YSF Keynotes speakers reserve

An opening lecture and four keynote talks will be delivered during the 17th FEBS Young Scientists' Forum by distinguished scientists:

Prof.  Dan Tawfik is at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel. His research seeks a detailed, atomic understanding of the mechanisms that underlie the birth of new proteins. The lab is studying a variety of cases of enzyme evolution, spanning from 3.7 billion years ago to our own time. His talk will give us the opportunity to get new inspiration from some historic major milestones in biology research.

Opening YSF lecture:  'For the love of enzymes – from Kornberg to us and beyond'

Prof.  Naama Barkai from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel received the FEBS│EMBO Women in Science Award in 2008 for her outstanding contributions to the field of systems biology and the mathematical modelling of biological systems. She is investigating the design principles of biological circuits to quantify biological variability and to elucidate its relationship with biological circuits.

YSF talk: 'Short- and long-term strategies in cellular signaling'

Dr Nicolas Plachta from the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, A*STAR, Singapore studies the earliest stages of mammalian development. His lab uses live imaging technologies to discover how cells resolve their fate and interactions in live mouse embryos. He has received numerous awards including the ASCB-Gibco Emerging Leader Prize, the EMBO Young Investigator grant, and the Australian Viertel Fellowship.

YSF talk (EMBO Young Investigator Lecture): 
'Imaging how cells decide their fate, shape and position in the living mouse embryo'

Dr Güneş Özhan from the İzmir International Biomedicine and Genome Institute, İzmir, Turkey received an EMBO Installation Grant in 2014 and the L’Oréal & Unesco Turkey National Women in Science Award in 2015. She is working on the regulation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling and the role of this signaling pathway in regeneration of the adult central nervous system.

YSF talk:  'Tight regulation of Wnt/beta-catenin signaling at the plasma membrane'

Prof. Eric Westhof from the University of Strasbourg, France is at the Institut de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire in the unit Architecture et Réactivité de l’ARN of the CNRS. He is an executive editor of RNA Journal and Nucleic Acids Research and a member of EMBO, Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher LEOPOLDINA, Academia Europaea, the Académie des Sciences. His research activities are centered on the relationships between sequences, architectures, evolution and functions of RNA molecules, especially those with catalytic activity.

YSF talk:  'From an integrated, structure- and energy-based view of the genetic code to cellular homeostasis'