SEB Conference Prague 2024

Dr. Fatima Cvrckova

Charles University

Originally a molecular biology graduate from Charles University in Prague, Fatima became interested in cell shape control during her PhD project on the yeast cell cycle in Kim Nasmyth´s lab in Vienna. Since moving back to Charles University in 1995, her research in close collaboration with Viktor Žárský focuses on evolutionarily conserved molecular mechanisms in plant cell morphogenesis, in particular membrane trafficking and cytoskeleton organization. Her main current topic is the evolution and roles of the multifunctional actin-nucleating and microtubule-binding proteins from the plant FH2 (formin) family.

Prof. Patrick Hussey

Durham University

Patrick joined Durham University in 2000 as Chair of Plant Molecular Cell Biology and served as Head of the School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences between 2010 and 2013, and as a member of the University Executive Committee as Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Science) between 2014 and 2019. Patrick is a former President of the Society of Experimental Biology (2015-17). He is a visiting Professor at the University of Lisbon, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan  and Charles University, Prague. His research focuses on the structure, function and regulation of the plant cytoskeleton with a current emphasis on cytoskeleton and membrane interactions.

Dr. Marcus Braun

Institute of Biotechnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences

Biologist by training, PhD in Biochemistry, King’s College London (2009), following postdoctoral work with Stefan Diez, TU Dresden, on kinesin molecular motors and other microtubule associated proteins, since 2017 I work with Zdenek Lansky, Laboratory of Structural Proteins, Institute of Biotechnology, Prague, Czech Academy of Sciences (www.lanskybraun.eu). We employ in-vitro reconstitution of cytoskeletal dynamics, imaged by total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) microscopy with single molecule resolution, to reveal biophysical mechanisms that regulate intracellular events like cell division, or long-range molecular transport along neuronal axons.

 

Prof. Robert Insall

CRUK Beatson Institute

Trained as a biochemist, I have moved continually since my PhD - both in field (from biochemistry to genetics, then cell biology, mathematical biology and now including machine learning) and location (Cambridge, Baltimore, London, Birmingham, Glasgow; the lab recently moved to UCL after 15 years working at the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research).  The question has changed less - how do cells get where they need to?

Dr. Teije Middelkoop

Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Czech Academy of Sciences

Throughout my scientific career I have been interested in understanding how animals acquire their shape during development. Correct shape generation requires cells to move in a tightly controlled manner. During my PhD in the lab of Rik Korswagen (Hubrecht institute, the Netherlands) I studied how positional information, provided by various signaling cascades, instructs cells to move during nematode development. Thereafter I moved to for a post doc to the group of Stephan Grill (MPI-CBG, Dresden, Germany) where I studied how forces, that arise in the actomyosin cortex, facilitate movements of early embryonic blastomeres. In 2022, I started my own research group at the IMG in Prague where we continue this line of research. Moreover, we aim at understanding how the force-generating mechanisms that facilitate early blastomere movements evolve, ultimately giving rise to different animal shapes. To this end we use the strength of C. elegans genetics with quantitative imaging and combine it with comparative analysis of embryogenesis in holoblastic species.

Prof. Sabine Müller

Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg

Sabine Müller is a Professor for Plant Cell Biology at the University of Erlangen Nuremberg, Germany. Sabine works on molecular aspects of cellular morphogenesis in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. She earned her PhD on root development at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna, Austria. Her laboratory focuses on mechanisms of division plane orientation, which she started investigating as a Post-Doc at UC San Diego, USA. Previously, she worked as an independent research group leader at the Center for Plant Molecular Biology in Tübingen, Germany.

 

Dr. Kateřina Schwarzerová

Charles University

Kateřina Schwarzerová received her PhD in 2006 in Plant Anatomy and Physiology at the Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. Currently she is a group leader of Laboratory of Plant Biology and Biotechnology, group Cytoskeleton in Department of Experimental Plant Biology of Charles University. Research focus is the role of the cytoskeleton in structure and function of plant cells. In particular, she focuses on the role of the actin cytoskeleton in the regulation of peroxisome function and cell wall deposition. She is the founder and coordinator of the annual scientific meeting European Plant Cytoskeletal Club.

Prof. Michael Sixt

Education: 7/2002 Approbation in Human Medicine; 1998 - 2002 Dissertation at University Erlangen, Germany; 1994 - 2000 Studies of Human Medicine at University of Erlangen, Germany

Current Position: Since 6/2014 Vice President, IST Austria; Since 9/2013 Tenured Professor, IST Austria

Previous Positions: 9/2010 - 9/2013 Tenure Track Assistant Professor, IST Austria; 11/2004 - 8/2010 Principal Investigator, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Germany; 8/2002 - 10/2004 Postdoc, Institute for Experimental Pathology, Lund, Sweden; 1/2001 - 7/2002 Clinical resident, Dermatological Clinic Erlangen, Germany

Main Areas of Research: Cell Biology, Immunology, Biophysics, Cancer Biology. My lab mainly studies the cell biological and biophysical foundations of cell migration. As a model system we often use leukocytes, but also other rapidly moving cells like keratocytes or metastasizing tumor cells.

Selected Distinctions: 2023 ERC Synergy Grant; 2016 ERC Consolidator Grant; 2014 Elected EMBO Member; 2013 European Biophysical Societies Association Young Investigator Medal; 2013 Elected member of the Young Academy of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW); 2012 Iganz L. Lieben Award; 2011 ERC Starting Grant; 2011 FWF START Award; 2008 Endowed Professor of the Peter Hans Hofschneider Foundation; 2003 Novartis Dissertation Award

 

 

Dr Cecilia Oliver

University of Salamanca - Institute for Agrobiotechnology Research (CIALE), Villamayor (Salamanca, Spain)

No bio provided

Dr Mónica Pradillo

Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) (Madrid, Spain)

Mónica Pradillo is a lecturer in the Department of Genetics, Physiology and Microbiology at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain). Her research career has been mainly focused on the study of DNA repair and meiotic recombination using the model species Arabidopsis thaliana. She is currently studying the relationship between the chromosomes and the nuclear envelope during meiosis using a combination of molecular cytogenetics and molecular cell biology approaches. She is also involved in a project analyzing the effect of temperature on meiosis and fertility in wheat.

Dr Nadia Fernández Jiménez

Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) (Madrid, Spain

Nadia is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Genetics, Physiology, and Microbiology at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain). Her PhD focused on the functional study of nuclear pore complexes during meiotic division in the model organism Arabidopsis thaliana. Currently, her research career continues with the description of the nuclear envelope dynamics during plant meiosis and its involvement in chromosome movement and DNA repair using cytogenetics techniques.

Dr Eva Dvořák Tomaštíková

Institute of Experimental Botany, Czech Academy of Sciences

Eva Dvořák Tomaštíková is a scientist at the Centre of Plant Structural and Functional Genomics of the Institute of Experimental Botany, Czech Academy of Sciences. She completed her Ph.D. at Palacky University, Olomouc, Czech Republic. During this time, she performed several research visits at the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK), Gatersleben, Germany. She spent three years as a postdoctoral researcher at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden in the group of Lars Hennig. She gained extensive knowledge of the experimental approaches for the study of the nuclear structure and functions including the methods to analyze epigenomes. In 2019 she joined the Chromatin organization and function group led by Ales Pecinka, and since then, she has focused on DNA-protein crosslink repair in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Her particular area of interest is how SUMO modification regulates DPC repair.

 

Dr Isabelle Colas

The James Hutton Institute

No bio provided

Dr Nuria Ferrándiz

Centro de Investigación del Cáncer (CIC)

Dr. Ferrándiz, a cell and molecular biologist, focuses on genomic instability and cell division. She earned her PhD at the University of Cantabria in 2007, researching cell cycle regulation. Her postdoctoral work at Imperial College from 2010 to 2016 focused on mechanisms ensuring accurate genetic material inheritance during cell division, particularly in meiotic division. As a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Warwick (2017-2023), she expanded her research to explore aneuploidy causes in cancer cells, bridging her expertise in cell division and cancer research. Her project aimed to unveil a novel mechanism of aneuploidy linked to mitotic membrane dynamics. Since January 2024, Dr. Ferrándiz has led as a Group Leader at the Center Research Center in Salamanca, driving research on organelle dynamics in cell division to uphold genome integrity.

 

Dr Tatiana García Muse

Centro Andaluz de Biología Molecular & Medicina Regenerativa (CABIMER)

Tatiana García-Muse is Associated Professor at the Genetics Department of the University of Seville and PI at CABIMER Research Institute. She earned her degree in Biology at the University of Seville in 1998, and obtained her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the Madrid's Autonomous University, in 2003, under the supervision of José Pérez-Martin at the National Centre of Biotechnology. After two postdoctoral stays with Simon Boulton in Clare Hall Laboratories, from Cancer Research UK and Andrés Aguilera at CABIMER, she started her lab in 2020. Her current research interests include the DNA damage response and repair during meiosis, specifically how ATR/ATM DNA damage phosphorylations contribute to the regulation of different DNA repair pathways, both to ensure genome stability of meiotic cells. This knowledge of DDR regulation during meiosis should, therefore, provide important insights into fertility defects diagnosis and may present opportunities for therapeutic intervention.

 

 

Dr Yi-Tzu Kuo

Dr. Tamara Lechon Gomez

Cardiff University

Tamara Lechón Gómez is a Plant Lecturer at Cardiff University in Wales, UK. She completed her PhD in the University of Salamanca in 2018, awarded for her studies on the role of nitric oxide in early plant development. She then worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the Scofield lab at Cardiff University, where she studied the gene regulatory networks that control cell pluripotency. Her current research focuses on epigenetic gene regulation and chromatin accessibility in shoot architecture.

Dr. Hans-Wilhelm Nützmann

University of Exeter

Hans-Wilhelm Nützmann is group leader at the Universities of Exeter and Bath. He studied in Dresden and Jena and worked for his postdoc at the John Innes Centre in Norwich. He is currently holder of a Royal Society University Research Fellowship and has previously held an EMBO Long-Term Fellowship. His lab investigates genome organisation, epigenetic gene regulation and chromosome architecture.

Associate Prof. Miguel de Lucas

Durham University

I did my PhD in Madrid (CNB-CSIC) studying the crosstalk between environment and hormone signalling for the regulation of plant developmental adaptation. Then, I moved to Davis (CA-USA) to study how transcriptional networks and chromatin regulation co-ordinately regulate cell states and fate.

I joined Durham University (UK) in 2015. In our lab, we investigate how chromatin and gene expression are dynamically regulated to guide plant environmental adaptation. I am passionate of plant development, its genomic regulation and love working in the lab and the challenges we face every day.

Talk: Chromatin Orchestration in Plant Development: Insights from Brassinosteroid Signaling and Flowering Time Control

 

Dr. Zdravko Lorković

Gregor Mendel Institute

Dr Zdravko Lorković obtained his DI in Molecular biology at the University of Zagreb, Croatia and a PhD from Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich, Germany. Currently, he is a member of Frederic Berger Group at the Gregor Mendel Institute in Vienna, Austria. He has a background in plant RNA biology and epigenetics. His current major interests are histone variants and their role in genome organization and regulation. He contributed to several key discoveries demonstrating functional diversification of plant H2A and H2B histone variants. In particular, he demonstrated that Arabidopsis nucleosomes are homotypic concerning H2A variants. These discoveries led to the definition of Arabidopsis chromatin states demonstrating that H2A variants, rather than histone H3 modifications, are more accurate predictors of heterochromatin, euchromatin and facultative heterochromatin.

Claudia Martinho

Max Planck Institute for Biology

Phd in Plant molecular biology at the Institute Gulbenkian for Science, Lisbon, Portugal where I studied how microRNA activity was regulated in response to environmental stresses in Arabidopsis. I did a nearly 4-year postdoc at the University of Cambridge (UK) until September 2021, studying non-Mendelian epigenetic inheritance in tomato hybrids with Prof. Sir David Baulcombe. The seminar will be based on the research developed during this postdoc. Presently I am a senior postdoc in Germany at the Max Planck Institute for Biology in Tubingen and I study gene-silencing in brown algae. I am also looking to establish my laboratory in gene-silencing and epigenetic inheritance in crops.

Iva Mozgová

Czech Academy of Sciences

Iva Mozgová is a junior group leader at the Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences (BC CAS) in České Budějovice, CZ. She completed her PhD in 2011 at the Central European Institute of Technology - Masaryk University (CEITEC MU) in Brno, CZ. She then spent five years at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala (Sweden) as an EMBO Fellow and postdoc in the group of Prof. Lars Hennig, and three years as an independent researcher at the Institute of Microbiology CAS in Třeboň (CZ). Since 2019, the focus of Iva Mozgová’s group at BC CAS has been on the control of primary metabolism by PRC2 in the developmental, but also in the operational context. In addition to the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, the lab uses the model bryophyte Physcomitrium patens and chlorophyte algae to study the evolution and maintenance of PRC2 function in the green lineage.

Hana Šimková

Institute of Experimental Botany

Hana Šimková completed her master studies at the Agricultural University in Brno, Czechoslovakia, followed by a PhD in Genetics at the Czech Academy of Sciences. She started as a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Experimental Botany in Olomouc, where she works to this day, as group leader since 2017. Since 2006, Hana was additionally appointed Lecturer at the Palacky University in Olomouc.

Hana’s early research focused on chromosomal genomics, a branch of genomic research involving chromosome sorting by flow cytometry, established by Prof. Jaroslav Doležel at the IEB in Olomouc. Hana was engaged in generation of chromosomal resources utilized in genome sequencing and gene cloning projects, mainly in wheat barley and rye. Her contribution to the assemblies of complex genomes was also connected with the technology of optical mapping, which her group pioneered for plants. Her current interests include studies of 3D chromatin organization by Hi-C technique, epigenetics of cereal crops and identification of cis-regulatory elements controlling transcription in barley.

Prof. Jurriaan Ton

University of Sheffield

I am a plant pathologist at the University of Sheffield (UoS). My lab explores how plants adapt to recurrent stress from pests and diseases. Apart from our long-standing interests in the molecular perception and signalling of chemicals that prime plant immunity (‘plant vaccines’), our current research mostly focuses on the epigenetic pathways by which plants memorise environmental stress and acquire long-term resistance. My lab also studies the functional relationship between root exudation chemistry and root-associated microbial communities, to gain a better understanding of how such rhizosphere interactions boost plant resilience against environmental stresses. Outside the lab, I co-direct the P3 Centre for Plant and Soil Biology of the Sheffield Institute for Sustainable Food. In this role, I work closely with agricultural stakeholders to facilitate the translation of fundamental research on model systems into sustainable solutions for crop protection.