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

Co-organized by Edith Heard, Chair of Epigenetics and Cellular Memory, and M. Jean-Louis Mandel, Chair of Human Genetics, Collège de France.

This meeting is open to the public, and free of charge - spread the word to other researchers in the Paris region interested in epigenetics!

Please submit an abstract for a poster, a few short talks will be chosen from abstracts! Please send your abstracts to email address given above.

The importance of DNA methylation has been intensely studied over many years. Recently the dichotomy of cytosine:methyl cytosine was shattered by the discovery of 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5-hmC) in mammalian genomic DNA. Produced by oxidation of 5-methylcytosine by the TET family of enzymes, this “new” epigenetic modification is a major focus of epigenetics research with potential roles in development and differentiation through transcriptional regulation and demethylation.

Speakers:

• Wolf Reik (Babraham Institute, UK)
• Francois Fuks (Free University of Brussels, Belgium)
• Shankar Balasubramanian (University of Cambridge, UK)
• Petra Hajakova (Imperial College London, UK)
• Richard Meehan (University of Edinburgh, UK)

We are pleased to announce the 3rd conference on Chromatin, Replication, and Chromosomal Stability, which will be held at BRIC in Copenhagen June 17-19 2013.

Key topics of this meeting are:

• Chromosomal architecture
• Chromosomal stability
• Replisome structure and fork progression
• Chromatin maintenance and cellular memory

We have an excellent line up of speakers, many open slots for short talks and an exciting evening social for networking.

Learn more

Endodern, mesoderm and ectoderm formation and differentiation; embryonic stem cells and pluripotency; tissue-specific / adult stem cells; reprogramming and direct conversion; regenerarion and regenerative biology; tissue maintenance and tissue formation; stem cells and epigenetic regulation; stem cells, telomeres and chromatin.

All of the above are directly related to the main theme of the Summer School – Stem Cells and Regenerative Biology

The IMB International Summer School (ISS) on the “Dynamics of Gene Regulation, Epigenetics and DNA Damage Response” is a 6-week programme for outstanding and enthusiastic undergraduate, Masters and PhD students who want to acquire excellent practical skills and hands-on training from leading scientists in molecular biology.
The International Summer School has a clearly defined and unique profile that will provide you with interdisciplinary education in the following fields:

• Epigenetics
• Gene Regulation
• DNA Repair
• Functional Morphology of the Nucleus
• Systems Biology and Bioinformatics

Learn more

On behalf of the international committee responsible for its biennial organization, may I call your attention and invite you to the next meeting of the Wilhelm Bernhard Workshop on the cell nucleus. The conference is due between 19-24 August, 2013, to be organized this time in the beautiful campus of the University of Debrecen, Hungary.
The last meeting was held in Riga, Latvia, with more than 120 participants from all over the world. This is a highly informal, exceptionally enjoyable series of meetings that could perpetuate itself since 1969, as a result of its always friendly atmosphere, high scientific standards and an openness to novel perspectives and to serendipitious observations. Could you perhaps consider participating in the forthcoming workshop, please make a note in your calendar. We would be very much pleased and greatly appreciate if you did so.

This half-day workshop is suitable for anyone who is interested in epigenetics including clinicians, scientists and students regardless of their previous experience or knowledge in the field.

• We will introduce the main principals of epigenetics and highlight the exciting prospects for clinically related research.
• Lectures and discussions will include currently

Available cutting edge research methodologies to investigate epigenetic mechanisms in GI health and disease.

The sequence of the human genome was published in 2003, at a cost of 3 billion dollars. Since then, successive technological advances have brought down the cost of sequencing to a few thousand dollars per human genome. This ease of access to genomic data has ushered a new era in biology. In parallel, experiments on cloning and reprogramming have given ample support to previous notions that the DNA in a cell is somehow « marked ». The nucleus of a differentiated cell can be reprogrammed towards totipotency, but this is a slow and very inefficient process. In contrast, the nucleus of an embryonic stem cell is more amenable to reprogramming. Yet, the two genomes are absolutely identical. The difference, as we know, lies in the epigenetic information carried by the different nuclei. DNA methylation is one of these crucial epigenetic marks. There is irrefutable evidence that DNA methylation controls gene expression, cell fate and is altered in disease.

A number of groundbreaking advances have been made in the field in the past few years.

We want to discuss advances that have appeared in the past couple of years in the field of DNA methylation, with contributions from molecular biologists, cell biologists, developmentalists and chemists.

This EMBO Conference will cover the role of the nuclear periphery, nuclear bodies, RNAs, chromosomes, chromatin, and molecular machineries in the regulation of genome function.
This is the fourth meeting of a series of conferences that takes place every two years. (Details of the 2011 Conference can be found here).
Special emphasis will be given on epigenetics and genomic regulation of nuclear structure and function.
We invite interdisciplinary contributions including molecular, genetics and cell biology techniques applied to a wide range of organisms, as well as biophysics and mathematical modelling approaches.
The programme will include invited talks, selected talks and ample time for poster presentation.

Co-organized by the French Society of Genetic Toxicology (SFTG), the German Society for Research on DNA Repair (DGDR), the Society for Environment and Mutation Research (GUM), and the Research Institute of the Strasbourg Biotechnology School (IREBS).
The dominant theme of the conference centers on the role of epigenetic mechanisms in cellular response to DNA damage inflicted by genotoxic drugs and environmental agents. The scope of the sessions covers diverse issues such as DNA methylation, chromatin response to DNA damage, translational research and the identification of biomarkers in genomic instability.

The meeting will start with a keynote lecture by G. Almouzni (Institut Curie, France) and a public lecture by J.M Egly (IGBMC, Illkirch, France). An exciting lineup of confirmed speakers will present their work and short talks will be selected from abstracts.