Mark your calendars! The BPS will hold four thematic meetings in 2019 that will explore focused topics from varying perspectives.
Multiscale Modeling of Chromatin: Bridging Experiment with Theory
Les Houches, France
March 31–April 5
This meeting will bring together biologists, chemists, physicists, and mathematicians to discuss and launch collaborations to advance the field of chromatin modeling and applications through new conceptual approaches and perspectives.
The meeting will emphasize the unique multiscale features and properties of chromatin, from DNA to nuclear organization and interactions, and will encourage/enhance the development of multiscale models and experimental strategies needed to address all relevant components of the chromatin folding problem. Such multiscale approaches, combining experimental data and modeling/informatics, are necessary to extract and identify structure/function relationships on various scales, from atoms to whole genomes, and to pursue important applications in epigenetics and medicine.
Quantitative Aspects of Membrane Fusion and Fission
Padova, Italy
May 6–10
Quantitative understanding of biophysical mechanisms increasingly requires analysis of dynamical and physiologically relevant cellular changes. This is especially relevant for biological membrane processes that occur at distinct points in time and space, such as membrane fusion or fission, and that are driven by localized and quantifiable interaction of proteins, lipids and messenger molecules. This interdisciplinary meeting will address the growing need for collaboration between experimentalists and theorists to fully take advantage of the quantitative nature of the experimental observations in this field and to improve the quantitative descriptions of membrane events.
Revisiting the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology at the Single-Molecule Level
Lima, Peru
July 18-21
The molecular processes that drive and regulate the flow of information from genes to proteins—i.e., the central dogma of molecular biology—have been extensively studied using traditional biochemical and molecular tools. However, thanks to the advent of single-molecule manipulation and nanoscale visualization techniques, many unknown biophysical aspects of these processes have been unveiled.
This meeting aims to cover recent discoveries produced by single-molecule approaches in the biophysics of replication, transcription, protein synthesis, chaperone-mediated protein folding/degradation, and molecular motors. Additional topics include the latest developments in single molecule instrumentation and nanoscale visualization, steered molecular dynamics simulations, and single-molecule applications for the study of pathogens and infectious diseases.
Biology and Physics Confront Cell-Cell Adhesion
Aussois, France
October 14–17
Cell-cell adhesion is the fundamental process that led to multicellular organisms. It is essential both for embryonic development and adult tissue homeostasis. This meeting will bring together biologists, biophysicists, soft matter physicists, and computational scientists to discuss the role of mechanics in cell-cell adhesion. We will confront how the different communities understand adhesion at the molecular, cellular, and tissue scales.