Workshops
Dr. Moritz Mall
05.10, 11 am - 1 pm
in person
Dr. Moritz Mall leads a research group at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) that combines animal models, stem cells, and cell fate engineering to investigate human development and disease. He studied biochemistry and molecular biology at LMU in Munich and ETH in Zurich, and earned his Ph.D. from EMBL in Heidelberg for his work on cell division. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University, Dr. Mall received an ERC grant to establish his laboratory in Germany. His lab became one of three founding groups of the Hector Institute for Translational Brain Research, which focuses on stem cell technologies to identify new targets against brain disorders, particularly psychiatric diseases and brain malignancies.
Blocking Human Diseases by Preventing Cell Fate Plasticity
Cell fate plasticity is an emerging hallmark of several diseases including cancer and age-associated degeneration. While regulators of disease-linked hallmarks such as proliferation are well characterized, cell type-specific mechanisms that prevent cell fate plasticity remain poorly understood. In this workshop we will discuss potential mechanisms that utilize cell type-specific repressors of cellular plasticity to block disease formation and progression.
Changes in cell states drive disease initiation and progression, and failure to properly differentiate, or even dedifferentiation, can cause tumorigenesis and other disorders. Yet, despite decades of research on cell plasticity, few therapies aimed at decreasing fate plasticity have reached clinical practice. Our recent studies suggest an important role for transcriptional repressors in preventing cellular plasticity by lifelong active repression of lineage-unrelated and tumor-promoting genes. We hypothesize that such cell type-specific safeguard repressors can prevent plasticity and block cancer and other diseases by stabilizing cell fate throughout life. This may lead to a paradigm shift in treating malignancies and other disease - away from eradicating affected cells and towards reconstituting a differentiated state.
Prof. Yuri Gleba
05.10, 11 am - 1 pm
in person
Prof. Dr. Yuri (Jurijus) Gleba has over 40 years of research and management experience in plant genetics and biotechnology. Dr. Gleba’s pioneering research in plant genetics, physiology and biotechnology was published in more than 220 research papers, books and over 50 patent families, and has earned respect of the international scientific community as evidenced by his election to World Academy of Arts and Science, Academia Europaea, German National Academy Leopoldina, National Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, Lithuanian Academy of Science and Bavarian Academy of Sciences. Yuri also received numerous international and national awards and prizes, including Koerber Prize (Germany), A. von Humboldt Prize (Germany), USSR State Prize (USSR), State Prize of Ukraine (Ukraine), etc.
He founded the Institute of Cell Biology and Genetic Engineering, Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, Kiev, Ukraine, in 1989, and was serving as its director until 2010.
Dr. Gleba left former USSR in 1991 and joined American Cyanamid Co., Princeton, NJ, where he developed research efforts in plant biotechnology and genomics as Director of Crop Engineering Department. Dr. Gleba left American Cyanamid in 1999 and founded Icon Genetics, Princeton/Munich/Halle, a plant biotechnology company group; he has been serving since its inception until 2015 as its CEO. Under his leadership, Icon has developed multiple plant expression technologies that have been used to support clinical trials of the product candidates developed by several companies. Icon has created one of the best IP portfolios in plant biotechnology that currently includes over 450 issued patents representing 42 patent families. He also founded/cofounded four other companies, including Nomad Bioscience GmbH, Germany, Nomads UAB, Lithuania, Nambawan Biotech GmbH, Germany and Nambawan Spain SLU. In January 2012, Dr. Gleba engineered the acquisition of Icon Genetics from Bayer by Nomad Bioscience, and in August 2015, the sale of Icon Genetics to Denka, Japan. Since 2015, he is CEO of Nomad Bioscience, Munich, Germany. During 2016-22, Nomad has secured ten GRAS registrations for its food additives in USA.
Antimicrobial and Antiviral Proteins: Potential Applications in Medicine and Food Safety
Over the last decades, we humans have profoundly changed the planet around us and are now confronted with unwanted consequences requiring urgent action. Among the responses from the living nature is a rapid adaptive evolution of microorganisms around us, resulting in emergence of multidrug resistant pathogenic bacteria and novel viral pathogens that can’t be controlled with currently available medicines. Antibiotics, the most effective medicine of the 20th century, are failing because of the rampant rise of antibiotic resistance.
You have experienced the dramatic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic causing deaths, illnesses of many, and negatively affecting the quality of life of all. We are also in the middle of another, silent bacterial, pandemic, and if nothing is done, by 2050, we’ll return to ‘pre-penicillin era’, with 700 thousand Europeans and 4.4 million people worldwide, dying yearly from bacterial superbugs.
The traditional mining of new small molecules with antibiotic and antiviral activity has reached the level of diminishing returns. It’s time to think big, and one of the alternatives explored today as bacterial control agents are natural antimicrobial proteins (large molecules) produced by either a bacterium itself (bacteriocins) or by a bacterial phage (lysins). These molecules evolved naturally to fight bacteria. They are highly potent in vitro and in vivo, rapid acting, with multiple modes of action, there is a huge natural diversity, they are easy to engineer, easy to produce and purify. Due to novel modes of action, they provide an excellent control of multidrug/pandrug resistant bacteria. Importantly, bacteriocins are precision medicines that destroy only the pathogenic species while sparing gut microbiome.
Similarly, a number of natural proteins with antiviral activity such as lectins are in pre- and clinical trials. Some of the tested lectins are being developed as simple nasal sprays that prevent infections of multiple respiratory pathogenic viruses including coronavirus, influenza virus or common cold viruses.
I’ll try to provide examples of fascinating research and development efforts aiming at finding new protein medicines for tomorrow, with the hope that you’ll recognize its importance and consider this kind of work as a worthy carrier opportunity.
Prof. Maren Scharfenberger-Schmeer
05.10,11 am - 1 pm
in person
Maren Scharfenberger received her Diploma of the Fachhochschule für Technik in Mannheim on her studies in chemistry. She did her Diploma at BASF AG within the department of “Research of pharmaceutical ingredients”.
She received her PhD at the Biochemie Zentrum Heidelberg (BZH), studying the “Identification and functional characterization of the Mtw1 complex as part of the S. cerevisae kinetochore with special regard of the complex component Nsl1p”.
Afterwards she did her Post-Doc training at the BZH, later becoming a project leader at the Ressourcenzentrum für Genomforschung (RZPD) and at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg (DKFZ). Later on she became the Head of Unit at DKFZ, responsible for subgenomic enrichment for High-Throughput-Sequencing, and since 2010 also Head of Unit of Microarrays.
Since 2011 she holds a Professorship for microbiology at the Hochschule Kaiserslautern and is responsible for the German-French Master Program oenology and viticulture, holding lectures in microbiology and leading a research group on wine microbiology.
Who's fermenting here?
The use of microorganisms in winemaking is comparable to that of spices: In the right quantities, they produce an appealing complexity, but too many can cause off-flavours. Inherent notes and off-flavours are close together and are often subjective, as different physiologies influence individual detection thresholds.
How do you keep microorganisms in check so that they only do good?
At our wine campus, however, it's not just about the microorganisms, chemistry, and sensory properties of wine.
No, we also have projects along the entire value chain from viticulture to cellar to marketing.
In the workshop, you can expect exciting information about wine research at the Wine Campus in the context of climate change and digitalization.
Dr. Ren Wei
05.10, 2 - 3.30 pm
in person
Dr. Ren Wei received his diploma degree in biology from Heidelberg University in 2007 and his PhD from Leipzig University in 2012. He has been a junior research group leader at the Institute of Biochemistry, University of Greifswald, since 2019. His research group is working on the isolation, characterization, and engineering of various enzymes with depolymerization activities on synthetic polymers, focusing on developing a sustainable biobased circular plastic economy.
Enzymatic Plastic Recycling and Upcycling
The increasing amount of plastic waste and its detrimental effects on the environment have sparked a growing interest in the development of sustainable plastic recycling solutions. Enzymatic plastic degradation has emerged as a promising strategy for the circular plastic economy, providing a green and efficient alternative to conventional mechanical and chemical recycling techniques. This presentation will highlight the most recent research advancements in this field, as well as the challenges and opportunities associated with developing enzymatic plastic degradation as a scalable and economically viable technology. By investigating the potential for enzymatic plastic degradation to drive the green transition, we can gain a better understanding of how to address plastic waste issues and reduce environmental damage.
Dr. Andreas Dräger
05.10, 2 - 4 pm
in person
Andreas Dräger is a German bioinformatician and the research group leader for Computational Systems Biology of Infections and Antimicrobial-Resistant Pathogens at the University of Tübingen. He completed his education in bioinformatics at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, where he researched heavy-metal-resistant bacteria at the University of Illinois at Chicago for his thesis. He earned his doctorate at the Center for Bioinformatics in Tübingen, focusing on the dynamic simulation of metabolic networks in a virtual liver. Throughout his career, Dräger has held positions as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, San Diego, and as a junior professor at the University of Tübingen.
Dräger’s research primarily revolves around mathematical models of the metabolic mechanisms underlying antibiotic resistance, specifically focusing on the human microbiome in the respiratory tract. He aims to identify new approaches to combat bacterial and viral infections, particularly those with antibiotic resistance, such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus. Another area of his research involves studying risk groups like cystic fibrosis patients. Dräger and his research group develop specialized software for creating, analyzing, and sharing computer models in systems biology to achieve these goals. They also contribute to standardization efforts in systems biology and advocate for the principles of FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data to improve the interoperability and reuse of computer models in biology.
Dräger’s work gained international attention during the COVID-19 pandemic for his computational modeling of SARS-CoV-2 within human cells. His research predicted potential targets for drug development, including the human enzyme guanylate kinase. His ongoing work focuses on pandemic preparedness.
Hence, Jun.-Prof. Dr. Andreas Dräger is a well-known bioinformatician known for his research in computational systems biology, antibiotic resistance, and the human microbiome. He actively contributes to developing software, standardization efforts, and open-source tools in systems biology, aiming to improve the understanding and treatment of infectious diseases.
Computationally Modeling the Human Microbiome of the Respiratory Tract
As the interface between the human body and the outside world, the human nose and the respiratory tract harbour numerous bacterial species and are a vital target of virus particles. Many bacteria are commensals, but some are particularly life- threatening, such as Staphylococcus aureus, which no longer reliably respond to antibiotic treatment. The COVID-19 pandemic has also demonstrated the threat of virus infections. We implemented software for efficient model simulation (SBSCL), including a web frontend (SBMLWebApp).In addition, we refined modelling techniques for simulating virus reproduction and applied them to COVID-19, to identify weak spots of the virus. The algorithm pymCADRE allows us to reconstruct human cell models for specific tissue types.Their predictions can guide not only experimental work but also identify new potential targets for the investigation of complicated mutual interactions between microbes, viruses, and their host.
Click here for more information
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Dr. Peter Kearns
06.10, 1.30 - 3.30 pm
in person
Peter is the Director, Sustainable Food Systems and Innovation, at Re-Imagine Europa (RIE) where he has worked since 2020. RIE is a Brussels based ‘policy incubator’, or think tank, founded by the former (late) French president, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. Peter’s main interests at RIE include activities related to sustainable agriculture and innovation, which has involved developing policy options for genome editing in the EU as well as other innovations relevant to agriculture. He is particularly interested in the diversity of EU agriculture and the role that innovation can play in addressing global challenges including, amongst other things, climate change, the loss of biodiversity and the reduction of inputs into agricultural systems. As a Brussels-based organisation, RIE is also interested in the implementation of the EU’s ‘Farm-to-Fork’ strategy as an element of the EU’s Green Deal as well as the EU Biodiversity Strategy.
Peter was a Principal Administrator at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 30 years until his retirement in December 2019. At OECD, Peter headed OECD’s Environmental Biosafety Programme since the early 1990s when he worked with member states to establish OECD’s Working Party for the Harmonisation of Regulatory Oversight in Biotechnology. Similarly, he worked to establish OECD’s Programme on the Safety of Novel Foods and Feeds and the establishment of its Working Party. Prior to joining OECD in early 1991, he was a civil servant with the UK’s Department of the Environment, which today is the Department of Environment and Rural Affairs. His work there related to UK government policy on GMOs and other aspects of biotechnology.
Peter has a PhD in Genetics from the University of Cambridge, where he was a member of Darwin College. He is a Fellow of the UK Royal Society for Biology and a Fellow of the Royal Society for Entomology. He is a visiting Fellow at the University of Edinburgh and an Associate of the Innogen Institute (Edinburgh). A list of publications is available on ResearchGate.
Genetic Technologies in Agriculture: The Example of Genome Editing
The application of genetics and genetic technologies has had a long history. Today, the application of genetic technologies to agriculture and especially to plant breeding continues to develop and even accelerate. This presentation will focus on the topic of genome editing which has been an emerging issue in biotechnology over recent years. Genome editing is relevant to many sectors, but this presentation will focus on the agricultural sector and especially crop plant breeding for four reasons. First, it is the sector where a number of practical applications are emerging on a global basis. Second, it is the sector, in which globally, a number of countries and regions have developed new regulatory approaches as compared with genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Third, genome editing has been clearly linked to sustainable agriculture and sustainability more generally. Fourth, it is controversial especially in the European Union. On July 5th 2023, the European Commission adopted a proposed new EU Regulation on plants produced by certain new genomic techniques which is intended to address certain products of genome editing. However, before this Regulation becomes part of EU law, it will have to be considered by: i) the EU Council of Ministers; and ii) the European Parliament. This is likely to involved intense discissions in both of these institutions of the EU in the coming months. Amongst other things, the presentation will identify some of the likely topics of discussion.
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Prof. Rüdiger Rupp
06.10, 1.30 - 3.30 pm
in person
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Rüdiger Rupp received the Dipl.-Ing. degree in electrical engineering with focus on biomedical engineering and his Dr.-Ing. degree from the Technical University of Karlsruhe, Germany, in 1994 and 2008, respectively. He received his venia legendi in 2018 in Experimental Neurology from Heidelberg University and since 2021 he has a professorship for Assistive Neurotechnology at Heidelberg University.
After working at the Institute for Biomedical Engineering and Biocybernetics (Prof. G. Vossius) until 1996, since 1997 he is with the Spinal Cord Injury Center (Head: Prof. N. Weidner) of Heidelberg University Hospital, Heidelberg, Germany, where he holds the position as the head of the section Experimental Neurorehabilitation.
His main research interests are in the field of rehabilitation engineering for people living with spinal cord injury. This includes neuroprosthetics mainly of the upper extremity, man-machine interfaces, gait analysis, development and clinical validation of novel methods and devices for locomotion therapy and realization of software projects for standardized documentation of rehabilitation outcome.
He is author of more than 320 journal, book chapter, textbook and conference publications and holds two patents. He has been awarded several times for his work and is a member of IEEE, IFESS, VDE, DMGP, DGOOC, NervClub, ISCoS and ASIA. Since 2017, he is chair of the ASIA International Standards Committee. He is member of the Board of Directors of ASIA, DMGP and DSQ.
Get a grip – Upper Extremity Neuroprostheses for people with Spinal Cord Injury
After a cervical spinal cord injury, people lose their ability to move their hands and fingers. Even the simplest everyday tasks cannot be performed independently anymore. However, with a combination of electrical stimulation of upper extremity nerves and Brain-Computer Interface a restoration of basic grasp patterns by imagination of movements is possible. If you want to become an active part in the live-demo “remote hand”, then this is the workshop to choose !
Dr. Rob Aerts
06.10, 1.30 - 3 pm
in person
Dr. Rob J. Aerts, M.Sc., M.A., is a European and Dutch Patent Attorney and Senior Patent Counsel Europe at ADM Germany GmbH in Hamburg. He teaches a seminar and colloquium in Patent Law in Biotechnology at the University of Hamburg.
The World of Biotech Patents
What precisely is a patent? What right is actually protected? How do you draft a patent claim? Do you need specific language for drafting patent claims? What can you do with a patent claim covering a biotech invention once it is actually granted? How do you read and interpret a granted biotech patent claim? Is there room for different interpretations? Is everything under the sun in biotechnology patentable? Or are there exceptions for ethical and societal reasons?
These and related questions will be addressed during the seminar. We will together also attempt to draft a patent claim.
Dr. Agnès Ricroch
06.10, 4 - 5.30 pm
in person
Dr. Agnès Ricroch holds a PhD in plant science and obtained an HDR (ability to conduct research) from Paris-Saclay University (Orsay, France) in genetic resources and plant breeding. She was a visiting researcher at Texas Tech University and Duke University (USA) and at the John Innes Institute (UK). She is a senior lecturer at AgroParisTech (Paris, France) and Adjunct Professor at Pennsylvania State University, College of Agricultural Sciences (USA) teaching biotechnology and bioethics. Further, she is a researcher in IDEST laboratory at Paris-Saclay University, where her research focuses on benefits-risk assessment and regulation of green biotechnology (GMO, New Genomic Techniques).
In 2015 she was elected a member of the Academy of Agriculture of France and is the head of the Life Sciences section since 2016. She is a member of the management committee of the European “Cost PlantEd” scientific program (2019-2023) and was named to the International Directory of 23 women in biotechnology (Woman in Biotechnology Law and Regulation). Also, she was notably invited as a keynote speaker at OECD on applications of genome editing in agriculture (2018) and at the European Commission (2022). She is a member of the Society of Writers of France (Société Des Gens de Lettres) and a member of the Ethics Committee of Order of Veterinarians of France. In 2019, she was honored as the Knight of the National Order of the Legion of Honour of France.
For more information have a look at her interviews on the new EC document on NGT released on the 5th of July - in Science, at the Chinese TV (China Global Television Network), and for the Royal Society in Chemistry in UK.
New Genomics Techniques to Increase Crop Yield under Climate Change Conditions
New genomic techniques (Talen, CRISPR system)since 2014 are tools for adapting plants to new climatic conditions and soil composition.
They can be used to increase yields and also nutrients.
The global patent landscape for innovations using the CRISPR system will be examined.
Finally, the various regulations in force in different countries and in the European Union will be presented.
Prof. Daniel Müller
06.10, 4 - 5.30 pm
in- person
Daniel Müller is Professor of Biophysics and current Head of the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering at ETH Zurich. He did his PhD in Biophysics at the Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany and the Biozentrum of the University of Basel. His academic career includes positions at the Max-Planck-Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Germany and the University of Technology Dresden, Germany. In Dresden he co-established the Centers for Biotechnology (BIOTEC) and for Molecular Bioengineering (BCUBE). In 2010 Prof Müller joined the ETH Zurich and in 2014 together with Wolfgang Meier (University of Basel), launched and co-directs the Swiss National Competence Center of Research (NCCR) Molecular Systems Engineering. Prof Müller was part of the team co-creating the concept and acquiring funding for the Botnar Research Center of Child Health (BRCCH) in 2018. After this Müller co-established an international doctorate and postdoctorate school in which candidates work in the best of both worlds, industry with Roche Pharmaceuticals and academics with ETH Zurich to develop disruptive concepts for therapeutics and translational medicine.
Müller’s research focuses on bionanotechnological tools to quantify the interactions and to control biological processes. Currently these tools allow to image cells and cellular components at (sub-)nanometer resolution, to quantify, localize and manipulate cellular interactions, and to control various states of cells and cellular systems.
Mechanically Quantifying and Directing Biological Systems
Mechanobiology emerges at the crossroads of medicine, biology, biophysics and engineering and describes how the response of proteins, cells, tissues and organs to mechanical cues contribute to development, differentiation, physiology and disease. The grand challenge in mechanobiology is to quantify how biological systems sense, transduce, respond and apply mechanical signals. Over three decades, atomic force microscopy (AFM) has emerged as a key platform enabling the simultaneous morphological and mechanical characterization of living biological systems. Here, I will introduce the use of AFM-based nanoscopic assays to characterize the mechanical process guiding the drastic shape change of animal cells progressing through mitosis. We apply our assay in a massive screen to study the contribution of > 1’000 individual human genes in mitotic cell shape change. After having found the major genes responsible for regulating cell shape changes in mitosis, we apply our assay to control cancer cells progressing through mitosis. After this, we introduce high-resolution AFM-based assays to characterize individual cellular machines (proteins) playing commanding roles in animal cells. First, we developed AFM-based imaging to observe cellular machines at sub-nanometer resolution at work. Second, we extended these imaging possibilities of AFM to image native membrane receptors and at the same time detect their interactions and binding steps to ligands and determine the free-energy landscape of receptor-ligand bonds. Third, we apply AFM-based single-molecule force spectroscopy to image and structurally map, at amino acid accuracy, the interactions that functionally modulate a membrane receptor. Fourth, we will exemplify how to use AFM-based assays to characterize viruses binding to mammalian cells and demonstrate how to use these insights to direct virus infection in vitro and in vivo for controlling cellular function and to restore vision.
Prof. Dietram Scheufele
06.10, 4 - 5.30 pm
online
Dietram A. Scheufele is the Taylor-Bascom Chair and Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is also an Investigator in the Morgridge Institute for Research, and a Distinguished Research Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center. His work examines the social effects of emerging science and technology.
Scheufele is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the German National Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech), and the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters, and an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the International Communication Association. He currently co-chairs the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Standing Committee on Advancing Science Communication and serves on NASEM’s Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education (DBASSE) Advisory Committee, the Board on Health Sciences Policy, and the LabX Advisory Committee.
Since 2012, he has co-organized five NASEM Colloquia on the Science of Science Communication. Over the course of his career, Scheufele has held fellowships or visiting appointments at a number of other universities, including Harvard, Penn, the Technische Universität Dresden, the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, and - most recently - the Universität Wien. His consulting portfolio includes work for DeepMind, Porter Novelli, PBS, WHO, and the World Bank. He earned a Ph.D. in mass communications with a minor in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Finding common ground: Is there still room for good-faith debates over science (and policy)?
Artificial intelligence. Food biotechnology. Editing the human genome. Emerging sciences and technological breakthroughs and disruptors are all around us, posing important and potentially thorny questions for legislators. citizens, and scientists themselves. Making matters worse, during COVID-19, the scientific community was faced with an unenviable Catch-22: How could we correct information in public debate that we knew to be false with science that itself turned out to be inconclusive or even wrong? Highly polarized political environments and a naïve understanding among many in the scientific community about our current information ecosystem further complicated efforts to effectively communicate during the pandemic. So, have we learned anything from our mistakes? And how can we engage meaningfully with different publics and communities about the political and scientific questions surrounding new technologies?