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Featuring talks by

Prof. Nenad Ban

ETH Zürich, Switzerland

Topic: Revealing the remarkable machinery for production of proteins in human cells

Prof. Roger Kornberg

Stanford University, U.S.A.

Topic: Chromatin, chromosomes, and transcription

Chaired by

Prof. Wolfgang Baumeister

Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Germany

Topic: Structural biology in situ: The promise and challenges of cryo-electron tomography

About the Session

This session will discuss the latest trends and developments in the field of structural biology. It will provide insights into the dynamic structures and complex molecular machines required for the proper functioning of human cells. Topics will include the complex and elegant mechanisms involved in protein synthesis, the structural biology of DNA packaging, and the advances in structural biology techniques used to visualize the molecular machines that operate within cells. These topics are all of significant importance in understanding human health and disease and represent some of the latest advances in biological research. The session will provide attendees with a broader understanding of the latest developments and innovations in structural biology. Overall, it promises to be a lively and informative discussion of some of the most exciting topics in structural biology today.

About the Speakers

Wolfgang Baumeister, Ph.D., obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Düsseldorf in 1973. In 1981/82, he spent time at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, England, as a Heisenberg Fellow. In 1982 he joined the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried as a group leader. Since 1988 he has been a Scientific Member of the Max Planck Society and Director of the Department of Structural Biology. He is an Honorary Professor at the Technical University of Munich in the Departments of Physics and Chemistry. Since 2018 he is also a Distinguished Adjunct Professor at ShanghaiTech University. He is a member of the German Academy of Sciences, Leopoldina, the US National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the recipient of numerous awards, including the Otto-Warburg Medal, the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine, the Stein and Moore Award, the Harvey Prize, the Ernst Jung Medal for Medicine and the Alexander Hollaender Award in Biophysics.

Baumeister's main interest is the development of new tools and methods for the structural characterization of molecules and cells. He had a pioneering role in the development of cryo-electron tomography for structural studies of molecular and supramolecular structures in situ, i.e., in their native cellular habitats. A major focus of his work is the molecular machinery of protein degradation, in particular via the ubiquitin-proteasome pathway, and autophagy.

Roger Kornberg, Ph.D., is the Winzer Professor in Medicine in the Department of Structural Biology at Stanford University. In his doctoral research, he demonstrated the diffusional motions of lipids in membranes, termed flip-flop and lateral diffusion. He was a postdoctoral fellow and member of the scientific staff at the Laboratory of Molecular biology in Cambridge, England from 1972-5, where he discovered the nucleosome, the basic unit of DNA coiling in chromosomes. He moved to his present position in 1978, where his research has focused on the mechanism and regulation of eukaryotic gene transcription. Notable findings include the demonstration of the role of nucleosomes in transcriptional regulation, the establishment of a yeast RNA polymerase II transcription system and the isolation of all the proteins involved, the discovery of the Mediator of transcriptional regulation, the development of two-dimensional protein crystallization and its application to transcription proteins, and the atomic structure determination of an RNA polymerase II transcribing complex. Kornberg was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1993. He has received many awards, including the Welch Prize (2001), highest award in chemistry in the United States, the Leopold Mayer Prize (2002), highest award in biomedical sciences of the French Academy of Sciences, and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (unshared, 2006). 

Nenad Ban, Ph.D., is a Professor of Structural Molecular Biology at ETH Zürich since 2000. He is a pioneer in studying gene expression mechanisms and the participating protein synthesis machinery in all kingdoms of life, both in terms of the chemistry of the process and with respect to molecular mechanisms of translation regulation, and of co-translational folding, processing and targeting to membranes. His group revealed the mechanisms behind the key steps in eukaryotic cytoplasmic and mitochondrial translation with a broad impact on a wide range of fields in biology, chemistry and biomedicine.

Ban is a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, the European Molecular Biology Organization, and the German Academy of Sciences. He is the recipient of several prizes and awards including the Heinrich Wieland Prize, the Roessler Prize of the ETH Zürich, the Latsis Prize, the Friedrich Miescher Prize of the Swiss Society for Biochemistry, the Spiridon Brusina Medal, and the AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize.