Program (September 19th and 20th 2020)
Organisation
Each lecture will take place on Zoom. Participants (registration is now closed) will receive an email with the Zoom links (one per lecture) on Friday 18th September.
Satursday 19th September
09:15 - 09:30
Welcome and introduction by the YPF-Team
09:30 - 10:30
Biophysics: lecture by Prof. Dr. Karsten Kruse: “The dynamics of Life”
Looking at Nature, one cannot feel but awe for the multitude of patterns, shapes, and behaviors displayed by living beings. For ages, mankind has wondered about the origin of these structures and about what makes Life special compared to other natural phenomena. Even though, living systems might be perceived as being different from inanimate matter, they still obey the laws of physics. One may thus ask, how much of the variety of Life can be explained by concepts from physics? In this talk, I will present some systems, where physical analysis has helped to gain a deeper understanding of their underlying dynamics. They range from protein patterns found in bacteria up to morphological changes in developing organisms. In the end, I will discuss possible future developments.
10:30 - 11:00
Break
11:00 - 12:00
Medical physics: lecture by Prof. Dr. Saverio Braccini: “Multi-disciplinary Research Activities at the Bern medical Cyclotron”
The applications of high energy physics are fundamental in modern medicine and deeply influenced its development. In particular, the conception and the realization of specific particle accelerators and detectors determined crucial advances in medical imaging and cancer radiation therapy. Nowadays common medical practices were not even imaginable only a few years ago. Starting from the basic concepts, this talk will focus on the multidisciplinary research activities on-going at the cyclotron laboratory at the Bern University Hospital (Inselspital). In particular, research on the production of novel radioisotopes for medical diagnostics and therapy (theranostics) will be presented. The most recent developments will be discussed by means of examples in cardiology, Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging, and cancer hadrontherapy.
12:00 - 14:00
Break
14:00 - 15:00
Biophysics: lecture by Prof. Dr. Roderick Lim: “Biomimetic validation of biological function”
15:00 - 15:30
Break
15:30 - 16:30
Biophysics: lecture by Prof. Dr. Henning Stahlberg: “Versatile applications of Cryo-Electron Microscopy for pharmaceutical drug research: A roadmap for further developments of an already revolutionary technology”
Cryo-electron microscopy has revolutionized structural biology. Atomic-resolution structures of membrane and soluble proteins can now routinely be determined within a few days, if sufficient amount of sufficiently large protein complexes in stable conformations can be frozen within thin ice layers. This has allowed deciphering a plethora of high value structures in the recent few years. In addition, electron tomography can provide valuable insights into sub-cellular organization at increasing throughput and resolution.
However, cryo-EM still suffers from severe limitations. For single particle cryo-EM, the method is limited by the minimally required sample particle size, the amount of required sample volume, the high demands for conformational homogeneity, and the months of time required to go from protein purification to a usable frozen cryo-EM sample, followed by the days of time to image that sample in a high-end cryo-EM instrument to determine the atomic structure. And for electron tomography, the method is limited by sample preparation difficulties, low throughput, and low resolution.
Nevertheless, the rapidly growing cryo-EM community is making steady progress for all above listed limitations, so that further breakthroughs in capability of the tool will arrive soon.
In this presentation, the current state of the art, its limitations and ways to overcome these will be discussed. Applications to ABC transporter membrane protein structures and cellular tissue tomography on human brain of Parkinson’s disease patients will show the possibilities of today’s toolchain.
A roadmap for future developments to reduce sample volumes and to increase speed and resolution of the method will be presented. And finally, the DCI, the future Dubochet Center for Imaging to be established at the EPFL, the University of Lausanne and the University of Geneva will be introduced.
SUNDAY 20th September
09:30 - 10:30
Ocean physics: lecture by Prof. Dr. Thomas Frölicher: “Ocean extremes: From marine heatwaves to ocean biogeochemical extremes”
10:30 - 11:00
Break
11:00 - 12:00
Geophysics: lecture by Prof. Dr. Andrew Jackson: “Theory of the geodynamo: A century of struggle and a new dawn”
12:00 - 14:00
Break
14:00 - 15:00
Geophysics: lecture by Prof. Dr. Paul Tackley: “Plate tectonics, mantle convection and the long-term evolution of terrestrial planets and moons”
15:00 - 15:30
Break
15:30 - 16:30
Geophysics: lecture by Prof. Dr. Johan Robertsson: “Generalized sampling and gradiometry: Changing the rules of the information game”
16:30 - 16:45
Closing and goodbye
Further Information
Costs:
This online forum is free.
Registration:
Registration is now closed.