METAMORPHOSISTransforming Science

16th VBC PhD Symposium8th - 9th November 2018 , IMP lecture hall, Vienna, Austria

Welcome to the 16thVBC PhD symposium Methamorphosis - Transforming Science

Since the beginning of time the essence of progress has been change. Evolution, civilization, industrial revolution or the triumph of modern technology were all driven by change in biology, society, science or technology. To extend our knowledge and overcome the limits of current research methods we need cutting-edge technologies, that will transform science at the lab bench itself. However, these new discoveries need to be communicated efficiently within the scientific community. Common models of publishing are becoming outdated. We need to consider new modes for transferring knowledge between scientists and to the general public, based on modern technologies. Combining cutting-edge technologies and an efficient mode of communication will provide us with competence to tackle the challenges of modern society that lie in our future. Together with excellent scientists from around the globe, we will discuss the problems that both scientists and the general public are struggling with and the changes we as scientists need to make, in order to move to a new chapter of scientific research. Furthermore, young scientists will be provided with an opportunity to present their research during a poster session or in a Science Slam performance and address how they have transformed science.

The organizing committee

Top: Anna Schmücker (GMI), Jessica Stock (IMP), Angela Rodrigues Viana (IMBA), Adriana Savova (MFPL), Jason Bosch (GMI)

Bottom: Bhagyshree Jamge (GMI), Johanna Gassler (IMBA), Mariya Dimitrova (IMP), Maciej Zaczek (IMP), Merrit Romeike (MFPL)

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General Information

RegistrationThe registration desk is available on Thursday from 8am and is open for the whole day on

both days. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact the registration desk or any

of the organisers or volunteers (wearing black T-shirts with the “Metamorphosis-Transforming

Science” logo).

Food and DrinksDrinks and snacks will be served during the coffee breaks outside the IMP lecture hall. External

participants will find two vouchers for lunch in their name badge. Lunches include a drink,

main dish and salad or desert. On Friday evening there will be a free dinner followed by a party

in the IMP cafeteria for all attendees.

Public TransportThe Vienna Biocenter is located in the 3rd district of Vienna and can be reached by multiple

means of transport. The stop for bus, tram and S-Bahn (commuter train) is called “Sankt Marx”.

Tram 71: Direction towards “Börse” takes you to the city centre in 10 to 15min and goes along

the “Ring” (passing the main university building, city hall, Burgtheater, parliament, state opera).

Tram 18: Direction towards “Schlachthausgasse” leads you to the nearest U-Bahn (subway, U3)

station called “Schlachthausgasse”.

S-Bahn 7: Connects Sankt Marx with the airport (direction “Wolfsthal”). Trains are departing

every 30min and it takes 30min to get to the airport.

Bus 74A: Connection with city airport train (CAT, 16 min to airport), U-Bahn U3 & U4 at the stop

“Landstrasse-Wien Mitte” (direction Stubentor).

S-Bahn 7 (S7)

Bus 74A

Tram 18

Tram 71

IMP lecture hall

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Welcome

Welcome to the 16th Vienna Biocenter PhD Symposium “Metamorphosis”!This year’s symposium focuses on issues that are transforming Science. The sympo-sium – like previous editions - is exclusively organized by PhD Students at the Vienna BioCenter. The students have invited an impressive line-up of speakers, whose talks will raise key discussions on how science is changing, and its impact on the commu-nity and society in general. For the first time, there will be a Science Slam and poster sessions, where (internal and external) young scientists can present and discuss their work. The student symposium is THE occasion where we celebrate the achievements of our amazing PhD Students. In the closing session, we will announce the winners of the VBC PhD and the Mattias Lauwers awards and congratulate all those students that have graduated in the past academic year.Many thanks to the organizing com-mittee and a warm welcome to all participants, in particular those coming from oth-er institutions/countries (76 international participants from 24 different countries): I hope you have a great time at our campus and find the event rewarding.

Inês CrisóstomoScientific Training Coordinator

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On behalf of the Institute for Molecular Biotechnology, I would like to welcome all speak-ers and participants to this year’s PhD student symposium on Metamorphosis - Trans-forming Science. Once again, our students have shown an outstanding talent in identify-ing a topic that is relevant for all of us but not covered in the typical seminar programs - at least not in this density and composition. And they have identified a series of outstand-ing speakers who will enlighten us over the course of the meeting in early November. Bi-ological science is in a state of transition. Over the past years, technologies have become available that allow us to do experiments on a global, genome wide level in a way we could have never dreamt of before. Computer science and bio-informatics have evolved from just supporting tools to a new scientific discipline that drives rather than supports key innovations. And finally, our growing ability to do hypothesis driven research on human cells and tissues is about to remove the barrier between biology and medicine, allowing us to satisfy our scientific curiosity in a directly disease relevant context. The meeting will allow us to reflect on those changes, to think about what they mean for us and how we need to step out of our comfort zone to react to them. Hopefully, it also will allow our guests experience our campus, to share our enthusiasm for science and to feel our passion. A warm welcome to all of them. I hope you all will enjoy two days of exciting science and stimulating discussions.

I would like to welcome all participants of this year’s PhD Symposium to the new IMP building at the Vienna BioCenter and to congratulate the Organizing Committee for being able to put together such an interesting list of topics and speakers. Predicting how science will change our future is impossible, yet it is happening in front of our eyes and we as scientists are part of it. In this sense I am wishing all participants an exciting meeting and lots of inspiring ideas and discussions about future visions and developments!

Jan-Michael PetersScientific Director IMP

Jürgen KnoblichScientific Director IMBA

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When I first learned about “Metamorphosis: Transforming Sciences”, the motto of this year’s VBC PhD symposium, I involuntarily thought of Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis. While the transformation of Gregor Samsa into a huge insect has a rather unpleasant ending, I am convinced that the transformations discussed in the VBC PhD Symposi-um, that are accompanied by an excellent choice of speakers covering a wide range of possible transformations, will result in a creative and compelling, happy outcome.I congratulate the Organizing Committee to the wisely chosen title and wish all par-ticipants a stimulating and exciting meeting.

It is my pleasure to welcome you to the Vienna BioCenter (VBC) on behalf of every-one at the Gregor Mendel Institute. We are proud of our PhD students as well as of the PhD program itself, and the yearly VBC PhD symposium is one of the highlights of this program. As always, the symposium has been completely organized by the students, and (also as always) they have put together an interesting program with a variety of outstanding speakers. This year’s theme — “change” — seems timely, and should lead to many good discussions. It also fits well with the focus on excellent, curiosity-driven science that is the hallmark of the VBC. We hope you are as excited about the symposium as we are, and wish you a great stay in Vienna!

Magnus NordborgScientific Director GMIAustrian Academy of Sciences - VBC

Arndt von HaeselerScientific Director MFPL

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Mattias Lauwers Award

The Mattias Lauwers Award will be given on an annual basis to the PhD student who gives the best VBC Monday seminar. The criteria for this award will reflect Mattias. He took great pride in his Monday seminars, always aiming to be the best. His talks were informative, interesting, accessible and he prepared for every conceivable question.

VBC PhD AwardEach academic year the Vienna Biocenter (VBC) PhD Awards are given to postgraduate students in acknowledgement of their outstanding PhD theses. The award was inspired by Renée Schroeder from the Max F. Perutz Laboratories and is supported by the research institutes involved in postgraduate education at the Vienna Biocenter.In the closing session we will announce the winners of the VBC PhD and the Mattias Lauwers awards, and celebrate all students who completed their thesis work in the past academic year.

Awards

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Lunch (IMP cafeteria) and Poster session (IMP lecture hall)

Programme

08:00 – 08:45 Registration and Poster set-up

Thursday, November 8th

Session ITransforming science in the lab : Technology

09:00 – 10:00 Keynote Lecture: Hendrik Dietz Molecular Systems Engineering with DNA

10:30 – 11:00 Daniel HellerPrecision nanomedecines for the targeted treatment of Cancer

14:30 – 15:00 Casey Greene Can ‘big data’ help us tackle rare diseases?

11:00 – 11:30 Vivian LiWnt signal regulation in intestinal stem cell and cancer

11:30– 13:30

Session IITransforming science in the lab: Big Data

13:30 – 14:30 Keynote Lecture: Lawrence Hunter Knowledge-based biomedical data science

15:00 – 15:30 Coffee Break

Chair Bhagyshree Jamge

08:45 – 09:00 Welcome and Opening Remarks

10:00 – 10:30 Coffee Break

Chair Maciej Zaczek

16:10 – 16:30 Katharina Rieck Opening up Scholarly Communication

16:30 – 17:00 Coffee Break

15:30 – 15:50 Anne NielsenBehind the scenes of publishing at EMBO

15:50 – 16:10 Sofie VanthournoutHow can researchers engage with the public?

Panel Discussion

ChairMerrit Romeike

Session IIITransforming science through communication

Chair: Jason Boson & Maciej Zaczek

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17:00 – 18:30

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Programme

Friday, November 9th

09:00 – 10:00 Keynote Lecture: Angela J. Russell Tackling the diseases of aging: from chemistry to stem cells and regenerative medecine

10:30 – 11:00 Collet DandaraPharmacogenomics landscape in Africa: a discussion

11:00 – 11:30 Kate Bishop HIV restriction by SAMHD1

13:30 – 14:30 Keynote Lecture: Neil C. BruceDefusing an explosive issue: discovery and engineering of enzyme systems for the phytoremediation of explosives pollution

10:00 – 10:30 Coffee Break

12:00 – 13:30 Lunch (IMP Cafeteria)

14:30 – 15:00 Coffee Break

15:00 – 15:30

Marcus Eriksen Solving the ocean plastic problem

15:30 – 16:00

Klaus Ammann The Debate on Biodiversity and GMOs, from propaganda to science

16:00 – 16:30 Coffee Break

16:30 – 17:30 Science Slam

17:30 – 19:00 Closing Ceremonies and PhD Awards

19:00 Dinner and Party

08:30 – 09:00 Registration

11:30 – 12:00 Burkhard RostPersonalized health – harnessing the power of diversity

Session VTransforming science for society : Environment

Chair Adriana Savova

Session IVTransforming science for society : Health

ChairMariya Dimitrova

ChairJessica Stock

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SESSION I

Transforming science in the lab: Technology

Inspired by the rich functionalities of natural macromolecular assemblies such as enzymes, molecular motors, and viruses, we investigate how to build increasingly complex molecular structures. The goal is to build molecular devices and machines that can execute user-defined tasks. Molecular self-assembly with DNA is one of the main routes currently pursued toward achieving this goal. Programmable self-assembly with DNA origami allows creating custom-shaped nanoscale objects. I will report on recent progress with building increasingly complex DNA origami based structures and mechanisms. I will also outline how we hope to contribute in the longer term to the creation of molecular machines and systems with practical benefits for everyday life. This includes uses in medicine – for diagnosis and therapy – and synthetic enzymes for biologically inspired chemistry.

Molecular Systems Engineering with DNA

KEYNOTE LECTURE

Hendrik DietzTechnical University of Munich,

Munich, Germany

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Therapy based on personalized medicine—the genomic context of a patient’s disease—has become a leading strategy to treat cancer. Small molecule drugs such as kinase inhibitors, which target key effectors of cancer signaling pathways, constitute a major component of this strategy. However, such drugs can affect the same signaling pathways in healthy tissues, which often leads to dose-limiting toxicities. Increasing the therapeutic index of targeted therapies would greatly improve their effectiveness. My laboratory is investigating new targets to localize precision drugs to the microenvironment of primary and metastatic tumors. We recently developed a nanoparticle drug carrier platform with nanomolar affinity to P-selectin to localize targeted therapies in tumor-associated vasculature and away from healthy tissues to obviate dose-limiting toxicities and concomitantly improve therapeutic index. We found that the nanoparticles targeted chemotherapeutics, as well as MEK and PI3K inhibitors, to tumor sites in both primary and metastatic models, resulting in superior anti-tumor efficacy and the striking reduction of toxicities. Moreover, measurements of tumor tissue show prolonged inhibition of downstream effectors in the signaling pathways, constituting a significant modulation of drug pharmacokinetics. In tumors devoid of P-selectin, we found that ionizing radiation guided the nanoparticles to the disease site by inducing P-selectin expression, suggesting a potential strategy to target disparate drug classes to almost any solid tumor.

Precision Nanomedicines for the Targeted Treat-ment of Cancer

Daniel HellerMemorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center,

Cornell University, NY, USA

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Wnt signalling plays principle roles in stem cell biology and in cancer. Wnt maintains intestinal stem cell (ISC) homeostasis by regulating proliferation and differentiation. Insufficient Wnt signal will lead to catastrophic loss of stem cell populations, while uncontrolled Wnt activation will cause cancer. It is therefore crucial to maintain Wnt signal activity at the just-right level to drive stemness and prevent tumourigenesis. In adult intestine, Wnt ligands and the agonist R-spondin are secreted at the crypt bottom to generate a Wnt gradient from the stem cell zone to the trans-amplifying zone at the crypt-villus junction, often compared to morphogen gradients in model organisms. On the other hand, a number of negative inhibitory mechanisms are present to restrict Wnt signalling at the crypt bottom. Our lab investigates the Wnt regulatory mechanisms in the intestine, and how they relate to ISC fate decision and cancer. We have recently identified the Wnt activating mechanism in APC-mutated colon cancer. We found that a deubiquitinating enzyme USP7 is recruited to the APC-mutant destruction complex for β-catenin deubiquitination, which can be used and tumour-specific drug target. We are also interested in bioengeineering of intestinal grafts for organ transplantation, disease modelling and drug screening. The ultimate goal is to translate basic stem cell and cancer research to the clinic to aid cancer treatment and regenerative medicine.

Wnt signal regulation in intestinal stem cell and cancer

Vivian LiThe Francis Crick Institute,

London, UK

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SESSION II

Transforming science in the lab: Big Data

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Knowledge-based biomedical Data Science involves the design and implementation of computer systems that act as if they knew about biomedicine. There are many ways in which a computational approach might act as if it knew something: for example, it might be able to answer a natural language question about a biomedical topic, or pass an exam; it might be able to use existing biomedical knowledge to rank or evaluate hypotheses; it might explain or interpret data in light of prior knowledge, either in a Bayesian or other sort of framework. These are all examples of automated reasoning that act on computational representations of knowledge. The vast scope and rapid evolution of the biomedical literature, combined with the breakdown of disciplinary boundaries driven by genome-scale research has made it increasingly difficult for researchers to effectively assimilate all the knowledge potentially relevant to interpreting the results of their own experiments. Is it possible to build computational systems that bring to bear disparate yet relevant facts from across all biomedical disciplines and scales, exploiting their ability to process far more information than any individual human being? Could such a system make sound judgements ranking alternative hypotheses based on an exhaustive comprehension of the literature? Is it possible for computational systems to generate significant and novel mechanistic and pathomechanistic hypotheses about open questions in biomedicine? I will present state of the art applications in these areas, and discuss the potential for knowledge-based data science in mainstream of biomedical research.

Knowledge-based biomedical data science

KEYNOTE LECTURE

Lawrence HunterUniversity of Colorado School of Medecine,

Denver, US

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We now speak often of “big data” in biology. In most cases, these data are wide, and have many more features than examples. This is particularly pronounced in the case of rare diseases, where we may have tens of samples but tens of thousands of measurements. I’ll discuss how we can use compendia of data with many training examples as a training dataset and then transfer the results of those analyses to rare disease datasets where the number of samples is particularly limited. I’ll also discuss how this feature of data, even outside of rare diseases, affects deep learning methods in this domain and provide some suggestions of strategies that can help tackle these problems.

“Can ‘big data’ help us tackle rare diseases?”

Casey GreenePerelman School of Medecine,

Uiversity of Pennsylvania, Denver, US

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SESSION III

Transforming science through communication

Publishing research papers is a cornerstone of working in life sciences, but do you know what actually happens to your manuscript once it is submitted to a scientific journal? Anne Nielsen – senior editor for The EMBO journal – will take you behind the scenes of scientific publishing at EMBO and explain how editors make decisions, find referees and work with authors to improve the revised manuscript. She will also discuss some of the challenges faced by the current publishing landscape and talk about the efforts EMBO is making to prevent errors and fraud from entering the literature.

Behind the scenes of publishing at EMBO

Sofie VanthournoutSense about Science, Belgium

Sofie has been the director of Sense about Science EU since May 2016. She is based in Brussels and focuses on EU policy. She was trained as a botanist and has a background in molecular biology research. Between 2008 and 2016 she managed the international relations of the Royal Belgian Academies. In 2010, she launched a Brussels office for the European Academies Science Advisory Council, an organisation that gives independent scientific advice for EU policy. Sofie headed this office for 6 years, supporting EASAC in connecting to the European Institutions and other stakeholders. In 2014, she temporarily joined the team of Anne Glover, then chief scientific adviser of the European commission. It was then that she became passionate about public dialogue and where she became convinced that Brussels is in urgent need of a Sense about Science EU

How can researchers engage with the public?

Anne Nielsen EMBO Journal, Germany

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Opening up Scholarly CommunicationOpen Access to research processes and outcomes has radically influenced the field of scholarly communication in the last years. This presentation will focus on the impact of online Open Access on accelerating the conduct and communication of research. Current developments in the field of open Science and Open Access will be presented and in particular, the role of a national funding organization such as the FWF in this changing environment will be highlighted.

Over the last couple of decades there have been many changes in the way that science iscommunicated. Much of this change has been brought about by the transition to a digital world and the effect of the internet. Other changes have to do, more fundamentally, with how we interact with non-scientists. In this panel discussion we have speakers who are involved in scientific communication and who will discuss the relevant issues such as “How is scientific publishing changing and what are the future ways in which science will be published?” and “How can scientists improve the communication with the broad public and governments?”

Katharina Rieck FWF Vienna, Austria

Panel Discussion

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SESSION IV

Transforming science for society: Health

With an increasingly ageing population, chronic diseases including cancers, dementia and heart failure

are placing huge demand on society and healthcare services. Research in the regenerative medicine field

aims to transform healthcare management strategies, improving outcomes for patients and reducing

this burden on society. Over the past two decades the majority of studies have been focussed on the

transplantation of therapeutic cells. Several thousands of clinical trials have been conducted involving

cell transplantation and while there have been signs of efficacy in some cases, major hurdles exist to

the routine adoption of such therapies in the clinic. Moreover, we now understand that in most cases

these cells act not as a cell replacement therapy but rather through the stimulation of endogenous

repair pathways already present within the body. This has opened up a whole new avenue of research

in the development of agents to directly stimulate these tissue repair and regeneration processes in the

treatment of chronic degenerative diseases and injury, negating the need for cell transplantation. The

FDA has already approved the first drugs acting via such mechanisms and many more are in clinical trials.

In her presentation Professor Russell will introduce the field of drug discovery for regenerative medicine

and describe the impact this is beginning to have on the diseases of ageing. She will talk about her

own scientific journey from the application of chemistry to her pioneering research in the discovery of

small molecules to upregulate utrophin for the treatment of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, through

to the development of novel small molecule modulators of stem cell fate both in vitro and in vivo. In

2016 she co-founded OxStem Ltd, a regenerative medicine drug discovery spin-out company from the

University of Oxford. She will explain how OxStem’s unique approach to regenerative medicine aims to

deliver small molecule therapeutics that stimulate or augment endogenous repair mechanisms in the

body for treatment of age-related diseases with high unmet clinical need. With this overarching objective,

she will outline progress in the research programmes established in collaboration with groups across

the University of Oxford for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases (e.g. dementia), heart failure,

macular degeneration, diabetes, wound repair and cancers.

Tackling the Diseases of Aging: from Chemistry to Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine

KEYNOTE LECTURE

Angela J. RussellDepartements of Chemistry and Pharmacology,

University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

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Africa, the second biggest and second populous continent suffers from huge burden of diseases with mostly an infectious back-borne such as HIV/AIDs, TB, malaria and schistosomiasis, in contrast to developed countries where the burden of disease has shifted from infectious to non-communicable diseases. In addition to this disease burden, Africa is also the most genetically diverse continent. With such a complex picture, African can benefit from pharmacogenomics knowledge, leapfrogging traditional ways of anticipating how patients respond to therapeutic drugs. The response dynamics in patients are affected by the diverse genetic variation profile and become even more complicated in comorbidities and/ or coinfections, which results in variability in the way patients respond to standard drug treatment. This variability in drug often manifest as adverse drug reactions. Thus, pharmacogenomics seeks to identify the underlying individual genetic differences that affects drug efficacy and toxicity. In this presentation, I will talk about the strides Africa has made in the uptake and application of pharmacogenomics, highlighting successes, failures and area of future research. We acknowledge ongoing efforts in genomics research and discuss the direction that we feel Africa should take.

Pharmacogenomics landscape in Africa: a discussion

Collet DandaraUniversity of Cape Town,

South Africa

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SAMHD1 is an antiviral restriction-factor that blocks early HIV replication through a GTP/dGTP dependent deoxynucleoside triphosphate triphosphohydrolase catalytic activity. Hydrolysis of dNTPs by SAMHD1 in myeloid-derived dendritic cells and macrophages, as well as resting T-cells, blocks viral replication by depletion of the cellular dNTP pool to a level that cannot support reverse transcription of the viral genome, although alternative mechanisms have also been proposed. Introduction of lentiviral accessory protein Vpx alleviates restriction by targeting SAMHD1 for proteasomal degradation and restores HIV replication. In addition to this anti-HIV activity, SAMHD1 also degrades nucleotide analogues used in cancer therapies, markedly reducing their efficacy. SAMHD1 is regulated by phosphorylation, although the effects of phosphorylation on protein function are unclear. In order to address these issues and gain a better understanding of SAMHD1 function, we carried out combined structural and virological studies and have demonstrated that phosphorylation affects the capacity of SAMHD1 to form “long-lived” enzymatically competent tetramers, and that this is required for restriction of HIV.

HIV restriction by SAMHD1

Kate BishopThe Francis Crick Institute,

London, UK

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The objective of our group is to predict aspects of protein function and structure from sequence. The wealth of evolutionary information available through comparing the whole bio-diversity of species makes such an ambitious goal achievable. Our particular niche is the combination of evolutionary information with machine learning. We developed methods to predict from sequence protein interactions (incl. networks), cellular localization, functional classifications and the effects of sequence variants upon molecular function and the organism. In this talk I will focus on protein- protein interactions, present the concept of the Dark Proteome and how protein disorder appears to play a unique role in evolution, and will present some surprising results from effect-prediction methods for the analysis of large populations.

Personalized health – harnessing the power of diversity

Burkhard RostTechnical University of Munich,

Munich, Germany

28

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SESSION V

Transforming science for society: Environment

Neil Bruce is currently Professor of Biotechnology at CNAP in the Department of Biology at the University of York. Following a PhD in Microbial Biochemistry at the University of Kent in 1987, he joined the Institute of Biotechnology at the University of Cambridge and was subsequently awarded a Research Fellowship at Wolfson College. He was appointed to a University Lectureship in Biotechnology in the same department in 1990. He was promoted to a Personal Readership in Biotechnology in 2001. In 2002 he was appointed to the Chair of Biotechnology at the University of York. The major research themes of his laboratory are environmental and industrial biotechnology. His work includes plant and microbial metabolism of xenobiotic compounds with a particular focus on enzyme discovery. He has been continuously funded by the US DoD for over 15 years for his internationally leading work on phytoremediation of explosives. His work on the biodegradation of explosives has also been supported by longstanding research collaborations with the Dstl of the UK MoD. He is passionate about translating his research and was a co-founder of Bioniqs Ltd, a University spin-out company established to commercialise his work on biocatalysis in ionic liquids. He is currently being funded by ESTCP of the US DoD to perform field trials in the US, on explosive degrading transgenic plants for remediation of TNT and RDX contaminated sites.

Defusing an explosive issue: discovery and engineer-ing of enzyme systems for the phytoremediation of explosives pollution

KEYNOTE LECTURE

Neil C. BruceCenter for Novel Agricultural Products,

University of York, York, UK

31

The discovery of plastics in the middle of the ocean is a Tragedy of the Commons, whereby no company or country claims responsibility. Although today, new research identifying the highest coastal and riverine emissions of plastic waste is driving policy solutions upstream to cities and countries. At the same time, studies of ecological impacts are showing overwhelming harm, adding to the sense of urgency to act. A global debate has ensued, placing the linear economy that results in waste incineration or landfill, against the emerging circular economy of improved product and packaging design, recovery and remanufacture. While research continues to identify ecological and human health impacts, a global movement has emerged and is challenging old ideas of unrestricted production of single-use plastics.

Can we, and should we, turbocharge photosynthesis to increase crop productivity?

Marcus Eriksen5 Gyres Institute, Los Angeles, US

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The need for biodiversity on all levels and biotopes is made clear: Biodiversity provides a source of significant economic, aesthetic, health and cultural benefits. Relationships between biodiversity and ecosystems is intricate and many-fold, and this concept should be embedded in a new concept of sustainability with more emphasis on development and progress.Types of biodiversity are often used without clear definitions: genetic biodiversity - species diversity and ecosystem diversity are all part of biodiversity. The stigmatization of GMOs related to biodiversity is unscientific and polemic. An overview on the distribution of biodiversity summarizes basic information. The loss of biodiversity has many reasons, from urbanization to agriculture as the main factors. Also crop biodiversity gets a closer look: the genome of transgenic crops is not basically different from non-transgenic crops. Strikingly enough, the ancestral crop species chosen by the first farmers have lived in monodominant stands. Agricultural biodiversity is characterized through an artificial and high dynamics of all processes. Enhancing biodiversity deals with a series of proposals on how to enhance agricultural biodiversity through landscape management, mixed cropping, enhancing crop diversity through fostering orphan crops, varietal mixture of genes and seed origin of the same crop.

The Debate on Biodiversity and GMOs, from propa-ganda to science

Klaus AmmannUniversity of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

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1. Luis Enrique Cabrera Quio, RNA degradation during embryogenesis

2. Prof. Glipglorb, On the developmental dynamics of terrestrial multicellulars

3. Anja Kostelac, Exploring the interactions of SSB proteins with single-strand-ed DNA

4. Debasmita Mukherjee, Sepsis derived EVs enriched in epigenetic regulators modifies recipient cell DNA methylome and prognosis

5. Nubia Prates, Understanding the key elements for potency and selectivity of chagasin againts cysteine proteases

6. Lucy Sneezum, Physiology and Mechanism of Interleukin-1 Signalling Regu-lation by Tristetraprolin

SCIENCE SLAM

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POSTER SESSION

1. Petr Nickl, The role of transcription factors of Meis family during development of neural crest cells in Danio rerio.

2. Vrynas Angelos, Targeting of Fibroblast Growth Factor 2 inhibits activation of pancreatic stellate cells and pancreatic cancer microenvironment.

3. Alexander Lercher, Hepatocyte-intrinsic Ifnar1 signaling drives metabolic repro-gramming of liver tissue to shape adaptive immunity via systemic metabolism.

4. Orsághová Katarína, Identification and characterization of selected proteolytic enzymes produced by dust and parasitic mites Dermatophagoides pteronyssi-nus and Varroa destructor.

5. Michal Štefánik, Arbidol (Umifenovir): A Broad-Spectrum Antiviral Drug That In-hibits Medically Important Arthropod-Borne Flaviviruses.

6. Bárbara Mota, The transcriptional regulation of PER protein in Drosophila mela-nogaster.

7. Bobarikina A.Y, Sequence analysis of DAHP synthases from Pseudomonas chlor-oraphis subsp aurantiaca.

8. Julia Perea Paizal, Towards scaffold-free 3D bioprinting of multicellular sphe-roids in functionalised liquid-like solid hydrogel suspensions for tissue engi-neered vascular networks.

9. Darkow Elisa, Production of the recombinant fusion protein of maltose-binding protein and Plasmodium falciparum merozoite surface protein 119 (MBP-pfM-SP119).

10. Abigail Byford, The Potential Translation of Long Noncoding RNAs during Neu-ronal Differentiation in a Human Neuronal Cell Line.

11. Vladimir Molchanov, Combining Transcriptomic and Developmental Pheno-types: A New Approach to Reveal Mechanism of Autism and CHARGE Syndrome Development.

12. Philipp Dexheimer, Dissecting the essential requirements for microRNAs in em-bryonic development of Caenorhabditis elegans.

13. Michael Feichtinger, Probing the Dynamic Order of Protein Disorder.14. Benedikt Agerer, The ERBB-STAT3 Axis Drives Tasmanian Devil Facial Tumor Dis-

ease.15. Greta Musteikyte, Methylene blue acts as amyloid remodelling agent on super-

oxide dismutase I aggregation.16. Henry F. Thomas, Role of an intronic enhancer in activation of the Fgf5 enhancer

cluster during mouse embryonic stem cell differentiation.

36

17. Pesova M, Determination of causal variants in inherited thrombocytopenias. 18. Anja Kostelac, Exploring the interactions of SSB proteins with single-stranded

DNA.19. Berina Muhovic, Escherichia coli DH5α competency: a focus on heat shock and

media effects. 20. Simon Haendeler, Modelling Cerebral Organoid Growth. 21. Claire Burny, Dilute and Re-sequence: experimental validation of putative selec-

tion targets in the absence of phenotypic variation. 22. Chiara Masnovo, Requirements for kinetochore proximity of the chromosomal

passenger complex during chromosome biorientation.23. Miloš Duchoslav, psbO1 and psbO2 genes of Arabidopsis thaliana – Mutant phe-

notypes under stress conditions compared to expression levels in natural acces-sions.

24. Anete Romanauska, Lipid storage at the inner nuclear membrane.25. Berry Maletzky, Fleeting beauty – Decision making in men is altered by ejacula-

tion.26. Francesco Pileri, Phosphoinositid signalling and epigenetics in Acute Myeloid

Leukaemia: searching for new potential therapeutical targets.27. Chiara D’Antoni, Efficient rice straw valorization for γ-PGA production through

engineered B. subtilis strains.28. Laura Medina Cuadra, New therapeutic targets in Neuroblastoma.29. Debora Lucia Joppi, Exploring the developmental effects of an ID1, ID2 and ID3

ablation.30. Małgorzata Adamiec, UVA and ionazing radiation influences ferroptosis in cancer

cells.31. Rastislav Rovný, Prepulse inhibition depends on polymorphisms of the serotonin

transporter and neuronal nitric oxide synthase in healthy humans.32. Florian G. Pflug, Modelling single-cell RNA sequencing.33. Sarah Gruenbacher, Biallelic PAX5 mutations in a patient with agammaglobuline-

mia and autism spectrum disorder34. Georg Michlits, CRISPR-UMI: Single cell lineage tracing of pooled CRISPR/Cas9

screens.

POSTER SESSION

37

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RT-qPCR gegen humane GAPDH RNA mittels Luna Universal One-Step RT-qPCR Kit* über 8-log Verdünnungsstufen der Input-RNA (0,1 pg - 1 µg Jurkat Gesamt-RNA) und 8 Replikaten pro Verdünnung. Reaktionsansatz und Temperaturzyklus nach Protokollangaben, inklusive einem 10-minütigen RT-Schritt bei 55°C für die thermostabile Luna WarmStart® Reverse Transcriptase. NTC = Kontrolle ohne RNA Input.

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1 ng

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1 pg

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Input

NTC

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∆R

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Melt curve

Temperature (°C)

Standard curve

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tive

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er

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n´)

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0.12 383634323028262422201810864 40161412

Amplification plot

32.5

25.022.520.017.5

30.027.5

15.012.510.0

0.01 0.1 1 10 102 103 104 105 106 107 65

1.4

1.2

1.0

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0.070 75 80 85 90 95

n = 8

Amplification plot

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Luna_inkl_LunaScript_DIN-A5_1804_v2.indd 1 18.06.18 11:53

Special thanks to

Help and advice: Inês Crisóstomo & Christopher Robinson

Website: Christopher Robinson

Food: Cafeteria Team

Printing: Graphics department IMP/IMBA

Design: Jessica Stock

Photos: Felix Holstein & Juraj Ahel

Last but not least, a huge thank you to our amazing Volunteers!

Credits and AcknowledgementsMany thanks to everyone who has made this symposium possible!

First of all, we thank our four wonderful institutes who gave us the freedom and

resources necessary for organising such a unique event.

Glimpse into the future

The VBC PhD symposium 2019 will take place on the 7th and 8th of November.

Find more information at www.vbc-phd-symposium.at

39

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