An ambitious EC-funded research initiative on epigenetics advancing towards systems biology

Join us this September in Greece for our Summer School on Chromatin and Systems Biology.

Enjoy five unforgettable days on Spetses Island, Greece, with some of the best scientists in your field. The Summer School combines lectures, discussion groups, poster sessions, and the extremely popular dinner groups, creating a unique educational and networking opportunity. Learn the latest trends and techniques, receive expert advice on your project, and establish new contacts or collaborations to further your career.

Especially designed for PhD students and postdocs, but open to everyone. Places are limited, so Apply Now!

The Summer School is co-sponsored by the EU collaborative project 4DCellFate, and the EU Marie Curie network Nucleosome4D.

Application Deadline: 30 May 2013

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Co-organised by:

Source: Illustration by Sigrid Knemeyer, adapted by Lauren Solomon, Broad Communications

On Friday, June 7th, the Institut Curie hosted its first Chomatin club, previously organized only by Christian Muchard at the Institut Pasteur. Now a new era has begun: Pasteur and Curie will take turns!

Great speakers came to this first-time event to present their work. Yossi Shiloh, a professor of Human Genetics at the School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University opened the session by talking about DNA damage response and ATM-mediated network. He was followed by Slimane Ait-Si-Ali, a CNRS PI who is working on epigenetic dynamics and cell differentiation at Paris Diderot University. This university was well represented, as the next speaker was Sophie Polo, a former researcher at the Institut Curie who has just started a new lab at Paris Diderot to focus on Epigenetics and Cell Fate.
We were also happy to welcome Matthieu Schapira, an Associate Professor at the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Toronto, and an adjunct Associate Professor at the Department of Pharmacology at New York University. He presented his work on Histone Marks.
Then, Jean-Pierre Quivy, a CNRS researcher in Genevieve Almouzni’s team at the Institut Curie talked about Sumoylation and HP1 localization at pericentric domains in mouse cells
This chromatin club ended with Pablo Navarro from the University of Edinburgh and soon at the Institut Pasteur in Paris with Nanog autorepression and intrinsic modulation of ES cells heterogeneity.

We are pleased to invite you to the 1st Epigenesys student/postdoc training workshop of 2013.

The workshop will:

• cover recent discoveries in the field of cancer epigenetics
• focus on recent epigenetic studies using high-throughput approaches
• discuss bioinformatic tools needed to integrate large datasets
• feature a special session about the role of lncRNAs in cancer

As in all our student/postdoc workshops we will have time dedicated for smaller group session in which you will have the chance to discuss and interact with other students and postdocs and leading researchers in the field. The CRG, located right in front of the sea, provides an excellent atmosphere for active discussions and networking. This workshop is co-sponsored by the EU project 4DCellFate.

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Between March 20^th and 27^th 2013 the 9^th Course on Epigenetics took place in Paris. This event was co-organized with the Network of Excellence EpiGeneSys and the Institut Curie. PhDs and Master students from different European research organizations had the opportunity to present their work and meet with members of the network like L. Ringrose, P. Hajkova and G. Almouzni. These trainees work on various aspects of epigenetics: nuclear organization, DNA repair, epigenetic regulatory elements or chromatin assembly, for example.

Click here to learn more about epigenetics and the benefits of this course.

Due to the high quality of the submitted proposals EpiGeneSys has decided to select not just one but three excellent proposals!

EpiGeneSys Small Scale Collaborative Projects provide early-stage scientists an opportunity to develop an idea for an independent project, write a proposal, and plan a budget—all as part of a competitive application process, reviewed by a panel of epigenetics and systems biology experts within the network. Each of the selected teams receives 10,000 EUR.

Find out about the awardees and their projects!

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In January more than 160 participants followed the invitation and came to the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam to join the EpiGeneSys 2^nd Annual Meeting, hosted by associate member Fred van Leeuwen.

The conference reflected the open character of the network by introducing the second round RISE1 (Research Integrating Epigenetics & Systems Biology) teams to the community and featured 30 scientific speakers in an almost even mix of permanent, RISE1 and associate members as well as 2 invited speakers. It has become the hallmark of EpiGeneSys meetings to provide a venue for stimulating the communication between systems biology and epigenetics, kick-starting new collaborations and giving ample opportunity to exchange ideas.

Don't miss the 3^rd Annual Meeting to be held from December 4^th – 6^th 2013 at the Babraham institute in Cambridge!

We are pleased to invite you to the second Epigenesys student/postdoc training workshop of 2012. This workshop, entitled "Epigenetics and the Environment" will begin on Tuesday October 9th and finish on Wednesday the 10th, in Munich, Germany. The workshop will be held at the Adolf Butenandt Institute, Department of Physiological Chemsitry, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität.

This workshop will communicate what is known about the impact that the environment has on epigenetics, and will also feature a career-development aspect for an academic career track. The workshop will focus on the interplay between epigenetics and the environment, and how it's implicated in human health, animal behavior, and development.

Come to Munich and discuss recent findings with us in the field of environmental epigenetics. The small scale of these workshops provides participants with an excellent opportunity to network and have in-depth discussions during breakout sessions. Get to know Munich's EpiGeneSys labs and the wealth of local expertise on epigenetics that they offer. The workshop will be right after the Oktoberfest - so you might want to come early to join in on one of the world's largest folk festivals.

Confirmed Speakers:

• Elisabeth Binder, Max Planck, Munich, Germany
• Sigurd Braun, LMU, Munich, Germany
• Robert Feil, IGMM-CNRS, Montpellier, France
• Mario Fraga, CNB-CSIC, Madrid, Spain, and IUOPA, Oviedo, Spain
• Martha Merrow, LMU, Munich, Germany
• Leonie Ringrose, IMBA, Vienna, Austria
• Dietmar Spengler, Max Planck, Munich, Germany

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Photo by Diliff

Organizing Committee:

• Stephan Beck
• Anne Ferguson Smith
• Nick Luscombe
• Jörn Walter

Local Organizer:

• Ivo Gut

This informal topic-oriented workshop aims to foster interactive discussions on open questions arising from/with the generation and interpretation of NGS data. The goal is to enhance the communication between "wet and dry" scientists and to foster the awareness of problems, challenges and emerging practical solutions. The following general questions should be addressed by the topic presenters and guide us through discussions:

• What are (experimentalists') expectations with particular epigenome data?
• What are common computational/statistical problems faced?
• How can "interaction" and interdisciplinary approaches contribute to solutions?

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• Guillaume Filion - Centre de Regulació Genòmica (CRG), Barcelona, Spain
• Jonathan Houseley - The Babraham Institute, Cambridge, United Kingdom
• Reini F. Luco, Institut de Génétique Humaine, Montpellier , France
• Manolis Papamichos-Chronakis, Institut Curie, Paris, France
• Claire Rougeulle - CNRS / Université Paris Diderot, Paris, France
• Peter Rugg-Gunn - The Babraham Institute, Cambridge, United Kingdom
• Yuri Schwartz - Umeå University, Sweden
• Nicole Soranzo - Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, United Kingdom
• Vijay Tiwari  - Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB), Mainz, Germany
• Juan M. Vaquerizas, Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine, Münster, Germany
• Michiel Vermeulen - University Medical Center Utrecht, The Netherlands

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We are pleased to announce that a FREE one-day EpiGeneSys Symposium will take place on July 10th at the Institut Curie on "Work in Progress" in epigenetics with a systems biology view. The symposium will be held from 9:30 am ­ 4:00 pm in the BDD building.

This is a great opportunity to hear over half a dozen epigenetic researchers from across Europe giving talks right here in Paris! In addition, you'll hear talks from local epigenetic groups. We hope the meeting will be an occasion for you to meet up and network with others with similar research interests.

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