SUMMER 2016 ISSUE 33 EMBO | EMBL Symposium | Tubulin discovery’s 50th anniversary Moving on transient tracks PAGES 12 – 13 © Carsten Janke © Commentary EMBO Members Brexit and research: 58 life science Good bye EU money researchers elected and colleagues? PAGES 4 –5 PAGE 8 EMBO Gold Medal 2016 awarded to Sharing of preprint manuscripts From potential to policy Interview with Richard Benton and Ben Lehner Are biologists ready? Carlos Moedas, European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation PAGE 6 PAGE 7 PAGES 10 – 11 www.embo.org Table of contents The EMBO community welcomes Malta and Lithuania Page 2 New EMBO Members 2016 Page 4 Richard Benton and Ben Lehner awarded EMBO Gold Medal Page 6 Are biologists ready for preprints? How transparency in publishing is opening up research Page 7 Brexit and research: Good bye EU money and Editorial colleagues? Commentary ince the creation of EMBO and Page 8 Sits intergovernmental funding body EMBC, the European idea has probably never been questioned How objective can one be? Metrics in research more than in the last few months. assessment With the vote in the UK to leave the Page 9 European Union, European organi- zations will have an important From potential to policy role in showing the value of an a Interview with EU Commissioner Carlos Moedas common and open European space Page 10 – in general, but also for us a scien- © Marietta Schupp, EMBL Photolab Marietta Schupp, © tists in particular. On pages 8 and 9, we publish commentaries from Moving on transient tracks: 50th anniversary of two concerned scientists. EMBO will not directly the discovery of tubulin affected by the UK leaving Europe, as its funding Science story comes from an intergovernmental organization of Page 12 which the UK will remain a member. EMBO was founded with instrumental participation from UK Update from the EMBO Fellowship Programme scientists, and its UK constituency will remain an Page 14 active and valued part of the EMBO community. In this summer issue of EMBO Encounters, we report on a variety of achievements: from EMBO Young Investigators 2016 the EMBO programmes and the EMBO commu- Page 15 nity members, including the accession of two new member states to the EMBC, the election News from the EMBO community of 58 researchers from various fields in the life Pages 14 – 17 sciences as EMBO Members, the award of this year’s EMBO Gold Medal to Ben Lehner and EMBO events Richard Benton, new EMBO Fellows and Young Page 18 Investigators, and some impressive examples on how researchers in Europe and beyond drive life science research. Science communication Developments in science policy in Europe Pages 19 and 21 and in scientific publishing are keeping EMBO staff busy, and there is a good chance that they Awards and publications may redefine the way scientists publish and Page 20 share their results in future. We look at several of these developments in this newsletter. EMBO Fresh from EMBO Press will continue to shape these for the benefit of the Page 22 life sciences. Maria Leptin, Director, EMBO 2 EMBOencounters | Summer 2016 | [email protected] ©2016 EMBO EMBC European Molecular Biology Conference ➔➔ Austria ➔➔ Luxembourg ➔➔ Belgium ➔➔ Malta ➔➔ Croatia ➔➔ Netherlands ➔➔ Czech Republic ➔➔ Norway ➔➔ Denmark ➔➔ Poland ➔➔ Estonia ➔➔ Portugal ➔➔ Finland ➔➔ Singapore* ➔➔ France ➔➔ Slovak Republic ➔➔ Germany ➔➔ Slovenia ➔➔ Greece ➔➔ South Africa** ➔➔ Hungary ➔➔ Spain ➔➔ Iceland ➔➔ Sweden ➔➔ India* ➔➔ Switzerland ➔➔ Ireland ➔➔ MOST of Taiwan** ➔➔ Israel ➔➔ Turkey ➔➔ Italy ➔➔ United Kingdom ➔➔ Lithuania * EMBC Associate Member State ** EMBC Cooperation Partner The EMBO community welcomes Malta and Lithuania MALTA and LITHUANIA join EMBC as a new member states alta and Lithuania have joined EMBO’s intergovernmental funding “Life sciences in Lithuania have Mbody, the European Molecular Biology advanced at an impressive rate in About EMBC Conference (EMBC). In March this year, Malta was the 28th country to be accepted into the recent decades, driven by robust The European Molecular Biology Conference EMBC, followed by Lithuania in June as the 29th investment in applied research (EMBC) is an intergovernmental organiza- member state. tion comprising 29 Member States. EMBC "Malta has shown an impressive commitment and commercial biotechnology” promotes a strong transnational approach to enhancing its scientific research base," stated to the life sciences. Within EMBC, Member EMBO Director Maria Leptin. "It has made strong States pool their resources to improve the use of European Union funding to invest in the achievements and take advantage of the support quality of research at a national level and life sciences and EMBO is glad to be able to offer for our member states”. to contribute to the advancement of basic Malta the opportunities and support available to Researchers working in Malta and in Lithuania research in Europe. our member states". will now be eligible to apply to EMBO for Long- term Fellowships, Short-term Fellowships, For more information: www.embc.embo.org Courses and Workshops funding and the EMBO “Malta has shown an impressive Young Investigator Programme. Access to support commitment to enhancing its in these areas helps some of Europe's finest scientists to excel in their research and to engage “Life sciences are a particular strength of scientific research base” in professional networking with an international Lithuania and it is a pleasure to see our country community of peers. become part of the EMBO family,” said Professor "Access to funding and networking opportuni- Virginijus Šikšnys of Vilnius University’s Institute ties is vital to effectively support the life scienc- of Biotechnology. “EMBO membership creates “Life sciences in Lithuania have advanced es. This agreement with the EMBC and EMBO new opportunities for our young researchers at an impressive rate in recent decades, driven will significantly drive the career advancement and strengthens our links with the European life by robust investment in applied research and of Maltese life scientists and of those working sciences community”. commercial biotechnology,” she also said. “We in Malta," added Evarist Bartolo, Minister for look forward to helping Lithuania build on its Education and Employment, Malta. ©2016 EMBO EMBOencounters | Summer 2016 | [email protected] 3 58 life science researchers elected as new EMBO Adam Antebi M. Madan Babu Laure Bally-Cuif Members Biological mechanisms Regulatory genomics Adult neural stem cell of longevity and systems biology maintenance in vertebrates 2016 Cologne, Germany Cambridge, United Kingdom Gif-sur-Yvette & Paris, France Jason S. Carroll Andrew P. Carter Agnieszka Chacinska Kristina Djinović-Carugo Óscar Fernández-Capetillo Estrogen Receptor Structural biology of the Quality control of mitochondrial Structural biology of the Replicative stress as a driver biology in breast cancer motor protein dynein protein biogenesis actin-based cytoskeleton of cancer and aging Cambridge, United Kingdom Cambridge, United Kingdom Warsaw, Poland Vienna, Austria & Ljubljana, Slovenia Madrid, Spain & Stockholm, Sweden Jan O. Korbel Pekka Lappalainen Helder Maiato Marcos Malumbres Fatima Mechta-Grigoriou From genomic variation Actin and plasma Spatial and temporal Cell division and Oxidative stress and to molecular mechanism membrane dynamics regulation of mitosis proliferation in mammals stromal diversity in cancers Heidelberg, Germany & Helsinki, Finland Porto, Portugal Madrid, Spain Paris, France Cambridge, United Kingdom Jane E. Parker Matthieu Piel Simona Polo Hans-Reimer Rodewald Claire Rougeulle Plant innate immunity Quantitative, molecular and Ubiquitin (de)regulation Hematopoietic stem cells Long non-coding RNAs in signalling pathways physical cell biology of signaling pathways and immunology development and disease Köln, Germany Paris, France Milano, Italy Heidelberg, Germany Paris, France François Spitz Didier Stainier Kate G. Storey Peter ten Dijke Pavel Tomancak Genome architecture Vertebrate organ development Regulation of neural TGF-beta family Patterns of gene expression and gene regulation and homeostasis differentiation signaling in diseases in animal development Paris, France Bad Nauheim, Germany Dundee, United Kingdom Leiden, Netherlands Dresden, Germany Xiaodong Zhang Juleen R. Zierath George Fu Gao* Hiroshi Hamada* Marc W. Kirschner* Structures and mechanisms Skeletal muscle glucose Protein interactions in virus Origin of body asymmetries Cell cycle regulation, of macromolecular machines metabolism and development entry and immunity in the mouse embryo mass spectrometry London, United Kingdom Stockholm, Sweden Beijing, China Kobe, Japan Boston, United States 4 EMBOencounters | Summer 2016 | [email protected] * EMBO Associate Member ©2016 EMBO New EMBO Members cont. Mohamed Bentires-Alj Michael Brand Dana Branzei Frank Buchholz Ana I. Caño-Delgado Breast cancer diversity, Regeneration of the DNA replication and Genome editing and functional Brassinosteroid signaling resistance and metastasis vertebrate brain and retina chromosome structure integrity genomics in medicine in stem cell development Basel, Switzerland Dresden, Germany Milano, Italy Dresden, Germany Barcelona, Spain Darren Gilmour Ian A. Graham Manajit Hayer-Hartl Carl-Philipp Heisenberg István Katona Collective cell biology of Plant natural products Molecular chaperones Cell and tissue morphogenesis Endocannabinoid organ formation and seed biology and Rubisco biogenesis in gastrulation signaling in the