As one year ends...

In warm appreciation of your support during the past year, the BBS committee extends our very best wishes to you all for a happy festive season.

Final Summit of the Grand Challenge Network on Understanding the Physics of Life

From Professor Graham J Leggett, Department of Chemistry, Sheffield University:

Thank you for your support for, and participation in, our Grand Challenge Network on Understanding he Physics of Life. Our period of funding is drawing to a close and I am writing to invite you to attend the Network Final Summit meeting at the Natural History Museum on January 27. The registration fee is only £20, including lunch. The scientific programme for the day features presentations from outstanding speakers highlighting the themes explored in our programme of focussed workshops.

When EPSRC funded its Grand Challenge networks, it asked them to identify key challenges for the future. The Grand Challenges were a unique opportunity for us fo influence thinking at EPSRC and to contribute to the shaping of future funding priorities. Through the meetings and workshops that our network has organised we have, thanks to the enthusiastic participation of the community, gathered a great deal of information that provides the basis for drawing up a “road map” for the future of biological physics in the UK.

From the outset, our vision has been that this network should support and represent the UK biological physics community. In drawing up a road map for biological physics, we have drawn on the ideas that the community has shared with us and we are anxious to share that road map with the community and to seek your feedback before we submit the final document to EPSRC. We would like to present this Roadmap to the community at our Final Summit, and receive your feedback. Finally, as the Network’s funding comes to an end, we would also appreciate feedback on whether the network has an on-going role to play, and whether it is worth exploring avenues to try to secure further funding for the future.

Please come along and help us as we attempt to shape the future for biological physics in the UK.

Regards,

Graham.

From Molecules to Systems Final Summit
27 January 2016, Natural History Museum, London.
For more information please visit our website: http://www.physicsoflife.org.uk/events/final-summit/

Confirmed speakers:
Catherine Royer, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Ard Louis, University of Oxford
Cécile Sykes, Institut Curie
John Hand, EPSRC
Julia Yeomans, University of Oxford
Richard Morris, John Innes Centre

Cost only £20 including lunch, private access to ‘From the Beginning‘ gallery and refreshments.
To register visit http://onlineshop.shef.ac.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?compid=1&modid=2&deptid=6&catid=4&prodid=474

Lucca (Barga), Italy, January 31 - February 5, 2016 (registration deadline 3rd Jan)

It is our pleasure to invite you to our upcoming Gordon Research Conference on January 31 - February 5, 2016 on "Ligand Recognition and Molecular Gating" at Renaissance Tuscany Il Ciocco, Lucca (Barga) Italy. This conference will be immediately preceded by a Gordon Research Seminar that will take place January 30-31, 2016 at the same location. Please see the list of talks in the attached flyer and more information online at: http://www.grc.org/programs.aspx?id=12689

We have fellowships available for trainees (partially covering the registration fees) as well as travel stipends available for trainees attending both GRS and GRC! (Please request them with your application.)

Furthermore, we will have best talk and best poster prizes at the GRS!

I hope to receive your applications soon and to see you in Italy!

Apply online at: http://www.grc.org/programs.aspx?id=12689 (for the GRC) and http://www.grc.org/programs.aspx?id=17192 (for the GRS).

Monte Verità in Ascona, Switzerland, September 11-16, 2016

It is with pleasure that we invite you to participate in the Biophysical Society thematic meeting co-sponsored by Congressi Stefano Franscini of the ETH Zurich that we are organizing on Liposomes, Exosomes, and Virosomes. The meeting will held September 11-16, 2016, at Monte Verità in Ascona, Switzerland.

This meeting will cover recent developments for investigating biochemical reactions and networks at, in, and across membranes of artificial and cell membrane-derived vesicles. Themes the meeting will address include: imaging membrane proteins and their biochemical reactions by light- and electron-optical and force microscopy at small ensemble and single molecule levels; vesicles in cellular trafficking and processes; lipid and protein micro-/nano-domains in membranes; transmembrane signalling in cell-derived vesicles; modeling in-plane and trans-membrane reactions; vesicles as ultrasmall containers for (bio-)chemical reactions; vesicles as artificial cells and for synthetic and systems biology; extracellular vesicles (exosomes) as diagnostic biomarkers; viral envelopes (virosomes) and vesicles for targeted drug delivery; and membrane networks and tissue engineering.

The meeting will bring together experts in membrane biophysics, cell biology, synthetic biology, diagnostics, pharmacology, and pharmaceutical formulation and will appeal to academic scientists and researchers in pharmaceutical industry. Bringing together different approaches to this multidisciplinary topic will allow an intense scientific exchange of ideas and will highlight the field from different views. This will provide a basis for a molecular understanding of central questions about the use of cell-derived and model membranes, deliver the newest technical approaches, and stimulate further developments as well as future collaborations.

Visit the website for a list of speakers. Please share this information with colleagues who may be interested in attending.

Please note that the deadline to submit an abstract is March 7, and the deadline to register at the early registration rate is March 11. Abstract submission is free and numerous short talks will be selected from among submitted abstracts.

For more information, visit:
http://www.biophysics.org/2016switzerland/Home/tabid/6520/Default.aspx

We look forward to seeing you in Ascona.

The Organizing Committee

Daniel Müller, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Switzerland
Lukas Tamm, University of Virginia, USA
Horst Vogel, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland

December 2015

The current newsletter can be downloaded from the following address:
http://iupab.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/NEWS64.pdf

Lake Wannsee, Berlin, Germany, May 27-29, 2016

Confirmed speakers:
- William DeGrado, University of California San Francisco
- Tom DeCoursy, Rush Medical College
- Isaiah Arkin, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
- Noam Agmon, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
- Gregory Voth, University of Chicago
- Elena Pohl, University of Vienna
- Gerhard Hummer, Max Planck Institute for Biophysics
- Peter Pohl, Johannes-Kepler-University Linz
- Thomas Berger, Ceasar, Bonn
- Özkan Yildiz, Max Planck Institute for Biophysics
- Eric Beitz, University of Kiel
- Gary Sawers, University Halle-Wittenberg
- Gerhard Thiel, Technical University Darmstadt

We are looking forward to meet you in Berlin! More information can be found at:
http://cmb.bio.uni-goettingen.de/dgfb2016.html

The Organizers

Jochen Hub, Georg-August-University Göttingen
Gerhard Thiel, Technical University Darmstadt
German Biophysical Society

Burlington House, London, 27th April 2016

This symposium will showcase the state of the art in chemical biology, bringing together the wider community with leading national and international experts in the field. The programme will explore all aspects of chemical biology and highlight the wider scope and impact of the field. Additional aims of the event are to stimulate research collaboration, networking and public engagement within the chemical biology community, as well as with those in related disciplines.
This event will include a poster session, providing an opportunity for early career researchers to share and discuss their recent research advances and to network with others delegates. Abstracts are welcomed from PhD students who are in their final year of study (at the time of submission), postdoctoral researchers and early career academics (<5 years PhD).

Confirmed Speakers
Professor Paula Booth - King’s College London, United Kingdom
Professor Jason Chin - MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, United Kingdom
Professor Martin Fussenegger - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Switzerland
Professor Stefan Hell - Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Germany
Professor Donald Hilvert - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Switzerland
Professor Barbara Imperiali - Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Further information and registration for this event can be found at:
http://www.rsc.org/events/detail/20561/chemical-biology-symposium