Attendees from Europe, North America, and Asia met at the University of Kent in Canterbury, United Kingdom to present their research and discuss ways for experimentalists and computational modelers to work more closely together.
The meeting included 88 scientists, clinicians, and trainees interested in cardiac and skeletal muscle structure and function, how these are altered in disease, and how this information can be used to develop novel approaches to treat diseases. Each day featured a keynote speaker, whose talk introduced the subjects for talks of the day, and each session had multiple invited speakers and one selected by an early-stage investigator committee from the abstracts submitted for the meeting. There were also two panel discussions to stimulate further discussion of ways to combine computational models and experimentation to gain new insights into muscle. Attendees agreed that the meeting was timely, given recent advances in experimental technologies and computational tools. For example, new high-resolution structures of sarcomere thin and thick proteins were reported alongside protein molecular dynamics models based on the structural data. These new higher-resolution models were used to predict the mechanisms of therapeutic small molecules. Another theme was focused on the integration of new, structure-based computational models of muscle over multiple scales and experiments designed to validate these models.
In addition to speakers, 33 posters were presented during the three active poster sessions, which allowed for vigorous discussions and the generation of new ideas. Biophysical Journal sponsored four awards for outstanding poster presentations by graduate students and post-doctoral fellows. Congratulations to the four awardees!
In addition to science, there was time for social interactions and sightseeing in the medieval town of Canterbury, such as the historic Canterbury Cathedral, and the ocean-side town of Whitstable.
The meeting was organized by Michael Regnier (University of Washington, USA) and Michael Geeves (University of Kent, United Kingdom), with Neil Kad (University of Kent, United Kingdom) as the local organizer. The organizing committee also consisted of Silvia Blemker (University of Virginia, USA), William Lehman (Boston University, USA), Andrew McCulloch (University of California San Diego, USA), Jil Tardiff (University of Arizona, USA), and Jolanda Vander Veldon (Amsterdam University Medical Center, The Netherlands).