Overview

Yeasts are potent model eukaryotes that have been used for over a century to explore fundamental and applied aspects of cell function. Annual gatherings of the British yeast community have taken place since the 1980s, with the only exception being the pandemic-related interruption in 2020. The Microbiology Society has adopted the last meetings in its Focused Meeting programme.

The next British Yeast Group meeting will take place from 7-9 September 2022. BYG 2022 highlights the theme ‘From Genomes to Cells’, covering diverse topics from DNA metabolism to organelle and cell function. The programme will feature attractive, assorted talks from invited speakers and will provide plenty of opportunities for early career researchers to present their research through posters, flash and offered oral presentations. The meeting will include a varied social agenda to make new connections and strengthen the yeast community in Britain and beyond.

Key topics

  • Chromosomes and genome regulation
  • Organelle and cell regulation
  • Cellular function and interactions
  • DNA metabolism and  cell-cycle control

Organising committee:

  • Jürg Bähler (University College London, UK)
  • Jacqueline Hayles (The Francis Crick Institute, UK)

COVID-19 Mitigations

As part of the preparations for returning to delivering in-person events, Microbiology Society Council members and members of the Virus Division have worked with Society staff to develop a framework of mitigations for the Society to apply to all of its events throughout 2022, in order to ensure that these are as COVID-secure as possible.

Implementation of this framework is a shared responsibility; shared between the Society, the venues we use for our events, and all potential attendees. Attendance at any of our events is a personal choice, but it will be incumbent on all of us to deliver these mitigations in order for us to keep all delegates and staff as safe as we can.

The framework covers the following five areas.

1. Vaccines
2. Ventilation
3. Masks
4. Testing
5. Spacing, particularly during communal activities such as lunch and poster sessions
 

The following mitigations will be implemented for all those attending a Focused Meeting in 2022. The Society staff will continue to consult with the organising committee in the lead up to the event and these mitigations will be kept under review and may be amended to ensure they remain appropriate as circumstances change.

Mitigation area

Vaccines

All attendees are required to be fully vaccinated with an approved vaccine against COVID-19 to attend a Focused Meeting in 2022. For many individuals, this will mean a primary course and booster vaccine, and with the booster administered at least 14 days before the meeting. However, if you do not meet this requirement or if you have any concerns around your vaccination status, please get in touch with us to discuss it further by emailing [email protected]

You can find further information on vaccines on the World Health Organization (WHO) COVID-19 vaccine advice page, which includes a list of vaccines that have been approved for use against COVID-19.

Ventilation

Best efforts will be made to promote the circulation of fresh air into each Focused Meeting venue. This will include use of air conditioning, if available at the meeting venue, or opening of doors and windows during appropriate intervals in the event programme if possible.

Masks

FFP3 masks will be provided to all individuals attending a Focused Meeting in 2022 and everyone will be expected to wear them inside the meeting venue, except when eating or drinking and except for those that have medical exemptions.

Testing

Attendees will be provided with LFT devices and are expected to test themselves daily before entering the meeting venue.

Spacing

All attendees are reminded to adhere to social distancing where possible, particularly during communal activities such as lunch and poster sessions.

Further information will be announced in the build up to the meeting on our social media channels and you can follow us on Twitter @MicrobioSoc using the hashtag #BYG22.

 

Photo credit: Scott Curran

Programme

Session

Session View

Wednesday 07 September, Afternoon

Session 1: Chromosomes and genome regulation

Thursday 08 September, Morning

Session 2: Organelle and cell regulation

Thursday 08 September, Afternoon

Session 4: The Carl Singer session – flash poster presentations

The session will be supported by the Carl Singer Foundation. Carl Singer was known for attending talks in a bowler hat and performing the occasional dance routine. Since then Singer Instruments has lived up to this legacy by making every conference as memorable as possible. To make the process of giving a flask talk less daunting, flash presenters will be tasked with a secret objective during their flash talk. If they manage to achieve it, they could win a prize!

Organisers

Friday 09 September, Morning

Lecture View

Wednesday 07 September, Afternoon

Thursday 08 September, Morning

Thursday 08 September, Afternoon

Friday 09 September, Morning

Registration

Registration is now closed.

Registration fees 

Members get heavily subsidised registration fees for Annual Conference, Focused Meetings and other Society events – both online and in-person. Join now to enjoy these discounts and many other opportunities that are designed for microbiologists at all stages of their career.

Everyone who attends the meeting is asked to read and adhere to our COVID-19 mitigations framework. Please click on the dropdown below to read the policies in place for the meeting.

COVID-19 mitigations

As part of the preparations for returning to delivering in-person events, Microbiology Society Council members and members of the Virus Division have worked with Society staff to develop a framework of mitigations for the Society to apply to all of its events throughout 2022, in order to ensure that these are as COVID-secure as possible.

Implementation of this framework is a shared responsibility; shared between the Society, the venues we use for our events, and all potential attendees. Attendance at any of our events is a personal choice, but it will be incumbent on all of us to deliver these mitigations in order for us to keep all delegates and staff as safe as we can.

The framework covers the following five areas:

1. Vaccines, 2. Ventilation, 3. Masks, 4. Testing, 5. Spacing, particularly during communal activities such as lunch and poster sessions.

The following mitigations will be implemented for all those attending a Focused Meeting in 2022. The Society staff will continue to consult with the organising committee in the lead up to the event and these mitigations will be kept under review and may be amended to ensure they remain appropriate as circumstances change.

Vaccination

All attendees are required to be fully vaccinated with an approved vaccine against COVID-19 to attend a Focused Meeting in 2022. For many individuals, this will mean a primary course and booster vaccine, and with the booster administered at least 14 days before the meeting. However, if you do not meet this requirement or if you have any concerns around your vaccination status, please get in touch with us to discuss it further by emailing [email protected]

You can find further information on vaccines on the World Health Organization (WHO) COVID-19 vaccine advice page, which includes a list of vaccines that have been approved for use against COVID-19.
Ventilation Best efforts will be made to promote the circulation of fresh air into each Focused Meeting venue. This will include use of air conditioning, if available at the meeting venue, or opening of doors and windows during appropriate intervals in the event programme if possible.
Masks FFP3 masks will be provided to all individuals attending a Focused Meeting in 2022 and everyone will be expected to wear them inside the meeting venue, except when eating or drinking and except for those that have medical exemptions.
Testing Attendees will be provided with lateral flow test devices and are expected to test themselves daily before entering the meeting venue.
Spacing All attendees are reminded to adhere to social distancing where possible, particularly during communal activities such as lunch and poster sessions.

What's included in your registration fee?

  • Admission to all scientific sessions
  • Refreshments and Lunch (please note lunch is not provided on the last day, as the meeting finishes at lunchtime).
  • Drinks’ reception and conference BBQ on the Thames
  • Certificate of participation (upon request)

Early-Bird discounted rates closed on Friday 29 July, 23:59 BST.

Ticket Early Bird Full Price
Non-member £360 £410
Full member £260 £310
Concessionary member £220 £270
Student member £160 £190

Registration confirmation 

Upon registration, you should receive an automated confirmation email. Please contact [email protected] if after 24 hours this has not been received. 

Payment information 

All registration fees must be paid in full before the start of the event. Any outstanding registration fees must be paid before any joining instructions containing information on how to access the event are sent out. 

Cancellations 

We are aware of ongoing uncertainty around event attendance as the pandemic continues. In order to give delegates the most confidence and flexibility, we will refund all registration fees in full if you cancel your booking, for whatever reason, at any time in the lead up to the event. If you wish to cancel your booking and request a refund before the event, please email [email protected].

Abstracts & Posters

Abstract submissions for the British Yeast Group 2022 meeting are now closed.

British Yeast Group 2022 Abstract Book

 

British Yeast Group 2022 Poster Abstract Book


Notifications for offered oral and poster presentations were sent on 17 June. Please check your email if you are awaiting a decision, or contact [email protected] if you have not received your decision. 

Poster prize

Microbiology is pleased to provide the ‘Best Science Prize’ to a scientific poster at the British Yeast Group meeting. The winner, selected by members of the organising committee will win a cash prize and be featured on the Microbe Post. All posters displayed at BYG 2022 are automatically entered for the prize.

Flash Poster Prize

The Carl Singer Foundation are pleased to provide two prizes, to be awarded to the 'Best Flash Poster Presenters'. The winners, selected by The Carl Singer Foundation, will receive a cash prize and certificate. All flash presenters at BYG 2022 are automatically entered for the prize.

Instructions for offered oral presenters

Presenters accepted for an offered oral presentation should prepare a presentation to the below specifications. Presenters are advised to check the programme to view their presentation slot.

  • Presentation length: 12 minutes, plus a 3 minute Q&A.
  • Presentation format: PowerPoint (16:9 widescreen format)
  • PC version – please bring to the conference on a USB memory stick or ensure the file is accessible via cloud storage.
  • Mac version – can only be accepted if you bring your own laptop and connecting cables.

Instructions for poster presenters

Presenters accepted for poster presentation should prepare a poster to the below specifications. Poster numbers are provided in the abstract acceptance email. The formal poster presentation session will take place on the evening of Wednesday 7 September.

  • Poster size: A0 size 841mm(w) x 1189mm(h) - your poster must not exceed these measurements. 
  • Poster layout: MUST BE portrait orientation. 
  • Posters will be displayed on poster boards measuring 1m(w) x 2m(h), one to a side. 
  • Posters can ONLY be fixed by Velcro (provided at the meeting). 

Instructions for flash poster presenters

Flash poster presenters will be notified by email before 28 July 2022.

The session, taking place on the afternoon of 8 September, will be supported by the Carl Singer Foundation. Carl Singer was known for attending talks in a bowler hat and performing the occasional dance routine. Since then, Singer Instruments has lived up to this legacy by making every conference as memorable as possible. To make the process of giving a flask talk less daunting: You will be tasked with a secret objective during your flash talk, if you manage to achieve it, you could win a prize!

Flash poster presentations should be five minutes long, and consist of one PowerPoint-compatible slide, which we request that you provide in advance of the meeting. Your one slide could be a key figure, a composition, or even just an image of your poster.

Please send your slide to [email protected] by Tuesday 30 August 11:00 BST at the latest.

 

Grants & Professional Development

Society Conference Grants are available to support those wishing to attend this meeting. Applications for this scheme are now closed.

We are aware of ongoing uncertainty around event attendance as the pandemic continues. To find out more about our grant refund policies, please visit our Grant Rules page.

Members who are ineligible for the Society Conference Grant should apply to the Travel Grant scheme for support. Applications for events taking place between 1 July–30 September 2022 will open at the end of April and close on 1 June 2022.

Please contact [email protected] for any questions.

Social Programme

The second evening of the British Yeast Group meeting will include an opportunity to socialise and network at the Conference dinner, details of which are below. 

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© Capital Pleasure Boats Ltd


Conference BBQ and dance on the Thames

8 September | 19:30 – 23:00 | Golden Jubilee Boat, Temple Pier, Victoria Embankment
Included in the cost of your delegate registration.

Join us aboard the Golden Jubilee boat as we sail along the Thames to see the best sites London has to offer. 

Embarking at Temple Pier, delegates will enjoy a BBQ dinner with spectacular views. The Golden Jubilee’s resident DJ will keep the evening going with the on-board bar serving a range of non-alcoholic and alcoholic drinks.

Accessibility

Due to the nature of the Thames there may be a gap between the pier and the threshold of the boat which could make gaining access harder for those with mobility impairments. 

The Pier can be steep at certain times of the day, and both accessing the vessel and onboard is not step-free. The Golden Jubilee has stairwells which have handrails to reach the upper deck, and steps on the outside deck itself.

Bathroom cubicles onboard are very small, and there are no accessible bathroom facilities.

If you have a question regarding accessibility, please contact [email protected].

Boarding Instructions

Boarding begins at 19:30 for 15 minutes, and then sets sail at 19:45.

Please do not be late as we may not be able to wait for you. If you have any issues finding the pier, please call the Microbiology Society team on +44 7508 538 911

Delegates will not be able to depart the function until the vessel re-docks at Temple Pier at roughly 22:45.

The boat will cruise the Thames for the duration of the function, before preparing for disembark at Temple Pier 15 minutes before the end of the function.

Due to the vessels licence, passengers are not permitted to consume any drinks on the pier before boarding, nor are any open bottles or drinks permitted to be taken off the vessel.

 

Venue, Accommodation & Accessibility

This meeting will take place at the University College London campus in London.

Venue address

Darwin Building
Gower Street
London
WC1E 6BT

Please note: Access is through Malet Place entrance.

Travel

The Darwin building is located on the main UCL campus in Bloomsbury, London. The easiest way to travel to the venue locally is by rail or tube. There are no parking facilities on site.

Tube

The closest London Underground stations to the venue are Euston Square, Russell Square, Goodge Street and Warren Street. You can plan your tube journey using the Transport for London journey planner.

Rail

The closest mainline rail station is London Euston, which is 0.4 miles from the venue and is serviced by routes from the north and northwest of the country. London St Pancras International and London Kings Cross are also close by (0.9 miles) from the venue, and are serviced by high-speed routes to the north, Scotland, and mainland Europe. Attendee’s arriving using the rail network are advised to plan their journey using the National Rail Journey Planner.

Air

London is easily accessed by several airports, all of which connect to the UK Rail Network with a 1-2 hour journey time into central London. Flights service destinations across the world, as well as internally within the UK.

London Gatwick and London Luton connect directly by rail to nearby London St Pancras International.

London Heathrow and London City Airport connect to the Transport for London Network via tube or Docklands Light Railway. From Heathrow you can also take the Heathrow Express rail service.

London Stanstead is accessible via the Stanstead Express rail service.

Southend Airport connects directly by rail to London Liverpool Street station.

Road

Driving into central London can be difficult with traffic and parking. The venue is within the Congestion Charge, LEZ Charge and ULEZ Charge zonesWith the variety of public transport available, and to mitigate the environmental impact of the meeting, attendees are encouraged to avoid travelling to the meeting by road where possible.

Attendee’s who do need to travel by road are advised to note there is no parking available on-site, and off-site parking should be found and pre-booked in advance.

Sustainability

Carbon footprint offsetting

Delegate travel is the biggest contributor to the carbon emissions involved with Focused Meetings, we would therefore like to encourage all delegates to offset their carbon footprint.

A carbon offset is a way to compensate for your emissions by funding an equivalent carbon dioxide saving elsewhere.

You can calculate and offset your carbon footprint from travelling to the meeting by using this carbon calculator. This supports international projects and sustainable development worldwide.


Accessibility

The conference takes place on the basement level of the Darwin building, which is accessible via stairs or a lift. The Darwin building should be accessed through Malet Place, which is a level path: Guide to accessible routes into Malet Place. A hearing loop is available in the main lecture theatre.

The Conference BBQ will be hosted on a Thames River boat which does not have step-free access. There is a wide step from the dock onto the boat, and stairs on the boat itself up to the top deck. There are no accessible bathroom facilities on the vessel.

Please contact [email protected] if you have any concerns or accessibility questions for the conference.


Accommodation

Please note that accommodation is not included in the registration fees for this meeting; however, we are pleased to recommend using UCL to secure your accommodation, details of which are below.

UCL Accommodation

During the summer months each year, UCL Accommodation opens its doors to the public, offering great value accommodation in a perfect location, right in the middle of the West End. From en-suite bedrooms in newly refurbished buildings to single rooms with shared facilities, we have rooms to suit every budget, providing excellent service and facilities, including 24-hour reception and free Wi-Fi. UCL’s accommodation is ideally located close and within walking distance to many landmarks, shops, malls, restaurants including Oxford Street, Leicester and Trafalgar Square and many theatres.

Visit website

 

Book UCL accommodation
Exhibition & Sponsorship

Please contact [email protected] to enquire about exhibition and sponsorship opportunities.

British Yeast Group 2022 invitation to exhibit

 

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Speakers

Below you will find more information about our invited speakers, who will present their work and research at British Yeast Group 2022: From genomes to cells.

  • Benoît Arcangioli (Institut Pasteur, France)
  • Benoît Kornmann (University of Oxford, UK)
  • Birgitte Regenberg (University of Copenhagen, Denmark)
  • Charlie Boone (University of Toronto, Canada)
  • Cornelia Kilchert (Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany)
  • Frank Uhlmann (The Francis Crick Institute, UK)
  • Genevieve Thon (University of Copenhagen, Denmark)
  • Janet Quinn (Newcastle University, UK)
  • Johanne Murray (University of Sussex, UK)
  • Jon Houseley (The Babraham Institute, UK)
  • Julia Promisel Copper (University of Colorado, USA)
  • Mohan Balasubramanian (University of Warwick, UK)
  • Pedro Carvalho (University of Oxford, UK)
  • Snezhana Oliferenko (Kings College London, UK)
  • Valerie Borde (Institut Curie, France)

Benoit Arcangioli
Benoît Arcangioli

Benoît Arcangioli is a Professor at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France. He initially works on transcription regulation in the laboratory of Moshe Yaniv and later learned fission yeast genetics with Amar Klar. The focus of his lab is on mating-type switching processes that couple a chromosomal imprinting with DNA replication and homologous recombination and more recently on deciphering how the genetic material is maintained in the absence of cell division. He organises, since 2000, the course of molecular genetics and epigenetics (2 months/year). He was co-President of the genetic/epigenetic committee of the national research agency and he is implicated at different level in Pasteur Institute organisation.  


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Benoît Kornmann

Benoît Kornmann is Associate Professor at the Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford, UK and fellow of St Hugh’s College. Benoît studies membrane contact sites, how intracellular organisation impinges on organelle function and how lipid molecules are distributed among the many membranes of a eukaryotic cell. Benoît Kornmann is an expert in yeast genetics, membrane biology, organelle dynamics and signalling. He holds a PhD from the University of Geneva, Switzerland, and previously held the positions of Assistant Professor at the ETH Zurich, Switzerland, Professor of the Swiss National Science Foundation and fellow of the Swiss National Science Foundation.


Birgitte_Regenberg
Birgitte Regenberg

Birgitte Regenberg is an Associate Professor at Department of Biology at University of Copenhagen (UCPH), Denmark. Dr Regenberg conducted her PhD studies in genetics at the Carlsberg Laboratory and got her PhD from UCPH. After her PhD, she worked as Assistant Professor at the Technical University of Denmark at the Center for Process Biotechnology where she built the transcriptomic facility (2000-2004). She continued her research in systems biology as an FNU-funded (Independent Research Fund Denmark natural sciences funding) researcher at the Goethe-University in Frankfurt am Main, Germany (2004-2007). Birgitte Regenberg returned to UCPH in a tenure-track position with a Skou Fellowship in 2007 and started her own laboratory. She has since had several stays at the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University, USA and at Department of Genetics at Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford University, USA as visiting Professor.

Birgitte Regenberg’s research has focused on yeast biofilm, genetics and genome evolution. Her group has recently pioneered studying extrachromosomal circular DNA with the groundbreaking discovery that all parts of eukaryotic genomes form extrachromosomal circular DNA, answering a long-standing question about what happens to deleted DNA. She has shown how extrachromosomal circular DNA contributes substantially to expressed genetic variation with consequences for chromosome evolution and new aspects of cancer. Her group’s conceptual and technological expertise has given her a leading role in this upcoming field, which has been generously acknowledged by large grants and led to large interdisciplinary collaborations. She has co-authored over 60 research articles and most of her recent articles are in the leading journals in the field.


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Charlie Boone

Dr Boone is currently a Banting & Best Distinguished Scholar in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto, Canada. Dr Boone received his PhD in Biology from McGill University, USA in 1989 and completed postdoctoral studies at the Institute of Molecular Biology, University of Oregon, USA. He held faculty positions at Simon Fraser University, Canada and Queen’s University, Canada before his recruitment to the University of Toronto in 2000. Dr Boone is internationally recognised for his invention of innovative methods for large-scale mapping of genetic and chemical-genetics networks in the yeast model system. In particular, Dr Boone’s group generated a global synthetic genetic interaction map for yeast cells, testing most of the possible 18 million pairs of genes for genetic interactions. He has also pioneered methods for using genetic interactions to discover cellular targets of bioactive molecules. The RIKEN Institute, Japan has recognised Dr Boone’s contributions in the field of chemical genomics through his appointment as a team leader in chemical genetics in the Centre For Sustainable Resource Science. Dr Boone received the Genetics Society of America (GSA) Edward Novitski Prize for creativity in genetics; Ira Herskowitz Award for yeast genetics and molecular biology; and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. 


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Cornelia Kilchert

Cornelia Kilchert is interested in post-transcriptional gene regulation and nuclear RNA surveillance mechanisms. She studied biochemistry in Tübingen, Germany, and completed her PhD at the Biozentrum in Basel, Switzerland, working on RNA localisation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae with Anne Spang. Cornelia joined the lab of Lidia Vasiljeva in the Department of Biochemistry at University of Oxford, UK for her postdoc, where she became interested in substrate targeting to exosome complex and learned to love the “other yeast”, Schizosaccharomyces pombe. Returning to Germany, she started her own lab at the Justus-Liebig-University in Giessen in 2018, thanks to funding from the Emmy Noether Programme of the German Research Foundation (DFG).


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Frank Uhlmann

Frank Uhlmann was born and grew up in Germany. He studied biochemistry and physiological chemistry at the University of Tübingen before joining Jerry Hurwitz's laboratory at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, USA for his PhD studies. Frank then moved to the Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna, Austria to work as a postdoc with Kim Nasmyth. In 2000, he established a research laboratory at what was then the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London, UK. He has remained there ever since, while the institute became part of Cancer Research UK (the London Research Institute) and now the Francis Crick Institute UK. His work on chromosome segregation was recognised with the EMBO Gold Medal in 2006.


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Genevieve Thon

Genevieve Thon is an Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Her interests are in heterochromatin and epigenetics. She studied at the École Normale Supérieurein, France, and at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, USA with Harvey Eisen. She became a fission yeast enthusiast following a discussion with Amar Klar, whose lab she joined in the early 1990s to investigate the intriguing properties of the mating-type region. Following three exciting years at National Cancer Institute, USA, she moved to the University of Copenhagen as a Human Frontier Science Programme fellow and later Faculty. Recent work has been on the kinetics of heterochromatin formation, determined at the single cell level to understand the modes of propagation of heterochromatic histone modifications along chromosomes and the intricate links between heterochromatin and replication.


Janet Quinn
Janet Quinn

Jan Quinn currently holds the position of Professor of Eukaryotic Microbiology within the Biosciences Institute at Newcastle University, UK. Jan is also the current President of the British Mycological Society.

Jan obtained a BSc in biochemistry from the University of Wales followed by a PhD from Newcastle University – more years ago that she cares to remember! It was only following her PhD that Jan started working with fungi, with a postdoctoral fellowship at the UMASS Medical School, USA to study chromatin remodelling in the model yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. After a second postdoc studying stress-signalling mechanisms in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, Jan was fortunate enough to be awarded an MRC Career Development Fellowship where she started to develop what is now her lab’s primary research focus – stress-sensing and signalling mechanisms in human fungal pathogens.

She is fascinated by the diverse mechanisms employed by a range of pathogenic Candida species survive innate immune defences and other hostile environments within the host. This research spans diverse areas including MAPK signalling, redox biology, and nutrient acquisition strategies. More recently, Jan has become interested in how fungi survive stresses found in polymicrobial environments. In particular, her lab are studying how Candida species survive antifungal effectors elicited by the Type VI secretion system, found in many gram-negative bacteria. Finally, her lab are also pursuing avenues to exploit their knowledge of fungal stress-sensing and signalling mechanisms to identify small molecules that inhibit processes vital for the virulence of medically important pathogens.


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Johanne Murray

Johanne Murray is a Reader in Genome Stability and, currently, Subject Chair for the Genome Damage and Stability Centre at the University of Sussex, UK. She was awarded her PhD in medical genetics in 1988 from the Welsh National College of Medicine, UK and then moved to the University of Sussex, working on DNA damage responses in fission yeast, first as a postdoc and then, from 1994, as an independent research fellow. Her work focuses on the mechanisms of replication restart, the coordination of replication and recombination and consequences of mis-regulation for genome instability and cancer, with a particular focus on the recombination regulator, the Smc5/6 complex.


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Jon Houseley

Jon developed an interest in RNA biology during his PhD research on the pathogenic effects of RNA in the inherited disease myotonic dystrophy. However, during his time in Glasgow, UK, first in the Barry lab and then in the Monckton and O’Dell groups, he was surrounded by work on unstable DNA and programmed recombination. His post-doctoral research in the Tollervey lab in Edinburgh, UK started in the biochemistry of RNA degradation, but moved steadily back towards genome alteration with studies on the roles of non-coding RNA in controlling the stability of repetitive DNA.

In 2009 Jon started a Wellcome Trust-funded research group at the Babraham Institute, UK studying non-coding RNA biology and copy number variation. In addition to his research role, Jon became the Head of Knowledge Exchange and Commercialisation in 2021, overseeing all aspects of how the Institute works to ensure impact from its research and translation into economic and social benefit.


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Julia Promisel Cooper

Julia Promisel Cooper is Professor and Chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at the University of Colorado Medical School, USA. Her lab studies the spectrum and mechanisms of telomere function. Recent highlights include the discovery of a mode by which telomerase-negative cells can use nontelomeric ribosomal DNA to protect chromosome ends, and the expansion of the telomeric repertoire with findings that telomeres control meiotic spindle formation and centromere assembly. After PhD work on branched DNA structures with Paul Hagerman at the University of Colorado and postdoctoral work on nucleosome positioning with Robert Simpson at the National Institues of Health, USA, Julia joined Thomas Cech’s laboratory at the University of Colorado, where she began her telomere research. She then spent a year in Paul Nurse’s laboratory at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London, UK before setting up her lab, first at the University of Colorado Medical School, then Cancer Research UK in London, then the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, USA and now at the University of Colorado Medical School. Honors include a Pew Scholarship and election to the European Molecular Biology Organization, based in Germany, and American Academy of Microbiology.


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Mohan Balasubramanian

Mohan Balasubramanian is interested in understanding molecular mechanisms driving cytokinesis, the process by which a cell physically divides into two. His laboratory combines the methods of yeast genetics, high-resolution imaging, and biochemistry to answer key questions pertaining to cytokinesis. Mohan Balasubramanian is a Pro Dean Research for Warwick Medical School, UK, a Senior Investigator of the Wellcome Trust and a Wolfson Merit Award Holder.
 


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Pedro Carvalho

Pedro Carvalho grew up in Portugal, where he studied biochemistry at the University of Coimbra.  In 2000, he joined David Pellman’s laboratory at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute (Boston, USA) as an exchange PhD student. Pedro then moved to Harvard Medical School, still in Boston, to work as a postdoc with Tom Rapoport.

In 2010, he established his laboratory at the Center for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona. In 2016, Pedro moved to the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at the University of Oxford, where he was appointed the EP Abraham Professor of Cell Biology. His laboratory investigates mechanisms underlying the homeostasis of the endoplasmic reticulum. In particular, the lab focuses on how multiple ER functions, such as protein and lipid biogenesis, are regulated by ubiquitin-dependent proteolysis through a process called ER-associated degradation (or ERAD).


SnezhanaOliferenko
Snezhana Oliferenko

Snezhana (Snezhka) Oliferenko studied biochemistry and virology at the Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia before joining Lukas Huber's group at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna, Austria for her doctoral studies in 1996. After earning her PhD degree in 2000, Snezhka moved to Singapore to work as a postdoc with Mohan Balasubramanian. Two years later, she established her group at the Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory (TLL) in Singapore. In 2013, Snezhka moved her lab to King's College London, UK. Today, she is a group leader at The Francis Crick Institute, UK and Professor of Evolutionary Cell Biology at King's College London. She uses related fission yeast species as a discovery tool to understand how cells organise and remodel their interior during growth and division.


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Valerie Borde

Valerie Borde's lab studies meiotic recombination, the essential process that produces gametes with a balanced chromosome content. Their model organism is the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, that allows fine molecular and genetic studies and shares many conserved features with meiotic recombination in mammals.

Valerie's lab is interested in the factors that control when and where meiotic recombination occurs, and what are the factors that ensure the characteristic repair of programmed DSB that initiate meiotic recombination into crossovers, necessary for the success of meiosis. They use a combination of molecular, genomic and proteomic approaches, and have recently begun to extend their findings to the mouse model.