ISSUE 2 (OCTOBER) 2015 40th FEBS Congress FEBS Education FEBS Advanced FEBS Congress and FEBS Publications Round-up Courses 2016 YSF 2016 Page 3 Page 15 Page 17 Page 22 Page 28 CONTENTS Contents: The 40th FEBS Congress: round-up 3 3 Enjoy reports and photos from our Berlin gathering, including features on FEBS award winners 4 FEBS Fellowships 14 A new link with the Lindau Nobel Laureate meeting FEBS Education 15 6 Awardees of the ‘50 Years of FEBS’ Education Training Awards share their experiences 13 FEBS Advanced Courses 2016 17 Course organizers give us their perspectives on running these events, and we reveal the 2016 program The FEBS Congress and YSF 2016 22 Save the dates! A first look ahead to next year’s big event at Ephesus / Kuşadası FEBS Publications 28 Article highlights and Special Issues from our 11 28 four journals 22 FEBS Community 30 FEBS National Lectures, and calls for award nominations Scientific Events Calendar 32 17 Congress photos credit: Many 40th FEBS Congress photos in this About FEBS News: FEBS News is published two or three times a issue of FEBS News are by Thomas Ecke, copyright GBM e.V.: year. An e-newsletter containing a link to FEBS News is sent to all photos pages 3–5; top photos page 6; top photo page 9; subscribers and to FEBS Constituent Societies whenever a new issue is out. This issue as well as all former issues of FEBS News photo page 10; bottom right photo page 13. are available online at www.febs.org. To subscribe, simply sign up to the e-newsletter in the News section of the FEBS website. Questions and suggestions about FEBS News should be sent to the FEBS News Editor, Carolyn Elliss ([email protected]). FEBS website postings: FEBS offers free advertising of academic positions (PhD students, postdocs, etc.) in the Career Opportunities section of the website, and scientific events can be listed in our Conference Calendar . Selected postings may also be included in FEBS News, according to space available. In addition, Constituent Societies of FEBS are able to post news on Cover: The 41st FEBS the FEBS website; see the Our Members section. Congress will be hosted in 2016 by the Turkish Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS): www.febs.org Biochemical Society in A charitable organization advancing research in the Ephesus / Kuşadası, a region molecular life sciences across Europe and beyond of Turkey steeped in ancient A Company Limited by Guarantee (Number 08239097); history; find out more about A Registered Charity (Number 1149638); Registered in England and Wales; the event on pages 22–27! Registered office: 98 Regent Street, Cambridge, CB2 1DP, UK. 2 FEBS News October 2015 40th FEBS CONGRESS ROUND-UP The 40th FEBS Congress Berlin, 2015 The 40th FEBS Congress under the motto ‘The Biochemical Basis of Life’ was held in Berlin, Germany, from 4th July to 9th July this year. The location was the Estrel Convention Center – the largest hotel in Germany with an inbuilt conference center and several restaurants, and situated in a trendy suburb about 5 km from the city centre. Most of the close to 1600 participants stayed there, thus allowing for lively discussions from breakfast till late after dinner. The congress was organized on behalf of the German Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, GBM, by a team of scientists from the universities and other scientific institutions in Berlin headed by Volker Haucke from the Leibniz Institute for Molecular Pharmacology. The scientific program was highly praised by the participants, and the plenary lectures in particular were very much enjoyed. The opening lecture was given by Randy Schekman (Berkeley, CA, USA), previously awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, who spoke on ‘Secretion of large particles and miRNAs from mammalian cells’. Other plenary lecturers (in the order pictured on the next page) were Xiaowei Zhuang (Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA), Caroline Dean (John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK), Nikolaus Pfanner (University of Freiburg, Germany), Susan Lindquist 3 FEBS News October 2015 40th FEBS CONGRESS ROUND-UP Plenary lecturers in action and with GBM awards. (left to right, from top) Randy Schekman (opening lecture – see main text); Xiaowei Zhuang (‘Illuminating biology at the nanoscale with super-resolution imaging’– IUBMB Lecture); Caroline Dean (‘Epigenetic switching in seasonal timing’ – FEBS│EMBO Women in Science Lecture); Nikolaus Pfanner (‘Mitochondrial machineries for import and assembly of proteins’ – Otto-Warburg Lecture); Susan Lindquist (‘Protein folding as a driving force in evolution from basic biology to human medicine’ – FEBS Datta Lecture); Alberto R. Kornblihtt (‘DNA damage and chromatin structure regulate alternative splicing through the control of RNA polymerase II elongation’ – PABMB Lecture); Sarah Teichmann (‘Understanding cellular heterogeneity’ – EMBO Lecture); Matthias Mann (‘Comprehensive proteomics and its application to signaling and clinical problems’ – FEBS Theodor Bücher Lecture); Jürgen Knoblich (‘Modelling human brain development and disease in 3D culture’ – FEBS Sir Hans Krebs Lecture); Barbara Meyer (with Roger Goody, GBM Vice President: ‘Chromosome structure and its relationship to gene regulation’ – Fritz Lipmann Lecture); and Nikolaus Pfanner (centre) receiving the Otto Warburg Medal, with Johannes Buchner, GBM President (left), andDeolors Alsina, Elsevier/BBA (right). Naima Zemirli, who delivered The FEBS Journal award plenary lecture is featured on page 13. 4 FEBS News October 2015 40th FEBS CONGRESS ROUND-UP (Whitehead Institute, Cambridge, MA, USA), Alberto R. Kornblihtt (University of Buenos Aires, Argentina), Sarah Teichmann (EMBL-EBI and Sanger Institute, Hinxton, Cambridge, UK), Matthias Mann (MPI for Biochemistry, Munich, Germany), Jürgen Knoblich (Institute of Molecular Biotechnology, Vienna, Austria) and Barbara Meyer, (Berkeley, CA, USA) – for more details about their lectures, see the caption below their photos on the previous page. A very special event during the Congress was the presentation of the Warburg Medal Award of GBM (the Organizers, GBM and FEBS representatives, and Opening Lecturer. (from left): highest and most prestigious prize given Thomas Sommer (Organizing Committee), Volker Haucke (Congress Chair), by this society, and sponsored by Johannes Buchner (President of GBM), Randy Schekman (Opening Lecturer), Elsevier/BBA with prize money of Sir Alan Fersht (FEBS Treasurer) and Israel Pecht (FEBS Secretary General). €25,000) to Nikolaus Pfanner, in recognition of his seminal work on protein reports on pages 8–10), and more than 40 transport and composition in mitochondria, and companies demonstrated their newest products at particularly the mechanisms of protein import into the commercial exhibition. mitochondria. Preceding the Congress, the FEBS Young Beyond the plenary sessions, 181 invited speakers Scientists’ Forum (YSF) was held in Berlin-Buch. presented their research work in 30 full-day and Of the total of 541 registered young scientists at half-day symposia featuring full-length and short the Congress, 113 participated in this satellite event talks, covering the key themes of the Congress: – see page 11 for more details. From chemical biology to molecular medicine, The international nature of the Congress was Mechanisms of gene expression, Membranes, reflected in both speakers and participants. Speakers receptors and bioenergetics, Molecular were from 24 countries (including the south and neuroscience, Structural biology and biophysics, and south-east of Europe), and, regarding the gender Systems biology, bioinformatics and theoretical ratio of speakers, just over a quarter were female. biology. Further information exchange took place With respect to the general attendance, delegates through the popular poster format. Also this year from 65 countries participated: the top ten were we gave many poster presenters the chance to Germany (454), Turkey (116), Russia (104), Korea present their work through 102 speed talks and 93 (85), Great Britain (76), Poland (63), Spain (62), short talks of 3 or 10 min, respectively, which were Italy (44), France (40) and USA (38). All other selected by the session chairpersons from the countries accounted for less than 2.1 % each and, submitted abstracts and were very well attended alas, Eastern European countries were under• Two new events at the Congress this year – a represented – we had hoped for a particularly strong podium discussion on ‘The Future of Scientific participation because of the possibility to avoid air Publishing’ and a special session on ‘Data travel and to come by train or car. Management & Reproducibility’ – provided a forum All in all, it was a highly successful meeting and to discuss topical general concerns and new trends we hope participants returned to their labs in the molecular life sciences community, and energized by new ideas and discussions. In certainly stimulated lively debate among the consideration of the excellent science I pity all those audience. Additional general interest at the who didn’t come to Berlin. Congress was provided by sessions organized by FEBS Committees on education (research in Wolfgang Trommer undergraduate education), science and society Treasurer of GBM (evolutionary medicine) and women in science (see All photos in this article are by Thomas Ecke, copyright GBM e.V. 5 FEBS News October 2015 40th FEBS CONGRESS ROUND-UP FEBS Medal Winners (Berlin, 2015) The Sir Hans Krebs Medal, the Theodor Bücher Medal and the Datta Medal are awarded