Plenary Speakers:

Tuomas Knowles, Univeristy of Cambridge, UK

(http://www-knowles.ch.cam.ac.uk/)

Roland Riek, ETH Zürich, CH

(http://www.bionmr.ethz.ch/)

Topic: Protein misfolding and aggregation is a highly complex phenomenon, where folded or intrinsically-disordered protein conformations transform into insoluble protein fibers, known as amyloids. This process plays critical role in the development of multiple human diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disorders and others. Moreover, in some organisms amyloids play functional role, e.g. epigenetic transmission of information in yeast. Finally, these robust and very stable peptide/protein assemblies are attractive scaffolds for their engineering into novel bio- and nanomaterials. This minisymposium will gather researchers, who study protein misfolding and aggregation from different perspectives including (1) structural and biological studies of protein oligomers and amyloid fibers, (2) combined biophysical experimental and theoretical studies involving microfluidics, (3) studies directed at dissecting the role of metals in protein misfolding, and (4) chemical synthesis of designed proteins in order to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of protein aggregation.

A more detailed program will be announced later on

The  organizer: Vladimir Torbeev (torbeev@unistra.fr)

and Peter Faller (pfaller@unistra.fr)