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Bringing molecular structure to life: 50 years of the PDB – Course and Conference Office

EMBL Conference

Bringing molecular structure to life: 50 years of the PDB

Overview

EMBL is committed to sharing research advances and sustaining scientific interaction throughout the coronavirus pandemic. We are delighted to announce that this conference is going virtual and invite you to join us online.

Join this conference and celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Protein Data Bank (PDB) with us. With over 1 million unique users worldwide and more than 400 biomedical data resources, the PDB represents the achievements and milestones of the structural biology community.

The PDB is one of the oldest surviving archives in any biomedical field. The structural biology community established the single worldwide archive for macromolecular structure data in 1971. The PDB has embraced a culture of open access leading to its widespread use by the research community (with nowadays more than 1 million unique users worldwide) and by more than 400 biomedical data resources.

Structural biology and structural bioinformatics have had an enormous impact on our understanding of the mechanism and function of biological macromolecules. The PDB acts as a custodian for all these data, representing the achievements and milestones of the structural biology community. 

The archive is managed by the Worldwide Protein Data Bank consortium (wwPDB) which includes partner sites in Asia, Europe and America, making this a truly global effort. The 50th anniversary is an opportunity to celebrate the advances in structural biology and bioinformatics and peer into the future prospects for these fields.

Session topics:

  • Structural biology and applications in health and the environment
  • RNA/DNA molecular machines
  • The next 50 years: Genomics meets structural biology
  • Latest advances
  • The next 50 years: Future perspectives (part 1)
  • The next 50 years: Future perspectives (part 2)

Call for artwork by 8 September 2021

An artwork exhibition will be part of the conference, bringing awareness to the 50th anniversary of the PDB. The conference participants can submit an artwork representing scientific and/or societal concepts relating to a structure in the Protein Data Bank. The artwork can be created using any technique or media, however, we will require a high-resolution image of the artwork for display in the virtual exhibition.

More information about submitting an artwork or abstract can be found under the tab ‘Practical Information’.

Speakers

Drew Berry

Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Australia

Nicolas Thomä

Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research

Switzerland

Panel Chair

Scientific Organisers

Conference Organiser

Programme

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Day 1 – Wednesday, 20 October 2021
Time (CEST) Speaker
11:00-11:15 Opening remarks by Scientific Organisers
Introductory Session – Session Chair: Gerard Kleywegt
11:15-11:45Historical perspective of the PDB – the archive that led the way to open science
Jane Richardson – Duke University School of Medicine, USA
Janet Thornton – EMBL-EBI Hinxton, UK
AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM
11:45-12:15Advances in Structural Virology
Dave Stuart – University of Oxford, UK
AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM
12:15-12:45How Representative is the Protein Databank of All the Protein Structures in Nature?
Christine Orengo – University College London, UK
AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM
12:45-13:15Meet the Speakers
13:15-13:30Break
13:30-14:30Poster session 1/Artwork exhibition
Session 1: Structural biology & applications in health and the
environment – Session Chair: Matthias Wilmanns
14:30-15:00Haven’t got a glue: reprogramming ubiquitin ligases with molecular glue degraders
Nicolas Thomä – Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical
Research, Switzerland
15:00-15:15Structure of Escherichia coli respiratory complex I
reconstituted into lipid nanodiscs reveals an uncoupled
conformation
Piotr Kolata – Center for Structural Biology, Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie, Belgium
AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM
15:15-15:45Exploiting structures and Big Data for drug discovery
Bissan Al-Lazikani – The Institute of Cancer Research, UK
AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM
15:45-16:00Break
16:00-16:15The structure of the native CNGA1/CNGB1 CNG channel from retinal rods
Jacopo Marino – Paul Scherrer Institut, Switzerland
16:15-16:45The Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC): structural biology to illuminate the dark proteome and catalyze drug discovery
Cheryl Arrowsmith – University Health Network, Canada
AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM
16:45-17:15Meet the Speakers
17:15-18:00Optional networking programme: Quiz time
The Great PDB50 Quiz – Anybody can win! (It’s that hard.)
17:45-18:15Meet the Editor Session in break-out-rooms
Trends in Biochemical Sciences – Sannie Culbertson
Nature Communications – Karin Kuehnel
Nature Methods – Allison Doerr
Nature Structural & Molecular Biology – Carolina Perdigoto

Day 2 – Thursday, 21 October 2021
Time (CEST) Speaker
Session 2: RNA/DNA molecular machines – Session Chair:
Stephen Cusack
11:00-11:30Structural studies of gene transcription and viral replication
Patrick Cramer – Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry,
Germany
AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM
11:30-11:45Complex nucleoprotein assemblies promote antibiotic
resistance spreading
Georgy Smyshlyaev – EMBL Heidelberg, Germany
AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM
11:45-12:15Macromolecular machines involved in mRNA 3′-end processing
Lori Passmore – MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, UK
AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM
12:15-12:30Break
12:30-12:45Bridging of DNA breaks activates PARP2–HPF1 to modify
chromatin
Silvija Bilokapic – St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, USA
AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM
12:45-13:15Molecular mechanisms of CRISPR-associated genome editor nucleases and transposons
Martin Jinek – University of Zurich, Switzerland
AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM
13:15-13:45Meet the Speakers
Session 3: The next 50 years: Genomics meets structural
biology – Session Chair: Christine Orengo
13:45-14:45Poster Session 2/Artwork exhibition
14:45-15:15Enzyme engineering
Don Hilvert – ETH Zürich, Switzerland
AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM
15:15-15:30PDB-wide identification of physiological hetero-oligomeric
assemblies based on conserved quaternary structure geometry
Sucharita Dey – Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur, India
AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM
15:30-16:00Structural and systems biology – understanding variation
Madan Babu – St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, UK
AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM
16:00-16:15Break
16:15-16:45AlphaFold and the role of deep learning in structural biology
John Jumper – DeepMind, UK
AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM
16:45-17:15The coming of age of de novo protein design
David Baker – University of Washington, USA
AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM
17:15-17:45Meet the Speakers
17:45-18:15Optional networking programme: Speed networking
Day 3 – Friday, 22 October 2021
Time (CEST) Speaker
Session 4: Latest advances – Session Chair: Christoph Müller
11:00-12:00Respiration: The dynamic multi-enzyme pathway from Glucose to ATP
Drew Berry – Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research,
Australia
AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM
12:00-12:20The structural changes of phytochrome photoactivation
revealed by femto- and picosecond serial femtosecond X-ray crystallography
Madan Kumar Shankar – Gothenburg University, Sweden
AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM
12:20-12:40Quantifying radiation damage to protein crystal structures in
the PDB
Kathryn Shelley – University of Bristol, UK
AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM
12:40-13:00Refactoring the B-factor: intuitively extracting structural
dynamics from macromolecular disorder
Nicholas Pearce – Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands
AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM
13:00-13:30Meet the Speakers
13:30-13:45Break
Session 5: The next 50 years: future perspectives (part 1)
– Session Chair: Janet Thornton
13:45-14:15Enabling discovery by in-cell structural biology
Julia Mahamid – EMBL Heidelberg, Germany
AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM
14:15-14:45Femtosecond Crystallography with XFELs: From static pictures to dynamics of biomolecules in action
Petra Fromme – Arizona State University, USA
AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM
14:45-15:00Break
Session 6: The next 50 years: future perspectives (part 2)
– Session Chair: Janet Thornton
15:00-15:30Cryo-EM of RNA at Near Atomic Resolutions
Wah Chiu – Stanford University, USA
AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM
15:30-16:00Making structural data accessible
Sameer Velankar – EMBL-EBI Hinxton, UK
AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM
16:00-17:00Panel Discussion on the future of structural biology and the
PDB
Chaired by Peter Rosenthal
Panelists: Wah Chiu, Petra Fromme, Don Hilvert, John Jumper, Jan Kosinski, Julia Mahamid
AVAILABLE ON DEMAND AFTER LIVE STREAM
17:00-17:15Closing remarks by the Scientific Organisers
17:15-17:45Meet the Speakers

Practical Information

Registration Fees and Abstract/Artwork Submission

Registration Fees (include access to all of the talks, digital poster sessions and online group discussions, and help us cover our costs to run the event. For further information please refer to the FAQ page):

Academia – PI/Faculty75 Euro
Academia – Post-doc50 Euro
PhD Student/Emeritus/Retired15 Euro
Industry200 Euro
EMBL StaffIntranet access

Accredited journalists may be eligible to register for a complimentary registration. Registrants may be required to provide accreditation or equivalent proof of press membership after registration. Please contact Aline Schnieder for more information.

Confirmation and Payment

Registration will be on a first-come first-served basis. Your place can only be confirmed after payment of the registration fee.
Types of payments accepted are international bank transfers and credit card payments.

Artwork submission

Artwork submission deadline: 8 September 2021 (23:59 Europe/Berlin)

Only registered participants are eligible to submit an artwork. We only accept online artwork submissions.

The artwork should be an original piece of art representing scientific and/or societal concepts relating to a structure in the Protein Data Bank. The artwork can be created using any technique or media, however we will require a high resolution image of the artwork for display in the virtual exhibition.

After you have logged in and successfully registered, you will receive an email asking you to submit your artwork.  Click on the link provided and enter your artwork. Alternatively you can submit your artwork by clicking on the link on the confirmation page directly after registering.

A selection process will take place with the results announced 2-3 weeks after the artwork submission deadline.

Abstract submission

Abstract submission deadline: 15 September 2021 (23:59 Europe/Berlin)

Late abstracts for poster presentations are accepted until 27 September (23:59 Europe/Berlin)

Only registered participants are eligible to submit an abstract. We only accept online abstract submissions.

After you have logged in and successfully registered, you will receive an email asking you to submit your abstract.  Click on the link provided and enter your abstract in the text box provided. Alternatively you can submit your abstract by clicking on the link on the confirmation page directly after registering.

When submitting your abstract you can also apply for an oral or poster presentation. A selection process will take place with the results announced 2-3 weeks after the abstract submission deadline.

Financial Assistance

Financial Assistance

Financial Fee Waivers

All academic and student registrants are invited to apply for a registration fee waiver, provided by the EMBL Advanced Training Centre Corporate Partnership Programme and EMBO. The registration fee waiver covers the registration sum that you have paid to attend the meeting. Conference participants are not required to pre-pay the registration fee to be selected for a fee waiver for a virtual meeting. If you have already paid the registration fee and are awarded a fee waiver, it will be reimbursed after the meeting.

Childcare Grants

For participants and speakers with childcare responsibilities there is the possibility to apply for a grant, provided by the EMBL Advanced Training Centre Corporate Partnership Programme and EMBO, to offset childcare costs incurred when participating at a virtual event. Eligible costs include fees for a babysitter or childcare facility or travel costs for a care giver. Please note that priority will be given to early stage researchers. Costs will be reimbursed after the meeting only once a reimbursement form and original receipts have been received. Attendance at the event is required in order to be eligible to receive the reimbursement. In order to apply for this grant, you must be registered by the abstract submission deadline.

Application

Applications for financial assistance can be submitted via the submission portal* (for the submission of abstracts for conferences) by completing the Financial Assistance Application Section (underneath the section for entering abstract/motivation letter information). The link to the portal can be found in the registration confirmation email that you will receive after registering for the conference.

For conferences, if you are not submitting an abstract, you can still apply for financial assistance in the submission portal. Take a look at the instructions for applying for financial assistance. Note that priority will be given to those submitting an abstract to present at the conference. In your application you will be asked to answer questions regarding your motivation for applying, and, for registration fee waivers, the reasons why your lab cannot fund your attendance and how your attendance will make a difference to your career. Application for financial support will not affect the outcome of your registration application.

Selection

The scientific organisers will select the recipients of registration fee waivers during the abstract selection process for conferences and the participant selection process for courses. Results will be announced approximately 3 – 4 weeks before the event start date. Selection results do not impact your admission to the meeting. Registration fee waiver selection is based on your current work or study location, your motivation for applying, the reasons for needing financial support and the impact this event will have on your career. Childcare grants are allocated based on career stage, with priority given to early stage researchers.

Further details

Check our list of external funding opportunities and read our information on attending a conference as an event reporter.

For further information about financial assistance please refer to the FAQ page.

Virtual Participation Guidelines

Guidelines

Please do:

  • Use the event-specific hashtag as communicated during the event for any related tweets
  • Tweet unless the speaker specifically says otherwise
  • Be mindful of unpublished data
  • Be respectful in tone and content

Please don’t:

  • Share Slack, live stream or poster session links with others
  • Broadcast the conference to unregistered participants
  • Capture, transmit or redistribute data presented at the meeting unless presenter gives explicit consent
  • Use offensive language in your posts
  • Engage in rudeness or personal attacks

Additional information can be found in our Code of Conduct.

Health and well-being

It is important to stay healthy and move around, especially when you are attending an event virtually. We have put together a few coffee break stretches and yoga videos in the events Slack workspace for you to enjoy during the event.

How to ask questions

Questions during and after the talks can be asked in live streaming platform. The chair moderates the questions and shares them with the speaker. If time runs out or you think of a question later, you can use Slack to ask your questions in the dedicated session channels or via direct message.

Time zone

The programme is planned based on Central European Summer Time (CEST), unless otherwise stated. As many virtual participants are attending from around the world, we do our best to accomodate as many timezones as possible when creating the programme. Please take your time zone into consideration when planning your attendance.

Virtual event platforms

We are using a virtual event platform for this conference. More information about the platform will be shared ahead of the conference.

Sponsors

 

Media Partners

EMBO Journal, an EMBO Press journal

International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Open Biology, a Royal Society journal

 

Sponsorship Opportunities

We offer a variety of event sponsoring possibilities, with the flexibility to select a set sponsorship package or combine individual sponsorship options to suit your event budget. Discounts are available for companies sponsoring multiple events at EMBL Heidelberg. View other conferences, or contact sponsorship@embl.de for further information.

If you are interested in becoming a media partner of this event, please visit our media partnerships webpage.

Warning

EMBL wishes to warn sponsors of EMBL conferences and courses of fraudulent schemes purporting to offer sponsorship opportunities on behalf of EMBL or affiliated with EMBL officials. One current scam campaign of which we are aware is conducted using the name ‘Judy Eastman’ (judy@gopcontact.a2hosted.com) and entails approaches to sponsors offering sponsorship opportunities on EMBL’s behalf. Please be kindly advised that all relevant communication regarding sponsorship of EMBL conferences, symposia and courses is handled by EMBL directly and is sent from an official EMBL account. EMBL does not work with any external providers on sponsorship acquisition.

Please also note that:

  • EMBL never provides attendee lists for purchase. Any offers of such are fraudulent.
  • EMBL will never call or email you to ask for your credit card details or to request a payment.
  • All payments are on invoice.

Suspicious communications purportedly from, for or on behalf of EMBL should be reported to EMBL at the following email address sponsoring@embl.de.

Date: 20 - 22 Oct 2021

Location: Virtual


Deadline(s):

Abstract submission: Closed

Registration: Closed


Organisers:

  • Stephen Cusack
    EMBL Grenoble, France
    • Gerard Kleywegt
      EMBL-EBI, UK
      • Christoph Mueller
        EMBL Heidelberg, Germany
        • Christine Orengo
          University College London, UK

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