From left to right: Sean Montgomery (GMI), Andre Alcantara(GMI), Pooja Bhat (IMBA), Luis Enrique Cabrera Quio (IMP), Sebastian Wissel (IMBA), Dominik Lindenhofer (IMBA), Nora Papai (IMBA), Dhaarsini Koneswarakantha (MFPL), Julien Charest (IMP), Mihaela Peycheva (IMP), Michael Mitter (IMBA)Not pictured here: Benoit Pignard(IMP)

“Continuum” will outline cutting-edge life science technologies and link them with the beginning of life, the course of evolution and prospects on the future of biology. Science has rapidly advanced through the past years, opening up avenues that seemed unimaginable before. We have seen the �rst gene edited plants hit the shops and successful treatments of life threatening diseases. These advances provide a stepping stone to better diagnosis, prevention and treatment of diseases through person-alised medicine. This progress, however, is not restricted to the future of humankind, but also stretches back to the very beginning of life. Unrav-elling these early events that led to the immense complexity of multicel-lular organisms not only tells us something about our past, it also adds new perspectives and provides tools to push the frontiers of the possi-ble further. With the knowledge about the beginning of life and the col-onisation of earth by living organisms, future explorations of distant planets and their acquisition as human habitat may become feasible.

Welcome to the PhD Symposium “Continuum: A Scienti�c Time Travel”

Organizing Team

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Registration

The registration desk is available on Thursday from 8:30am 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 organizers or volun-teers (wearing black T-shirts with the “Continuum” logo).

Food and Drinks

Drinks and snacks will be served during the co�ee breaks outside the IMP lecture hall. External participants will get two vouchers for lunch in their name badge. Lunch includes one big portion or two of the follow-ing: Small portion/ soup/ salad/ dessert/soft drink. On Friday evening there will be a free dinner followed by a party in the IMP cafeteria for all attendees.

Public Transport

The Vienna Biocenter is located in the 3rd district of Vienna and can be reached by multiple means of trans-port. The stop for bus, tram and S-Bahn (commuter train) is called “St. 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 “Land-strasse-Wien Mitte” (direction Stubentor).

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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 MatthiasLauwers awards, and celebrate all students who completed their thesis work in the past academic year.

Mattias Lauwers AwardThe 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

in his Monday seminars, always aiming to be the best. His talks were informative, interesting, accessible and he prepared for every conceivable question.

Awards

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Thursday, November 9thTime Speaker Title

8.00 Registration 8:50 - 9:00 Symposium organizers Opening remarks

First session Forming Molecular Complexity Sponsored by: SZABO-SCANDIC

9:00-10:00 Paul Higgs Keynote: Three ways to make an RNA sequence: Linking physics, chemistry and biology in the RNA world10:00-10:30 Break 10:30-11:05 Pier Luigi Luisi What is life?11:05-11:40 John Glass Design, construction, and analysis of a synthetic minimal bacterial cell11:40-12:15 Andrei Lupas Proteins from peptides12:15-13:10 Lunch

Second session Building Blocks of Life

13:10-14:10 Sarah Teichmann Keynote: Understanding cellular heterogeneity14:10-14:45 Yiliang Ding In vivo RNA structure pro�ling reveals novel mechanisms of post-transcriptional gene regulations14:45-15:15 Break

Third session Observing Evolution

15:15-15:50 William Martin Hydrothermal vents and life’s origin: The physiology and habitat of the �rst cells15:50-16:25 Olivier Tenaillon Tempo and mode of bacterial adaptation: in vitro, in vivo, in natura16:25-17:00 Ellen Nisbet Gene expression in a remnant chloroplast: The Plasmodium apicoplast17:00-17:30 Break

17:30-18:30 John Glass Panel discussion Brian R. Davis Shifting the continuum: Rethinking facets of science Anna-tLisa Paul Xavier Belvaux

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Friday, November 10thTime Speaker Title

8:45 Registration

Fourth session Expanding the Toolkit

9:00-10:00 Michael Snyder Keynote: Managing health and disease using big data10:00-10:30 Break 10:30-11:05 Wouter de Laat The unpredictable bene�ts of basic science: From 3D genome studies to a novel bloodtest for prenatal diagnosis11:05-11:40 Xavier Belvaux Monsanto and agricultural innovation11:40-12:15 Anna-Lisa Paul The physiological adaptation of plants to space�ight: Navigating in a novel environment12:15-13:25 Lunch

Fifth session Presenting the Future

13:25-14:00 Steve Long Bioengineering photosynthesis: The �nal frontier in increasing sustainable crop yield potential and ensuring future global food security14:00-14:35 Brian R. Davis Genome editing of patient-speci�c stem cells14:35-15:35 Robert Ferl Closing lecture: Plants in the exploration schema: How do we get to the vision?15:35-16:05 Break

Added Dimension16:05-17:05 Werner Gruber Title TBA17:05-17:20 Symposium organizers Closing remarks17:20-17:50 Break 17:50-18:50 Ines Crisostomo PhD student awards19:00 Dinner and Party

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Magnus NordborgGregor Mendel Institute

On behalf of everyone at the Gregor Mendel Institute (GMI), I welcome you to the Vienna BioCenter (VBC) and this year’s VBC Phd symposium, entitled “Continuum”. The VBC is a heter-ogeneous collection of institutions, and the GMI, part of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and devoted to basic research on plant biology, is one of the non-university research insti-tutes. The VBC PhD program is one of the “glues” that bind the VBC together, and joint events like the yearly PhD symposium is one of the things that make it an interesting place to work. The symposium, wholly organized by the students, is an integral part of their training, and a great opportunity to network across institutions — as well as with world-leading scientists of their choosing. The program is usually eclectic and fun, and this year look to be no exception. Once again, welcome to Vienna!

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Josef PenningerInstitute of Molecular Biotechnolgy

I want to welcome all participants and of course all the speakers at the “Continuum” sym-posium. The PhD students have – again – done a brilliant job to de�ne a cutting edge theme and �ll this theme with amazing content. To learn from evolution has become one of the guid-ing principles of modern research – after all, over hundreds of millions of years, evolution has conceived wonderful answers to sustain life on this planet. However, we have not only learned to (still super�cially) understand the laws of nature, but have now tools in our hands to actively change the fundamental codes of biology.

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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 attract such an outstanding list of speakers. As science is all about the unknown, we almost inevitably are trying to look forward into the future. But looking back in time can be equally exciting and useful, when it comes to understanding the origins of life – as will be discussed at this symposium - but also when it comes to understanding how great scienti�c discoveries were made and using this as inspiration for our own work. Also in this sense, we are part of a continuum, building on the knowledge generated by previous generations, trying to understand how life works. Very much, as Stephen Hawking pointed out, as in medi-eval times it took many generations to build cathedrals that were high enough to “bridge heaven and earth”. In this spirit, I wish you all an exciting, inspiring and memorable confer-ence!

Jan-Michael PetersInstitute for Molecular Pathology

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In 1844 the famous philosopher Søren Aabye Kierkegaard wrote “Life can only be under-stood backwards, but it must be lived forwards”. A quote that summarizes the intention of the 15th Annual VBC PhD-Programme Symposium Continuum.

To cover the ground this years organizing committee successfully invited excellent speakers that span the full complexity of life: From its early beginning to its current complexi-ty and to the point of future developments and biotechnological applications. The symposi-um shows that basic research is not l’art pour l’art, but it has an impact on our present and the future. Thus “Continuum” has at least two dimensions: The axis of time and the axis connect-ing basic research with applied research.

I congratulate the Organizing Committee to the wisely chosen title and wish all partici-pants a stimulating and exciting meeting with lots of inspirations for future research.

Arndt von HaeselerMax F. Perutz Laboratories

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Welcome to the 15th Vienna Biocenter PhD Symposium “Continuum”! One of the special things about the Vienna Biocenter is, in my opinion, the fantastic

people that work here that create a vibrant atmosphere. The PhD Symposium is an example of that: every year an extraordinary group of PhD students puts together a top scienti�c meeting!

The �nal session of the PhD Symposium is a commemoration of the PhD Students

achievements, namely, we will applaud this year’s graduates and announce the winners of the VBC PhD and the Mattias Lauwers awards.

A big thank you to the organizing committee and a warm welcome to all participants, in

particular those coming from other institutions/countries (61 international participants from 17 di�erent countries)

Enjoy!

Inês CrisóstomoVienna Biocenter

Paul HiggsMcMaster University

According to the RNA World theory for the origin of life, the �rst replicating molecules were nucleic acids that had the ability to act as both a gene and a catalyst. A self-replicating biological system must have emerged from a non-living chemical system that was able to syn-thesize a mixture of random sequences. Here, we focus on three di�erent ways that an RNA sequence could be synthesized: (i) spontaneous polymerization of random RNAs from single nucleotides; (ii) non-enzymatic replication, where a strand acts as a template for a comple-mentary sequence; (iii) catalytic replication, where a ribozyme catalyzes the replication of a template strand. We refer to these as the s, r, and k reactions, respectively. These reactions cross the boundary from non-living to living. The s reaction is non-living chemistry, the k reac-tion is living biology, and the r reaction falls in the grey area in between. We will discuss both the experimental evidence and the computational models that explain how these mecha-nisms could have operated, aiming to address the following questions. What physical condi-tions are needed to enable the formation of long RNA sequences? What physical properties of a biopolymer such as RNA make it a good substrate for replication? How does replication select for ordered properties such as chirality and uniform biopolymer chemistry? How can the �rst replicating molecules overcome the challenges of deleterious mutations and para-sites and evolve towards more complex organisms?

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Pier Luigi LuisiETH Zurich

The necessary quali�cation is “what is life for science?”. And, correspondingly, what I will present as an answer is the theory of autopoiesis by Maturana and Varela, the two scientists from Santiago de Chile. They start with the phenomenological observation of the behaviour of a cell, the biological unity of life, emphasizing what is an inherent apparent paradox: that a cell is characterized at each moment by a myriad of internal chemical transformations- but despite this, there is self-maintenance: a liver cell remains a liver cell, an amoeba remains an amoeba, at least for a certain observation time (homeostasis). This apparent paradox- self-maintenance despite the thousands of chemical transformations- is possible because the cell regenerates from within all those compounds which are being consumed away. Of course, autopoiesis is possible thanks to energy and food from the environment: the living cell, as any living system, is an “open system. Thus, life is a factory which re-makes itself (auto-poiesis, namely self-production) from within the boundary (boundary of its own making). A machine, a robot, cannot do this. Autopoiesis is thus the signature of life, whatever is living, must be autopoietic, and vice versa. This simple, basic consideration links to other general features of life, for example that life is a systemic phenomenon, and as such non-localizable into a single reaction or a single chemical (certainly not in the single DNA). The interaction with the envi-ronment links to the question of “cognition”. For the Santiago school, all living organisms are cognitive systems, also bacteria, meaning by that each organism is provided with the “cogni-tive” physiological tools to recognize and interact with its speci�c environment-�sh with water, earth worm with earth. And this is in turn connected to the important notion of “opera-tional closure”- so that each organism sees the world in its own way. The organism and the environment operate a co-emergence, by which one depends on the other. This brings to the large domain of ecology, and for the individual, to the complex notions of self and conscious-ness.

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John GlassJ. Craig Venter Institute

The minimal cell is the hydrogen atom of cellular biology. Such a cell, because of its sim-plicity and absence of redundancy would be a platform for investigating just what biological components are required for life, and how those parts work together to make a living cell. Since the late 1990s, our team at the Venter Institute has been developing a suite of synthetic biology tools that enabled us to build what previously has only been imagined, a minimal cell. Speci�cally, a bacterial cell with a genome that expresses only the minimum set of genes needed for the cell to divide every two hours that can be grown in pure culture. That minimal cell has about half of the genes that are in the bacterium on which it was based, Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI syn1.0, the so-called synthetic bacteria we reported on in 2010. We used trans-poson bombardment to identify non-essential genes, and genes needed to maintain rapid growth in M. mycoides. Based on those data, we designed and synthesized a reduced genome in eight overlapping segments. All segments were individually viable when combined with wild type versions of the seven other segments. Combinations of reduced segments that were not viable allowed us to identify synthetic lethal pairs of genes. These occur when two genes each encode an essential function. Those �ndings required re-design and re-synthesis of some reduced genome segments. Three cycles of design, synthesis, and testing, with reten-tion of quasi‐essential genes, produced synthetic bacterium JCVI‐Syn3.0 (531 kb, 474 genes), which has a genome smaller than that of any autonomously replicating cell found in nature. Synthetic bacterium JCVI-Syn3.0 retains almost all genes involved in synthesis and processing of macromolecules. Surprisingly, it also contained 149 genes with unknown biological func-tions, suggesting the presence of undiscovered functions essential for life. This minimal cell is a versatile platform for investigating the core functions of life, and for exploring whole‐ge-nome design. Since it was initially reported in 2016, we have identi�ed functions for about 50 of the original 149 genes of unknown function and are in the process of developing a compu-tational model of the cell.

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Andrei LupasMax Planck Institute for Developmental Biology

For the most part, contemporary proteins can be traced back to a basic set of domain prototypes, many of which were already present in the Last Universal Common Ancestor of life on Earth, around 3.5 billion years ago. The origin of these domain prototypes, however, remains poorly understood. We have proposed that they arose from an ancestral set of pep-tides, which acted as cofactors of RNA-mediated catalysis and replication. Initially, these pep-tides were entirely dependent on the RNA sca�old for their structure, but as their complexity increased, they became able to form structures by excluding water through hydrophobic con-tacts, making them independent of the RNA sca�old. Their ability to fold was thus an emer-gent property of peptide-RNA coevolution. The ribosome is the main survivor of this primor-dial RNA world and o�ers an excellent model system for retracing the steps that led to the folded proteins of today, due to its very slow rate of change. Close to the peptidyl transferase center, which is the oldest part of the ribosome, proteins are extended and largely devoid of secondary structure; further from the center, their secondary structure content increases and supersecondary topologies become common, although the proteins still largely lack a hydro-phobic core; at the ribosomal periphery, supersecondary structures coalesce around hydro-phobic cores, forming folds that resemble those seen in proteins of the cytosol. Collectively, ribosomal proteins chart a path of progressive emancipation from the RNA sca�old, o�ering a window onto the time when proteins were acquiring the ability to fold. We retraced this emancipation from the RNA sca�old for a cytosolic protein fold, the tetratricopeptide repeat (TPR), by amplifying an αα-hairpin from a ribosomal protein, RPS20, which is unstructured in the absence of the cognate ribosomal RNA. We found that this intrinsically disordered peptide could form a folded protein through the increase in complexity a�orded by repetition.

Sara TeichmannEuropean Bioinformatics Institute

From techniques such as microscopy and FACS analysis, we know that many cell popula-tions harbour heterogeneity in morphology and protein expression. With the advent of high throughput single cell RNA-sequencing, we can now quantify transcriptomic cell-to-cell varia-tion. I will discuss technical advances and biological insights into understanding cellular het-erogeneity in T cells and ES cells using single cell RNA-sequencing.

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Yiliang DingJohn Innes Centre

Regulation of RNA levels has garnered much attention in recent years because of its direct and rapid regulation of protein levels. RNA structure plays critical roles in this gene reg-ulation. However, determining RNA structure in vivo has been very challenging. In most cases RNA structures are based on in vitro synthesized RNAs or in silico predictions. Also lack of genome-wide in vivo RNA structural data limits our understanding of how RNAs fold and reg-ulate gene expression globally in vivo. Here, we established several in vivo RNA structure pro-�ling methods at the genome wide scale. The genome wide study reveals native RNA structur-al features that relate to numerous biological processes in the post-transcriptional gene regu-lations. These �ndings will certainly not only open up new avenues for understanding the gene regulations but also provide the new approaches for engineering transcriptome.

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Bill MartinUniversity of Duesseldorf

Bill Martin works on early evolution. His current work focusses on the reconstruction of important events in early microbial evolution through the investigation of information con-tained in modern genomes. At the current focus of his work is endosymbiosis in eukaryote evolution,major transitions in microbial evolution, the physiology and habitat of the last uni-versal ancestor (Luca), and the geochemical origin of life.

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Olivier TenaillonIAME Research Center

With the rise of antibiotic resistance and the emergence of new forms of virulence, it has become clear that microbial evolution is at the heart of infectious diseases. The aim of our team is to study the microbial adaptation with a quantitative methodology.  For that purpose, we combine four approaches: experimental evolution, comparative genomics, high through-put analysis of mutants and population genetics.

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Ellen NisbetUniversity of Cambridge

The Apicomplexa, which include Plasmodium (malaria parasite) and Toxoplasma, contain a single, remnant chloroplast known as an apicoplast. In Plasmodium and other parasitic spieces, the apiocoplast is no longer able to carry out photosynthesis. However, the organelle is essential and is the target of important anti-malarial drugs such as doxycycline, an inhibitor of apicoplast protein synthesis. It retains a small, but functional genome. We have shown that the primary apicoplast transcripts are polycistronic, followed by extensive RNA processing. Such processing often involves the speci�c excision of tRNA molecules, allowing the release of mRNA molecules from overlapping genes. We have identi�ed a conserved sequence motif which is associated with RNA cleavage, and show that an apicoplast-targeted protein binds to these sites. We have also found evidence for limited RNA editing. Together, these features allow for the e�cient regulation of gene expression in a greatly reduced genome. Such RNA processing events are remarkably similar to those that occur in a related group of organisms, the dino�agellate algae. Dino�agellate algae are essential symbionts in corals, and their loss (as a result of rising ocean temperatures) causes the death of coral reefs. Thus, discovering the mechanism behing chloroplast transcript processing will not only help us better understand malaria, it will also help us save coral reefs.

Michael SnyderStanford University

Understanding health and disease requires a detailed analysis of both our DNA and the molecular events that determine human physiology. We performed an integrated Personal Omics Pro�ling (iPOP) of 100 healthy and prediabetic participants over four years including periods of viral infection as well as during controlled weight gain and loss. Our iPOP integrates multiomics information from the host (genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics) and from the gut microbiome as well as wearable information. Longitudi-nal multiomics pro�ling reveals extensive dynamic biomolecular changes occur during times of perturbation, and the di�erent perturbations have distinct e�ects on di�erent biological pathways. Wearable data also adds unique early detection information. Overall, our results demonstrate a global and system-wide level of biochemical and cellular changes occur during environment exposures and omics pro�ling can be used to manage health.

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Wouter De LaatHubrecht Institute

The architecture of DNA in the interior of the living cell nucleus is an emerging key con-tributor to genomic function. Aim of our research is to understand how genome structure in�uences genome function. We use and develop novel high-throughput sequencing approaches based on chromosome conformation capture and with next and third generation sequencing, which we combine with sophisticated genome-editing strategies to study the interplay between genome folding, epigenetics and gene regulation in mammals and to uncover the proteins that dictate the shape of our genome. In addition, we develop and apply strategies like Targeted Locus Ampli�cation (TLA) technology for targeted analysis of genetic variation and chromosomal alterations, which we apply for example to enable non-invasive prenatal diagnosis (NIPD) of monogenic diseases, such as thalassemia and cystic �brosis.

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Xavier Belvaux Monsanto

The Monsanto company has a long history of spearheading research, development and commercialization of agricultural innovations. We look back to understand which innovations and creativity were instrumental for Monsanto to grow to the company that it became today and the related transformations that Monsanto needed to implement and allowing to drive these innovations to the market place. We will describe the vision of where, why and how the company projects its future agricultural role. This part will touch upon enabling sciences and innovation priorities within the major technology platforms (crop protection, plant breeding, plant biotechnology, data science and agricultural biologicals) with the intend to deliver inte-grated agricultural solutions. Impacting discoveries tend to create tensions between the need for evidence based innovation and the social desire to adhere to stability. It is di�cult to talk about Monsanto as agricultural innovative technology provider without touching this topic of emotional loaded controversy.

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Anna-Lisa PaulUniversity of Florida

Plants physiologically adapt to space�ight by changing patterns of gene expression, and the complement of proteins that contribute to the metabolic processes necessary to adjust to this novel environment. Plants grown entirely in a space�ight habitat develop new strategies, and use new metabolic tools distinct from those grown in terrestrial habitats. The space�ight transcriptome does not re�ect a response typical of any one terrestrial abiotic stress response of environmental stimulus, nor is it similar to the response to a disruption of gravity by contin-uous reorientation. Space�ight appears to initiate cellular remodeling throughout the plant, yet speci�c strategies of the response are distinct among speci�c organs of the plant. Although functionally related genes are di�erentially represented among di�erent organs in the same plant (leaves, hypocotyls, and roots), and even among cultivars, the expression pat-terns of individual genes representing those functions varies substantially. This observation indicates that there is no single response to space�ight, rather, each organ, each cultivar, each developmental age, employs its own response tactics within a shared strategy. In addition to examining the global changes in transcriptional patterns, we can also target the behavior of individual genes within individual structures on orbit. Our work with �uorescent reporter gene imaging provides a living window into how plants adapt their physiology to cope with growth in an environment outside of their evolutionary experience.

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Steve LongUniversity of Illinois

Demand for our major crops may rise 70-100% by 2050, while we look increasingly to croplands for energy as well as food, feed and urban development. This is at a time when the increases in yield seen over the past 60 years are stagnating and global change poses a further threat to production. In reality we have little more than one crop breeding cycle in which to insure against this emerging short-fall. The approaches of the Green Revolution are now approaching their biological limits. However, photosynthesis, which is among the best known of plant processes, falls far below its theoretical e�ciency, even in our best modern cultivars. Theoretical analysis and in silico engineering have suggested a number of points at di�erent levels of organization from metabolism to crop canopy structure where e�ciency of light, nitrogen and water use could be improved. It will be shown that this is particularly so in the context of global atmospheric change. Genetic transformation, both as a means and as a test of concept, have begun to validate some of these suggested improvements with greater production in the �eld. Synthetic and systems approaches being used in our BMGF project on Realizing Increased Photosynthetic E�ciency (RIPE) and related projects will be outlined and successes described.

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Brian R. DavisUniversity of Texas

Dr. Davis’ laboratory has as its primary objective sequence-speci�c genetic correction of mutations in stem cells derived from patients with inherited disorders a�ecting the lung or blood system, with the ultimate goal of developing stem/progenitor cell-based therapeutic approaches. Over the past �ve years, his laboratory has developed signi�cant expertise in editing the genome of human pluripotent stem cells – either for correction of inherited genetic mutations or for developing lineage- or stage-speci�c �uorescent reporters to guide the directed in vitro di�erentiation of hESCs/hiPSCs to speci�c cell types of interest. In addi-tion, Dr. Davis serves as Director of the Center for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, in which he leads 13 faculty, all of whom have active stem cell-based research programs at vari-ous stages of basic or translational development.

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Robert FerlUniversity of Florida

The study of space biology, along with astrobiology and exobiology, challenges science to actually probe the edges of existence. Space biology, in particular, invites questions regarding the limits of the adaptive capacity within terrestrial biology as it moves away from Earth. For example, gravity is one of the fundamental tropic forces that impact plant growth and development, and the dissection of gravity-related signaling has been a rich source of insights into the metabolic paths plants take as they respond to changes in their environ-ment. Changing the gravity vector has long been used in the study of plant tropism (e.g. Darwin and Darwin, 1880, The Power of Movement in Plants), but it was not until the access to space in the mid 1960’s that it was possible to actually take gravity out of the equation. Science can now probe the role of gravity in de�ning plant biology, and to explore what is truly a novel environment – one that has not been approached in the evolutionary history of plants. The insights that these experiments have contributed to our understanding of plant processes are varied, complex and extend far beyond gravitropism. In addition, plants have long been considered to be critical components of the long-term exploration life support system in that plants will play a central role in the advanced human life support systems envi-sioned for long duration space�ight and extraterrestrial exploration. The challenges of creat-ing suitable plant growth conditions within space�ight vehicles and extraterrestrial habitats has driven interesting hardware engineering solutions, and those solutions have in turn resulted in tremendous gains in understanding plant biology in the exploration venue.

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Werner Gruber is the head of the astronomical department of the adult education center Vienna, as well as the planetarium Vienna and the Urania and Ku�ner observatory. He is known for his work in popular science including staring in the Austrian national TV program “Science Busters”, authoring several books on culinary science as well as appearing in numer-ous radio programs. Gruber was awarded the price of the city of Vienna for popular education in 2012 and one of his books (“Reading minds through petting snails”) received the price of the science book of the year. He also appears in international television and is very active in raising awareness for climate change.

Werner GruberUniversity of Vienna

Special thanks to

Help and advice: Inês Crisóstomo Christopher Robinson

Manuela Steurer

Website: Christopher Robinson

Food: Cafeteria Team

Printing: Graphics department IMP/IMBA

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 an unique event.

Glimpse into the future

The VBC PhD symposium 2018 will take place on the 8th and 9 th of November.

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

Design: Benoit Pignard