In line with EMBL’s transversal themes, we’ve introduced some new events for 2024’s calendar of courses and conferences.

EMBL’s research aims to understand the basis of life, gaining a molecular understanding of organisms in the context of different environments. EMBL scientists will explore these different scales through eight research themes that foster collaborative, multidisciplinary research: molecular building blocks, cellular and multicellular dynamics, microbial ecosystems, infection biology, human ecosystems, planetary biology, data sciences, and theory.

Transversal theme(s): human ecosystems
Exploring gene and environmental exposure interactions to understand human health and disease | EMBL-EBI Hinxton
19 – 23 February 2024

This introductory course explores the complex interplay between genes and the environment in shaping human phenotypes. Participants will gain knowledge of cohort datasets, environmental readouts, and bioinformatics tools to investigate gene-environment interactions. Ethical and legal frameworks related to data privacy, consent, and genetic discrimination will be discussed. 

Applications are open until 5 November 2024.

Transversal theme: human ecosystems
The new cardiobiology | EMBL Heidelberg and virtual
20 – 23 February 2024

This new EMBO workshop aims to transform the established organ-centric view on single cardiovascular organs into a systems biomedicine approach by tearing down the walls between disciplines and moving on to discussion of the cardiovascular system with an inter-, trans-, and cross-disciplinary approach.

Abstract submission is open until 28 November 2024.
Registration is open until 9 January 2024 (on-site), or 13 February 2024 (virtual).

Transversal theme: data sciences
AI and biology | EMBL Heidelberg and virtual
12 – 15 March 2024

The aim of this EMBO | EMBL Symposium is to catalyse synergistic interactions between AI researchers in different sub-fields of biology by exploring shared theoretical approaches, cross-domain experiments, and data integration, as well as shared topics in dissemination of tools and collaboration with experimental labs.

Abstract submission is open until 5 December 2024.
Registration is open until 30 January 2024 (on-site), or 5 March 2024 (virtual).

Transversal theme: human ecosystems
Data-driven approaches to understanding dementia | EMBL-EBI Hinxton
8 – 12 April 2024

This course provides individuals working in dementia research with the skills to access and analyse dementia data. Participants will learn to apply bioinformatics methodologies, combine different data types, and utilise relevant dementia data resources, enhancing their research capabilities in the field.

Applications will open on 25 September 2023. Sign up for alerts to hear as the course develops.

EMBL-EBI Course. Data-driven approaches to understanding dementia. 8 – 12 April 2024. Hinxton | United Kingdom.

Transversal theme: planetary biology
Diversity of plants: from genomes to metabolism | EMBL Heidelberg and virtual
9 – 12 April 2024

This inaugural EMBO | EMBL Symposium aims to showcase the future of plant biology. Going beyond the limited number of model plants that plant biologists have historically focused on (e.g. arabidopsis, corn, rice), it is nowadays possible to use comparative approaches to uncover the mechanistic basis and the evolutionary drive for the enormous phenotypic variation among the 400,000 species of plants on Earth..

Sign up for alerts to be the first to hear when registration opens for this conference.

Transversal theme: data sciences
Time-resolved macromolecular serial crystallography | EMBL Grenoble
8 – 12 July 2024

This EMBO practical course aims to teach participants know-how of time-resolved serial crystallography and to illustrate the entire pipeline from sample-preparation to a 3D molecular movie. Lectures and practical sessions will be delivered to explain how to prepare micro-crystals of biomolecules, how to use various sample delivery methods for serial crystallography, to design time-resolved experiments, to collect data, and to process serial crystallographic data.

Sign up for alerts to be the first to hear when applications open for this course.

Transversal theme: planetary biology and data sciences
Plant genomes: from data to discovery | virtual
18 – 22 November 2024

‘Plant genomes: from data to discovery’ is a 5-day course that will take you through a selection of genomic tools and open resources to help you explore plant genomes. Covering genomic, genetic variation, expression and protein data, this course will show you where to find relevant data and how to use publicly available tools to connect across resources supporting plant genomic data-driven knowledge discovery.

Applications will open on 6 May 2024. Sign up for alerts to hear as the course develops.

EMBL-EBI Course. Plant genomes: from data to discovery. 18 – 22 November 2024. Virtual.

Transversal theme: data sciences
Hands-on course for sample preparation and data analysis in proteomics | EMBL Heidelberg
3 – 6 December 2024

Participants will get hands-on experience in sample preparation for a quantitative comparison across samples and perform an in-solution digest using Single-Pot Solid-Phase-enhanced Sample Preparation (SP3) (Hughes et al., Molecular Systems Biology, 2014) and tandem mass tag labelling (TMT). Participants will also measure their own produced samples using LC-MS/MS and will learn in a session focused on the bioinformatics analysis how the acquired data will be analysed using MSFragger and R.

Sign up for alerts to be the first to hear when applications open for this course.

We also have a full programme of returning events to mark the 50th anniversary of EMBL. How will you further your biological knowledge in 2024?