mechanisms and dynamics of chromosome folding, and the ways chromosome conformation relates to chromosome function.

Addressing these current questions requires highly interdisciplinary approaches at the interface of biology and physics. This includes development and application of experimental systems for structure–function analysis on the one hand, and physical modelling on the other to test and study the mechanisms of folding, the relation to gene regulation and other processes, and the molecular machines involved in these processes.

This inter-disciplinary meeting aims to bring together scientists who study chromosome folding and apply a wide range of approaches including cell biological studies, imaging-based measurements, genomics assays, computational analyses, polymer physics, and dynamic simulations of chromosome folding mechanisms.

Invited speakers

• Bienko, Magda (Solna, Sweden)
• Brackley, Chris (Edinburgh, United Kingdom)
• Coulon, Antoine (Paris, France)
• Dekker, Cees (Delft, The Netherlands)
• Earnshaw, William C. (Edinburgh, United Kingdom)
• Everaers, Ralf (Lyon, France)
• Farabella, Irene (Genova, Italy)
• Fudenberg, Geoffrey (Los Angeles, CA, USA)
• Gerlich, Daniel (Vienna, Austria)
• Giorgetti, Luca (Basel, Switzerland)
• Goloborodko, Anton (Vienna, Austria)
• Gregor, Thomas (Princeton, NJ, USA)
• Grosberg, Alexander Y. (New York, NY, USA)
• Häring, Christian (Würzburg, Germany)
• Hirano, Tatsuya (Wako, Saitama, Japan)
• Jost, Daniel (Lyon, France)
• Kaplan, Noam (Haifa, Israel)
• Karpen, Gary H. (Berkeley, CA, USA)
• Khrameeva, Ekaterina (Moscow, Russia)
• Kleckner, Nancy (Cambridge, MA, USA)
• Marlow, Heather (Chicago, IL, USA)
• McCord, Rachel Patton (Knoxville, TN, USA)
• Molodtsov, Maxim (London, UK)
• Nora, Elphége-Pierre (San Francisco, CA, USA)
• Peters, Jan-Michael (Vienna, Austria)
• Rando, Oliver (Worchester, MA, USA)
• Rippe, Karsten (Heidelberg, Germany)
• Rosa, Angelo (Trieste, Italy)
• Rowland, Benjamin D. (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
• Solovei, Irina (Martinsried, Germany)
• Staight, Aaron (Stanford, CA, USA)
• Tachibana, Kikuë (Martinsried, Germany)
• Taddei, Angela (Paris, France)
• Zickler, Denise (Gif sur Yvette, France)

Chaired by Frank M. Jülicher (Dresden, Germany) and Marcos Gonzalez-Gaitan (Geneva, Switzerland)

A fundamental question in biology is to understand the principles and mechanisms that underlie the spatial organization of cells and living organisms and the dynamic processes by which such spatial organization is generated and maintained. Cells have to organize many cellular functions and complex chemistry in space. They are organized in organelles and further distinct compart­ments and exhibit a distinct spatial organization. On larger scales, cells form tissues with specific shapes and sizes by morphogenesis during development. All these spatial structures and morphologies arise in the context of dynamic processes and are part of the spatiotemporal organization of life.

This meeting will bring physicists, chemists, and biologists together to discuss the emergence of spatiotemporal organization and the role of information, energy, self-organization, phase transitions, active processes, and material properties in the organization of living matter.

Invited speakers

• Aumeier, Charlotte (Geneva, Switzerland)
• Baum, Buzz (London, United Kingdom)
• Bellaiche, Yohanns (Paris, France)
• Bitbol, Anne-Florence (Lausanne, Switzerland)
• Brugués, Jan (Dresden, Germany)
• Cuylen-Häring, Sara (Heidelberg, Germany)
• Derivery, Emmanuel (Cambridge, United Kingdom)
• Fritzsche, Marco (Oxford, United Kingdom)
• Grill, Stephan (Dresden, Germany)
• Howard, Jonathon (New Haven, CT, USA)
• Hyman, Anthony (Dresden, Germany))
• Kicheva, Anna (Klosterneuburg, Austria)
• Krishnamurthy, Vijaykumar (Bangalore, India)
• Kruse, Karsten (Geneva, Switzerland)
• Mietke, Alexander (Bristol, UK)
• Milinkovitch, Michel C. (Geneva, Switzerland)
• Nelson, David R. (Cambridge, MA, USA)
• Pelkmans, Lucas (Zürich, Switzerland)
• Popovic, Marko (Dresden, Germany)
• Prost, Jacques (Paris, France)
• Rao, Madan (Bangalore, India)
• Rodenfels, Jonathan (Dresden, Germany)
• Ronceray, Pierre (Marseille, France)
• Rulands, Steffen (Dresden, Germany)
• Saunders, Timothy (Coventry, United Kingdom)
• Scheele, Colinda (Leuven, Belgium)
• Viasnoff, Virgile (Singapore, Singapore)
• Wyart, Matthieu (Lausanne, Switzerland)

Chaired by Karla Neugebauer (New Haven, CT, USA) and Christine Mayr (New York, NY, USA)

Cellular RNA molecules have exquisitely controlled sequences as well as secondary and tertiary structures. Collectively, they interact with thousands of proteins and can generate higher order structures. They scaffold and target regulatory complexes, catalyze protein synthesis, and determine how nascent proteins assemble into complexes. The majority occupy different subcellular compartments. In spite of their known diversity and functionality, biology continues to place proteins in the driver’s seat. For example, it is thought that proteins bring RNA cargoes to distant corners of the cell when, in fact, some proteins do not even localize to those corners without binding RNA. Also, RNA may drive the properties of local environments necessary for proper protein function. Are biologists overlooking RNA as a major driver for cellular orga­nization and function? The notion that life began in an RNA World implies this. We need to think more creatively about what RNA can and does do for cells, tissues and organisms.

This meeting will address the fundamentals of RNA in cells: the sequences, shapes, activities, concentrations, dynamics, localization patterns, and interaction partners. Participants will be drawn from a diverse community of researchers with knowledge of RNA biology in different kinds of cells and organisms. We will look at cutting-edge methods for analyzing RNA and the emerging data. We will envision new ways of thinking about RNA in cells and discuss what our field needs to elucidate the many roles of RNA in regulating cellular function.

Speakers

• Akhtar, Asifa (Freiburg, Germany)
• Bevilacqua, Philip (University Park, PA, USA)
• Böke, Elvan (Barcelona, Spain)
• Boothby, Thomas C. (Laramie, WY, USA)
• Brennecke, Julius F. (Vienna, Austria)
• Buchan, Ross (Tuscon, AZ, USA)
• Cech, Thomas R. (Boulder, CO, USA)
• Cuylen-Häring, Sara (Heidelberg, Germany)
• Flynn, Ryan A. (Stanford, CA, USA)
• Fox, Archa (Perth, WA, Australia)
• Gilbert, Wendy (New Haven, CT, USA)
• Gladfelter, Amy (Chapel Hill, CT, USA)
• Gueroui, Zoher (Paris, France)
• Heyd, Florian (Berlin, Germany)
• Hilgers, Valerie (Freiburg, Germany)
• Hondele, Maria (Basel, Switzerland)
• Jaffrey, Samie R. (New York, NY, USA)
• Kudla, Grzegorz (Edinburgh, UK)
• Landthaler, Markus (Berlin, Germany)
• Lehmann, Ruth (New York, NY, USA)
• Lemke, Edward (Mainz, Germany)
• MacRae, Ian J. (La Jolla, CA, USA)
• Nott, Timothy (Oxford, UK)
• Parker, Roy (Boulder, CO, USA)
• Pelkmans, Lucas (Zürich, Switzerland)
• Polymenidou, Madgalini (Zürich, Switzerland)
• Seelig, Georg (Seattle, WA, USA)
• Seydoux, Geraldine (Baltimore, MD, USA)
• Shiber, Ayala (Haifa, Israel)
• Solovei, Irina (Martinsried, Germany)
• Tang, Tsing-Young Dora (Dresden, Germany)
• Trcek, Tatjana (Baltimore, MD, USA)
• Ule, Jerney (London, United Kingdom)
• Weil, Dominique (Paris, France)

Chaired by Tobias Erb (Marburg, Germany) and Marileen Dogterom (Delft, The Netherlands)

For centuries, biology has focused on understanding the fundamental principles of life through an analytical-descriptive approach. However, recent technological developments made it possible to approach life in a synthetic-constructive fashion. Within the last years, we have witnessed the successful extension of the genetic code, the design of novel proteins and cellular scaffolds, the reconstitution of functional cellular modules, as well as the realization of new-to-nature genetic and metabolic networks. Several international consortia have formed that aim at combining these individual elements of life to construct more complex systems that show life-like properties.  

At the dawn of this next revolution in life sciences, this meeting aims at bringing together biologists, chemists, physicists, as well as material- and nano-scientists, who focus on (re-)constructing life with synthetic efforts. Together, leading and upcoming scientists in this field of bottom-up synthetic biology will discuss current progress and challenges in the field and develop new collaborative efforts to further advance synthetic biology. We will address scientific, technical, ethical and societal challenges in bottom-up synthetic biology and develop a roadmap towards the ultimate goal of the field, the successful design and realization of synthetic cells.
 

Confirmed speakers

• Arnold, Francis (Pasadena, CA, USA)
• Blanchoin, Laurent (Grenoble, France)
• Cai, Patrick Yizhi (Manchester, UK)
• Chin, Jason W. (Cambridge, UK)
• Danelon, Christophe (Delft, The Netherlands)
• Elani, Yuval (London, UK)
• Ganzinger, Kristina (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
• Göpfrich, Kerstin (Heidelberg, Germany)
• Höcker, Birte (Bayreuth, Germany)
• Holliger, Philipp (Cambridge, UK)
• Kerfeld, Cheryl A. (East Lansing, MI, USA)
• Maerkl, Sebastian (Lausanne, Switzerland)
• Meijer, Bert (Eindhoven, The Netherlands)
• Moran, Joseph (Strasbourg, France)
• Niederholtmeyer, Henrike (Marburg, Germany)
• Panke, Sven (Basel, Switzerland)
• Poolman, Bert (Groningen, The Netherlands)
• Rivas Caballero, Germán (Madrid, Spain)
• Samanta, Avik (Mainz, Germany)
• Schweizer, Jakob (Magdeburg, Germany)
• Schwille, Petra (Martinsried, Germany)
• Tang, Dora (Dresden, Germany)
• Wegner, Seraphine V. (Münster, Germany)

Chaired by Thomas Boehm (Freiburg, Germany) and David G. Schatz (New Haven, CT, USA)

Recent findings have called into question the long-held notion of the successive appearance, in evolutionary history, of innate and adaptive responses and their clear-cut functional dichotomy. It is becoming clear that an evolutionarily informed view of immune functions will not only change our perception of the interconnected structure and design of the immune system, but may even lead to non-intuitive strategies for intervention in humans who suffer from immunodeficiency or immune dysregulation.

Speakers

• Andino, Raul (San Francisco, CA, USA)
• Ayres, Janelle S. (La Jolla, CA, USA)
• Conticello, Silvo (Florence, Italy)
• Cooper, Max D. (Atlanta, GA, USA)
• Cremer, Sylvia (Klosterneuburg, Austria)
• Eberl, Gérard (Paris, France)
• Ewbank, Jonathan (Marseille, France)
• Fischer, Alain (Paris, France)
• Flajnik, Martin F. (Baltimore, MD, USA)
• Fugmann, Sebastian D. (Kwei-Shan, Tao-Yuan, Taiwan)
• Giorgetti, Orlando Bruno (Freiburg, Germany)
• Hagai, Tzachi (Tel Aviv, Israel)
• Hornung, Veit (Munich, Germany)
• Hsu, Ellen (Brooklyn, NY, USA)
• Iyer, Aravind (Bethesda, MD, USA)
• Kaufmann, Jim (Cambridge, United Kingdom)
• Koonin, Eugene V. (Bethesda, MD, USA)
• Levraud, Jean-Pierre (Paris, France)
• Maekawa, Takaki (Köln, Germany)
• Malik, Harmit S. (Seattle, WA, USA)
• Melandri, Daisy (London, UK)
• Nicotra, Matthew L. (Pittsburgh, PA, USA)
• Papavasiliou, Nina (Heidelberg, Germany)
• Ramakrishnan, Lalita (Cambridge, United Kingdom)
• Rosental, Benyamin (Sede Boger, Israel)
• Schmid-Hempel, Paul (Zurich, Switzerland)
• Smith, L. Courtney (Washington, DC, USA)
• Strid, Jessica (London, United Kingdom)
• Valenzano, Dario R. (Cologne, Germany)
• Venkatesh, Byrappa (Singapore, Singapore)

Chaired by Elly Tanaka (Vienna, Austria), Peter Reddien (Cambridge, MA, USA), and James Sharpe (Barcelona, Spain)

Formation of body structures during embryonic development and regeneration share a common endpoint. Yet the starting conditions and scale during which patterning and cell decisions are executed vary enormously. Recently, we have made progress in our molecular understanding of embryonic patterning and regenerative mechanisms along with exciting developments in organoid biology. To discuss these topics, we would like to bring together participants working on patterning dynamics, signal interpretation in multiple developmental and regenerative contexts.

Quantitative modelling is and will be making an important contribution to fuel ideas and provide predictive hypotheses and therefore will constitute a significant part of this meeting. We hope you share our interest in exploring this area in the intimate setting of the 119th International Titisee Conference.

Speakers

• Aulehla, Alexander (Heidelberg, Germany)
• Barkai, Naama (Rehovot, Israel)
• Birnbaum, Kenneth D. (New York, NY, USA)
• Briscoe, James (London, United Kingdom)
• Coen, Enrico (Norwich, United Kingdom)
• De Simone, Alessandro (Durham, NC, USA)
• Desplan, Claude (New York, NY, USA)
• Eiraku, Mototsugu (Kobe, Japan)
• Gartner, Zev (San Francisco, CA, USA)
• Harris, Matthew (Boston, MA, USA)
• Jülicher, Frank (Dresden, Germany)
• Junker, Jan Philipp (Berlin, Germany)
• Kicheva, Anna (Klosterneuburg, Austria)
• Kondo, Shigeru (Osaka, Japan)
• Li, Pulin (Pasadena, CA, USA)
• Liberali, Prisca (Basel, Switzerland)
• Lobo, Daniel (Baltimore, MD, USA)
• Megason, Sean (Boston, MA, USA)
• Miguez Gómez, David G. (Madrid, Spain)
• Mii, Yusuke (Okazakii, Aichi, Japan)
• Müller, Patrick (Tübingen, Germany)
• Pauli, Andrea (Vienna, Austria)
• Pera, Edgar (Lund, Sweden)
• Plikus, Maksim (Irvine, CA, USA)
• Poss, Kenneth D. (Durham, NC, USA)
• Rawlins, Emma (Cambridge, United Kingdom)
• Rink, Jochen (Dresden, Germany)
• Roy, Sougata (College Park, MD, USA)
• Saunders, Timothy (Singapore, Singapore)
• Schier, Alexander F. (Cambridge, MA, USA)
• Siggia, Eric D. (New York, NY, USA)
• Simons, Benjamin D. (Cambridge, United Kingdom)
• Trivedi, Vikas (Barcelona, Spain)
• van Oudenaarden, Alexander (Utrecht, The Netherlands)
• Whited, Jessica (Boston, MA, USA)

Chaired by Wendy A. Bickmore (Edinburgh, United Kingdom) and Sarah A. Teichmann (Hinxton, Cambridge, United Kingdom)

We have entered an era where we can profile the transcriptome and gene regulatory network of individual cells, and use this information to redefine what we mean by a cell type. This has the potential to provide powerful new insights into developmental biology, physiology and disease etiology. However, most single cell analyses have been applied to cells in suspension - e.g. from the haematopoietic and immune systems and cells have generally been considered as individual self–contained units. By contrast, most cells in the body exist in solid tissues with defined cell–cell contacts, polarities and position within a complex 3D tissue architecture.

This meeting aims to bring together researchers from very diverse communities: those experimentally investigating tissue architecture and gene regulation, those generating ex vivo organoid models of tissues, and computational scientists and mathematicians interested in analysing and modelling these complex datasets. By bringing together these groups of scientists, we will discuss progress towards understanding how different cell types are formed, communicate with each other and work together to form and maintain tissues.

Speakers

• Adey, Andrew (Portland, OR, USA)
• Barker, Nicholas (Singapore, Singapore)
• Bhatia, Shipra (Edinburgh, United Kingdom)
• Blanpain, Cédric (Bruxelles, Belgium)
• Bodenmiller, Bernd (Zurich, Switzerland)
• Bonev, Boyan (Planegg-Martinsried, Germany)
• Bressan, Dario (Cambridge, United Kingdom)
• Chedotal, Alain (Paris, France)
• de Bruijn, Marella (Oxford, United Kingdom)
• Ezhkova, Elena (New York, NY, USA)
• Grün, Dominic (Freiburg, Germany)
• Haniffa, Muzlifah (Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom)
• Hemberg, Martin (Hinxton, Cambridge, United Kingdom)
• Itzkovitz, Shalev (Rehovot, Israel)
• Jones, Phil H. (Hinxton, Cambridge, United Kingdom)
• Kind, Jop (Utrecht, The Netherlands)
• Kirschner, Marc W. (Boston, MA, USA)
• Lindsay, Susan (Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom)
• Lindskog Bergström, Cecilia (Uppsala, Sweden)
• Lundeberg, Joakim (Solna, Sweden)
• Marioni, John (Hinxton, Cambridge, United Kingdom)
• Ponting, Chris P. (Edinburgh, United Kingdom)
• Reddington, James (Heidelberg, Germany)
• Sauka-Spengler, Tatjana (Oxford, United Kingdom)
• Singer, Meromit (Boston, MA, USA)
• Steel, Karen P. (London, United Kingdom)
• Sudmant, Peter H. (Berkeley, CA, USA)
• Theis, Fabian J. (Neuherberg, Germany)
• Trapnell, Cole (Seattle, WA, USA)
• Vallejos, Catalina (Edinburgh, United Kingdom)
• Villani, Alexandra-Chloé (Cambridge, MA, USA)
• Voet, Thierry (Hinxton, Cambridge, United Kingdom)

Chaired by Melina Schuh (Göttingen, Germany) and Takashi Hiiragi (Heidelberg, Germany)

Understanding the development of mammalian oocytes and embryos is of fundamental importance and direct relevance to reproductive medicine. However, our understanding of this topic is limited. This is largely due to technical limitations that make research on mammalian oocytes and embryos particularly challenging.

Over the past few years, innovative methods have become available that have paved the way for new directions of research in this exciting field. This conference aims to share these technologies and the latest research that has emerged from its use. It will bring together investigators from different fields including cell biology, embryology, biophysics, single-cell biology as well as stem cell biology. The goal is to identify synergies, establish collaborative efforts and generate new ideas for research on mammalian oocytes and embryos.

Speakers

• Anger, Martin (Brno, Czech Republic)
• Bedzhov, Ivan (Münster, Germany)
• Conti, Marco (San Francisco, CA, USA)
• Elder, Kay (Cambridge, UK)
• Ellenberg, Jan (Heidelberg, Germany)
• Fitzharris, Greg (Montreal, QB, Canada)
• Günesdogan, Ufuk (Göttingen, Germany)
• Herbert, Mary (Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom)
• Hoffmann, Eva R. (Copenhagen, Denmark)
• Höög, Christer (Stockholm, Sweden)
• Sevan Hopyan (Toronto, ON, Canada)
• Hufnagel, Lars (Heidelberg, Germany)
• Jaffe, Laurinda (Farmington, CT, USA)
• Jessberger, Rolf (Dresden, Germany)
• Kitajima, Tomoya S. (Kobe, Japan)
• Lampson, Michael ( Philadelphia, PA, USA)
• Lanner, Fredrik (Stockholm, Sweden)
• Lei, Lei (Ann Arbor, MI, USA)
• Madgwick, Suzanne (Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom)
• Maître, Jean-Léon (Paris, France)
• Sophie Morgani (New York, NY, USA)
• Niakan, Kathy (London, United Kingdom)
• Plachta, Nicolas (Proteos, Singapore)
• Robson, Paul (Farmington, CT, USA)
• Rodriguez, Tristan (London, United Kingdom)
• Rossant, Janet (Toronto, ON, Canada)
• Saitou, Mitinori (Kyoto, Japan)
• Sasaki, Hiroshi (Suita, Osaka, Japan)
• Schatten, Gerald P. (Pittsburg, PA, USA)
• Šolc, Petr (Libechov, Czech Republic)
• Srinivas, Shankar (Oxford, United Kingdom)
• Terret, Marie-Emilie (Paris, France)
• Torres-Padilla, Maria Elena (München, Germany)
• Tóth, Attila (Dresden, Germany)
• Verlhac, Marie-Helene (Paris, France)
• Wassmann, Katja (Paris, France)
• Zachariae, Wolfgang (Martinsried, Germany)
• Zernicka-Goetz, Magdalena (Cambridge, United Kingdom)

Chaired by Roy Kishony (Haifa, Israel) and David A. Relman (Stanford, CA, USA)

Microbial species live and evolve within multi-species consortia that play critical roles in ecology and in human health and disease. These multi-species microbial communities are dynamic, continuously responding, adapting, and evolving in response to external stimuli and stresses. Antibiotics in particular strongly modulate microbes and their communities across multiple levels, from physiology to species composition to evolution over astonishingly rapid timescales. Recent advances in the theory of microbial communities, together with new genomic and metagenomic experimental approaches, are now generating new fundamental insights into how these multi-level microbial community dynamics combine to determine overall community function and adaptability. They have begun to allow predictive quantitative analyses and manipulations of microbial consortia, with far-reaching implications for environmental challenges and management of health and disease.

This conference will bring together scientists from diverse fields, including synthetic biologists building multi-species communities, evolutionary biologists exploring the micro-evolution of individual species, and ecologists and computational biologists analyzing the dynamics of multi-species communities. By bringing these groups together, this meeting seeks to identify new opportunities for major advances, and generate synergistic interactions between fields and investigators. In this way, we anticipate that this meeting will help to expand a growing new interdisciplinary field at the intersection of microbiology, systems and synthetic biology, evolution, and pharmacology.

Speakers

• Belkaid, Yasmine (Bethesda, MD, USA)
• Borenstein, Elhanan (Seattle, WA, USA)
• Bork, Peer (Heidelberg, Germany)
• Comstock, Laurie Elizabeth (Boston, MA, USA)
• Dagan, Tal (Kiel, Germany)
• Desai, Michael M. (Cambridge, MA, USA)
• Eldar, Avigdor (Tel Aviv, Israel)
• Elinav, Erin (Rehovot, Israel)
• Falter-Braun, Pascal (Neuherberg, Germany)
• Foster, Kevin (Oxford, United Kingdom)
• Friedman, Jonathan (Rehovot, Israel)
• Geva-Zatorsky, Naama (Haifa, Israel)
• Grad, Yonatan (Boston, MA, USA)
• Häußler, Susanne (Braunschweig, Germany)
• Hung, Deborah (Cambridge, MA, USA)
• Ingmer, Hanne (Frederiksberg, Denmark)
• Lenski, Richard E. (East Lansing, MI, USA)
• Lieberman, Tami (Cambridge, MA, USA)
• Lindell, Debbie (Haifa, Israel)
• Mitri, Sara (Lausanne, Switzerland)
• Molin, Søren (Kongens Lyngby, Denmark)
• Pál, Csaba (Szeged, Hungary)
• Parkhill, Julian (Hinxton, United Kingdom)
• Petrov, Dimitri (Stanford, CA, USA)
• Rainey, Paul (Plön, Germany)
• Robert, Lydia (Paris, France)
• Segev, Einat (Rehovot, Israel)
• Segre, Julie (Bethesda, MD, USA)
• Segre, Daniel (Boston, MA, USA)
• Sharon, Itai (Kiryat Shmona, Israel)
• Sher, Daniel (Haifa, Israel)
• Sommer, Morton O.A. (Kongens Lyngby, Denmark)
• Stern, Adi (Tel Aviv, Israel)
• Typas, Nassos (Heidelberg, Germany)
• Vetsigian, Kalin (Madison, WI, USA)
• Yaffe, Eitan (Stanford, CA, USA)
• Yassour, Moran (Cambridge, MA, USA)

Chaired by Vamsi K. Mootha (Boston, MA, USA) and Michael W. Gray (Halifax, NS, Canada)

This International Titisee Conference will focus on mitochondria. Mitochondria were a part of the earliest eukaryotes and, over billions of years, have undergone tremendous lineage-specific evolution, today exhibiting remarkable molecular, biochemical, and metabolic diversity. While animal mitochondria contain a high copy number of their circular genome, other organisms' mitochondrial genomes exhibit a wide array of physical forms, they also differ in their gene arrangements and modes of expression. Still other organisms have lost substantial portions of their mitochondrial genome, including genes encoding parts of the respiratory chain, in extreme cases dispensing with the mitochondrial genome in its entirety. Mitochondria can exhibit variant configurations of the respiratory chain, with alternative electron donors and acceptors, all designed to preserve bioenergetics and promote survival under diverse environmental conditions.

The 115th ITC brings together investigators studying mitochondria from a phylogenetically broad range of eukaryotes, with the goal of exploring the mechanistic basis and physiological consequences of their diversity.

Speakers

• Afasizhev, Ruslan (Boston, MA, USA)
• Alfonso, Juan (Columbus, OH, USA)
• Balaban, Robert S. (Bethesda, MD, USA)
• Balk, Janneke (Colney, Norwich, United Kingdom)
• Burger, Gertraud (Montreal, QC, Canada)
• Calvo, Sarah (Boston, MA, USA)
• Cardoso Pereira, Inês A. (Oeiras, Portugal)
• Chouchani, Edward T. (Boston, MA, USA)
• Stuart J. Ferguson (Oxford, United Kingdom)
• Gabaldón Estevan, Toni (Barcelona, Spain)
• Gawryluk, Ryan M. (Halifax, NS, Canada)
• Hand, Steven C. (Baton Rouge, LA, USA)
• Harsman, Anke (Bern, Switzerland)
• Huynen, Martijn A. (Nijmegen, The Netherlands)
• Jackman, Jane E. (Columbus, OH, USA)
• Karnkowska, Anna (Warsaw, Poland)
• Ke, Hangjun (Philadelphia, PA, USA)
• Kita, Kiyoshi (Tokyo, Japan)
• Kunji, Edmund (Cambridge, United Kingdom)
• Lane, Nick (London, United Kingdom)
• Lang, Franz Bernd (Montréal, QB, Canada)
• Lavrov, Dennis V. (Ames, IA, USA)
• Lill, Roland (Marburg, Germany)
• Lukeš, Julius (Ceské Budejovice, Czech Republic)
• Metcalf, William W. (Urbana, IL, USA)
• Meyer, Etienne (Potsdam, Germany)
• Murphy, Michael P. (Cambridge, United Kingdom)
• Patel, Maulik (Nashville, TN, USA)
• Rand, David M. (Providence, RI, USA)
• Roger, Andrew J. (Halifax, NS, Canada)
• Roth, Mark B. (Seattle, WA, USA)
• Smith, David R. (London, ON, Canada)
• Stairs, Courtney (Uppsala, Sweden)
• Steyn, Adrie J.C. (Durban, South Africa)
• Storey, Kenneth B. (Ottawa, ON, Canada)
• Tachezy, Jan (Prague, Czech Republic)
• Takenaka, Mizuki (Ulm, Germany)
• Tarassov, Ivan (Strasbourg, France)
• Tsaousis, Anastasios (Canterbury, United Kingdom)
• Van der Giezen, Mark (Exeter, United Kingdom)

Chaired by David A. Keays (Vienna, Austria) and William R. Schafer (Cambridge, United Kingdom)

The ability to sense and respond to physical stimuli is critical to life. This conference will bring together leaders in the life and physical sciences and will discuss the biology that underpins three overlooked senses. How do animals detect magnetic fields? What molecules mediate the detection of hot and cold? And how is a mechanical stimulus transduced into a neuronal impulse?

The conference will include investigators employing advanced genetic tools in established model systems, but also explore alternative species that are well suited to addressing specific scientific problems. Guided by the behavioural repertoire of these animals, we will discuss the underlying biophysical mechanisms and molecules that underlie the detection of a particular stimulus. This will be complemented by a series of talks that exploit these insights to develop novel synthetic tools in neuroscience.

Speakers

• Busserolles, Jérôme (Clermont-Ferrand, France)
• Caterina, Michael J. (Baltimore, MD, USA)
• Chatzigeorgiou, Marios (Bergen, Norway)
• Cybulski, Larisa Estefania ( Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentinia)
• Fedele, Giorgio (Leicester, United Kingdom)
• Göpfert, Martin (Göttingen, Germany)
• Gracheva, Elena (New Haven, CT, USA)
• Grandl, Jörg (Durham, NC, USA)
• Güler, Ali D. (Charlottesville, VA, USA)
• Hardie, Roger ( Cambridge, United Kingdom)
• Heyers, Dominik (Oldenburg, Gemany)
• Holt, Jeffrey (Boston, MA, USA)
• Hore, Peter J. (Oxford, United Kingdom)
• Hudspeth, A. James (New York, NY, USA)
• Kindt, Katie (Bethesda, MD, USA)
• Kirschvink, Joseph L. (Pasadena, CA, USA)
• Landler, Lukas (Blacksburg, VA, USA)
• Lewin, Gary R. (Berlin-Buch, Germany)
• Lohmann, Kenneth J. (Chapel Hill, NC, USA)
• Lumpkin, Ellen A. (New York, NY, USA)
• Marcotti, Walter (Sheffield, United Kingdom)
• Minor, Daniel L. (San Francisco, CA, USA)
• Montell, Craig (Santa Barbara, CA, USA)
• Mori, Yasuo (Kyoto, Japan)
• Mouritsen, Henrik Østergaard (Oldenburg, Germany)
• Mueller, Ulrich (San Diego, CA, USA)
• Muheim, Rachel (Lund, Sweden)
• Mulhull, Eric (Boston, MA, USA)
• Nemec, Pavel (Praha, Czech Republic)
• Nicolson, Teresa (Portland, OR, USA)
• Okabe, Kohki (Tokyo, Japan)
• Patapoutian, Ardem (La Jolla, CA, USA)
• Phillips, John B. (Blacksburg, VA, USA)
• Schüler, Dirk (Bayreuth, Germany)
• Sengupta, Piali (Waltham, MA, USA)
• Stanley, Sarah (New York, NY, USA)
• Steel, Karen (London, United Kingdom)
• Vermot, Julien (Ilkirch, France)
• Vidal-Gadea, Andrés G. (Normal, Illinois, USA)
• Voets, Thomas (Leuven, Belgium)
• Wood, John (London, United Kingdom)
• Xie, Can (Beijing, China)

Chaired by Jason N.D. Kerr (Bonn, Germany), Richard H.R. Hahnloser (Zurich, Switzerland) and Loren L. Looger (Ashburn, VA, USA)

Understanding how the components that make up the brain are used by the behaving animal to interact with its environment is a serious challenge. Over the past decade the number of tools that have become available to study the brain and animal behaviour has increased enormously and has transformed the types of questions that can be asked.

By bringing together a diverse group of interdisciplinary scientists involved in developing methods and applications for quantifying behaviour or measuring brain activity, the hope is to promote the exchange of ideas and approaches between different research fields.

Speakers

• Beck, Heinz (Bonn, Germany)
• Brecht, Michael (Berlin, Germany)
• Buffalo, Elizabeth A. (Seattle, WA, USA)
• Dudman, Joshua T. (Ashburn, VA. USA)
• Fitzpatrick, David (Jupiter, FL, USA)
• Gan, Wenbiao (New York, NY, USA)
• Greenberg, David (Bonn, Germany)
• Grewe, Benjamin F. (Stanford, CA, USA)
• Gütig, Robert (Göttingen, Germany)
• Hanke, Wolf ( Rostock, Germany)
• Haydon Wallace, Damian James (Bonn, Germany)
• Jayaraman, Vivek (Ashburn, VA, USA)
• Laurent, Gilles (Frankfurt a.M., Germany)
• Lavis, Luke D. (Ashburne, VA, USA)
• Leonardo, Anthony (Ashburne, VA, USA)
• Macke, Jakob (Tübingen, Germany)
• Margrie, Troy (Londen, UK)
• Martin, Kevan A.C. (Zurich, Switzerland)
• Mehta, Mayank R. (Zurich, Switzerland)
• Mikula, Shawn (Heidelberg, Germany)
• Mouritsen, Henrik Østergaard ( Oldenburg, Germany)
• O'Keefe, John (London, UK)
• Ölveczky, Bence (Cambridge, MA, USA)
• Prescott, Tony J. (Sheffield, UK)
• Roberts, Todd (Dallas, TX, USA)
• Schuster, Stefan (Bayreuth, Germany)
• Schwartz, Andrew B. (Pittsburg, PA, USA)
• Silies, Marion (Göttingen, Germany)
• Tkacik, Gasper (Klosterneuburg, Austria)
• Ulanovsky, Nachum (Rehovot, Israel)
• Vaziri, Alipasha (Vienna, Austria)
• Wickens, Jeff (Oinawa, Japan)
• Wikelski, Martin C. (Radolfzell, Germany)
• Wolf, Fred (Göttingen, Germany)
• Zoccolan, Davide (Trieste, Italy)