Biophysical Society Bulletin | June 2018

Meetings and Events

Announcing the 2019 Thematic Meetings 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, Lima, Peru July 15–18

Revisiting the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology at the Single-Molecule Level

The molecular processes that drive and regulate the flow of information from genes to proteins—i.e., the central dogma of molec- ular biology—have been

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 organiza- tion and interactions, and will encourage/enhance the devel- opment 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.

extensively studied using traditional biochemical and molec- ular 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 instru- mentation 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

Quantitative Aspects of Membrane Fusion and Fission Padova, Italy May 6–10 Quantitative understanding of biophysical mechanisms increasingly requires analy- sis of dynamical and phys- iologically relevant cellular changes. This is especially

Aussois, France October 14–17

Cell-cell adhesion is the fundamental process that led to multicellular organ- isms. It is essential both for embryonic development and adult tissue homeo-

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 experimen- tal observations in this field and to improve the quantitative descriptions of membrane events.

stasis. This meeting will bring together biologists, biophysi- cists, 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.

June 2018

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