5 keynote speakers. 5 short talks. A poster session. A wine & cheese cocktail.
Program is below and registration is here.
Keynote 1. Geneviève Almouzni, Institut Curie, Paris. Lab website.
Pr. Almouzni has been studying how histones, their variants and post-translationally modified forms, mark functional regions of the genome. Her team is interested in understanding how chromatin organization is established, propagated, maintained, and changed during development and in response to environmental cues. Her team aims to understand the in vivo functions of chromatin complexes combining biochemistry, cell biology, and developmental biology. Her team has been examining specific nuclear domains, such as non-coding centromeric heterochromatic regions, which are of major importance for chromosome segregation.
Keynote 2. Bernard de Massy, Institute of Human Genetics, Montpellier. Lab website.
Dr. de Massy has been investigating the mechanisms and the regulation of meiotic recombination. Meiotic recombination events are initiated by the formation of DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs, several hundred per nucleus in mice), the repair of which leads to both crossovers and non-crossovers (gene conversion without crossover). His team deciphered how the timing, frequency and distribution of these double strand breaks (DSBs) are regulated, and how DSB formation and repair are coordinated. Together with two other groups, he notably discovered that the positioning of recombination sites in mammals is determined by the PRDM9 histone methyltrasferase.
Keynote 3. Saadi Khochbin, Institute of Advanced Biosciences. Lab website.
Dr. Khochbin aims at the understanding of how the genome communicates with its environment to control its various activities. His team has discovered new enzymes regulating chemical modifications of histones, histone-binding factors and specific histones variants. His research program exploring the conserved process of the male epigenome establishment, but is also generating important new concepts applicable to epigenetics and chromatin biology, with applications in cancer biology (novel oncogenic mechanisms, new biomarkers, new therapeutic targets and strategies).
Keynote 4. Ramesh Pillai, Université of Geneva. Lab website.
Pr. Pillai seeks to understand molecular mechanisms involved in regulation of gene expression by noncoding RNAs and RNA modifications. His team uses a variety of animal and cell culture model systems to understand the silencing of repetitive sequences. More precisely, he is interested in understanding the molecular mechanisms involved in piRNA biogenesis and function, using mammalian and insect model systems. His lab uses a variety of methodologies ranging from protein biochemistry, cell biology, and animal genetics to computational biology and structural biology.
Keynote 5. Karissa Sanbonmatsu, Los Alamos National Labs (USA). Lab website.
Dr. Sanbonmatsu works on the mechanism of non-coding RNA complexes. Her lab uses computational and experimental approaches to understand the mechanism of a diverse array of non-coding RNA systems, including ribosomes, riboswitches and long non-coding RNAs. She was the first to perform an atomistic simulation of the ribosome, determine the secondary structure of an intact lncRNA and to publish a one billion atom simulation of a biomolecular complex. Her lab develops computational/experimental studies of riboswitches and purely experimental studies of long non-coding RNAs.
Five short talks to be selected from posters.
Poster session with wine & cheese cocktail.