Tools & Technologies
Next-Generation Synthetic Biology (5th edition)
10-11 December 2024, Ghent, Belgium
Next-Generation Synthetic Biology (5th edition)
Next-Generation Synthetic Biology (5th edition)
A VIB Tools and Technologies conference
Keep me postedAdd to calendarFollowing the success of the past four editions of the VIB conference Genome Engineering and Synthetic Biology (GESB), we’ve strategically pivoted to focus our upcoming meeting more on synthetic biology. This shift enables us to explore and delve deeper into the dynamic realm of synthetic biology, addressing the latest trends and applications in this rapidly evolving field.
This conference will bring together experts from academia and industry who will present their most recent discoveries during the following sessions:
- Engineering synthetic molecules
- Engineering pathways
- Engineering tissues
- Engineering ecosystems
- Machine learning/AI
- New technologies (DNA/RNA synthesis for therapeutics)
Travel grants & Abstract
We offer four travel grants to international junior scientists, which will reimburse travel costs up to 400 Euros.
The format for your poster should be: A0 (841 x 1189 mm / 33.1 x 46.8 in), portrait orientation. All accepted poster submissions will have a chance to win the EMBO or the Cell Poster Prize!
Host City: Ghent
Want to know more about the host city of this conference? Find out where the best restaurants, bars, or last-minute print shops are. Check the city page here.
Confirmed speakers
Marjan De Mey
Marjan De Mey
Metabolic Engineering of Microorganisms (MEMO) group, Centre for Synthetic Biology (CSB), Ghent University, BE
Diego Oyarzún
Diego Oyarzún
University of Edinburgh, School of Informatics & School of Biological Sciences, UK
Yolanda Schaerli
Yolanda Schaerli
University of Lausanne, Department of Fundamental Microbiology, CH
Program
Day 1 - Tuesday, 10 December, 2024
08:20
08:50
Welcome coffee
08:50
09:00
Welcome words
09:00
12:45
Plenary session 1: Engineering of Synthetic molecules
09:00
09:35
Enzyme and Metabolic Engineering for Sustainable Biotechnology
Pimchai Chaiyen
Vidyasirimedhi Institute of Science and Technology (VISTEC), TH
Academic speaker
09:35
10:00
Rapid, Fully Enzymatic DNA Assembly for Time Critical Applications
Steve Riedmuller
VP Commercial Operations, Neochromosome Inc., US
Company speaker
10:00
10:35
Molecular Machines of the Future
Hendrik Dietz
Technical University of Munich, DE
Academic speaker
10:35
10:40
Got an idea? Apply for some ERC funding!
Ino Agrafioti
European Research Council, BE
10:40
11:15
Coffee break
11:15
11:40
Eliminate bottlenecks of AI-based protein design by scalable, low-cost, long gene synthesis
Xi Chen
Co-Founder and CEO, RootPath, US
Company speaker
11:40
12:15
Computational protein design for synthetic cell biology
Academic speaker
Patrick Barth
Institute of Bioengineering, School of Life Sciences, EPFL, CH
Academic speaker
12:15
12:20
Metabolite-responsive protein-based biosensors for monitoring real-time prenyl phosphate dynamics in Phaeodactylum tricornutum
Payal Patwari
University of Southern Denmark, DK
Poster pitch
12:20
12:25
Plants as biofactories for recombinant human IgG production
Konstantina Beritza
University of Oxford, GB
Poster pitch
12:25
12:30
Directed evolution of human transcription factors in mammalian cells
Alexander Cole
Centenary Institute, AU
Poster pitch
12:30
12:35
Molecular tools for pathway optimization
Julian Prieto
VIB-KU Leuven Center for Microbiology, BE
Poster pitch
12:35
12:40
Sustainable chitooligosaccharide production from chitin-rich fungal waste via precision fermentation with metabolically engineered E. coli
Luna Declerck
Centre for Synthetic Biology, Ghent University, BE
Poster pitch
12:40
12:45
Generative AI to Design new Peptides to control protein function
Gabriel Krouk
CNRS/INSB/UMR5004, FR
Poster pitch
12:45
13:30
Lunch
13:30
14:15
Poster session
14:15
16:25
Parallel session 1: Engineering pathways
14:15
14:50
Scalable and reliable production of defined chitooligosaccharides via engineered microbial pathways
Marjan De Mey
Metabolic Engineering of Microorganisms (MEMO) group, Centre for Synthetic Biology (CSB), Ghent University, BE
Academic speaker
14:50
15:15
Metabolic Engineering of Escherichia coli to Produce Anthraquinones as Sustainable Dyes
Lucie Crépin
Head of Metabolic engineering, PILI, FR
Company speaker
15:15
15:50
Advancing the frontiers of design-driven medicine with synthetic biology
Joshua Leonard
Northwestern University, US
Academic speaker
15:50
16:25
Dynamic pathway regulation for beta-alanine-driven 3-hydroxypropionic acid production using transcription factor based biosensors
Eveline Peeters
VUB, BE
Academic speaker
14:15
16:15
Parallel session 2: New technologies
14:15
14:50
How do we find new functional proteins in sequence space?
Florian Hollfelder
University of Cambridge, Department of Biochemistry, UK
Academic speaker
14:50
15:15
Accelerating Protein Research: Express and Scale Hard-to-Make Proteins with eProtein Discovery
Chiara Gandini
Nuclera, UK
Company speaker
15:15
15:50
Harnessing cell-free systems and membrane proteins for biosensing
Neha Kamat
Northwestern University, US
Academic speaker
15:50
16:15
CRISPR-based tool development to engineer plant genomes at the megabase pair scale
Julia Arraiza Ribera
VIB-UGent Center for Plant System Biology, BE
Academic speaker
16:15
16:50
Coffee break
16:50
18:00
Plenary session 2: Keynotes
16:50
17:25
Designing minimal cell division
Petra Schwille
Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, DE
Keynote speaker
17:25
18:00
Exploring Biological Sequence Space at Scale
Calin Plesa
University of Oregon, US
Keynote speaker
18:00
19:00
Reception
19:00
22:00
Social activity + conference dinner
Day 2 - Wednesday, 11 December, 2024
08:30
09:00
Welcome coffee
09:00
12:45
Plenary session 3: Engineering tissues
09:00
09:35
Bio-inspired biomineralized bacterial cellulose materials
Marie-Eve Aubin-Tam
TU Delft, NL
Academic speaker
09:35
10:00
Reviving a mammoth protein to change the future of plant-based food
Eline Blommaert
Discovery lead, Paleo, BE
Company speaker
10:00
10:35
Engineering high-precision, dynamic genetic control systems for cellular reprogramming
Katie E. Galloway
MIT, US
Academic speaker
10:35
11:05
Coffee break
11:05
11:40
Engineering a synthetic CO2 concentrating mechanism in higher plants to boost photosynthetic efficiency
Nicky Atkinson
University of Edinburgh, UK
Academic speaker
11:40
12:15
Towards tissues from yeast, engineering of modular multicellularity from a unicellular organism
Tom Ellis
Imperial College London, UK
Academic speaker
12:15
12:20
Scaling precision DNA writing to empower synthetic biology with chip technology
Kathrin Hoelz
imec, BE
Poster pitch
12:20
12:25
Multiplexing bacteriocin synthesis to kill and prevent antimicrobial resistance
Alex Quintero-Yanes
Syngulon SA, BE
Poster pitch
12:25
12:30
The Synthetic Microbiome Platform for The Living Cell Medicine
Valeriia Kravchik
Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, IL
Poster pitch
12:30
12:35
mMPS: Revolutionary High-Throughput DNA Synthesis Technology
Ming Dong
GCATbio, GB
Poster pitch
12:35
12:40
Computational identification of small molecules for increased gene expression by synthetic circuits in mammalian cells
Mara Pisani
Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, IT
Poster pitch
12:40
12:45
Multiplex DNA Assembly from oligo-pools
Shaozhong Zou
National Institute of Biological Science, Beijing, CN
Poster pitch
12:45
13:30
Lunch
13:30
14:15
Poster session
14:15
16:15
Parallel session 3: Engineering ecosystems
14:15
14:50
CRISPRlator, CAPSUlator and Optoscillator - the repressilator revisited
Yolanda Schaerli
University of Lausanne, Department of Fundamental Microbiology, CH
Academic speaker
14:50
15:15
Treating the untreatable: precision microbials for crop protection
Andee Wallace
CEO and co-founder, Robigo, US
Company speaker
15:15
15:50
A green vision for algal biotechnology
Kyle J. Lauersen
KAUST, SA
Academic speaker
15:50
16:15
Overcoming the risks in biochemical product development and manufacturing through rapid, genome scale metabolic engineering
Company speaker
Richard Fox
Inscripta, US
Company speaker
14:15
16:15
Parallel session 4: Machine learning & AI
14:15
14:50
Measuring everything, everywhere, all at once: combining genome-integrated reporter assays and deep learning to understand enhancer-promoter communication
Judith F. Kribelbauer
EPFL, CH
Academic speaker
14:50
15:15
A scalable method for modulating plant gene regulation using a foundational plant genomic model and protoplast-based massively parallel reporter assay
Nicolas Kral
CTO and co-founder, Phytoform, UK
Company speaker
15:15
15:50
Sequence-to-expression prediction with machine learning and massively parallel reporter assays
Diego Oyarzún
University of Edinburgh, School of Informatics & School of Biological Sciences, UK
Academic speaker
15:50
16:15
The future of biological AI demands a new era of biological data collection
Glen Gowers
Basecamp Research, UK
Company speaker
16:15
16:50
Coffee break
16:50
18:00
Plenary session 4: Keynotes
16:50
17:25
Design, engineering and control of microbial communities
Chris Barnes
University College London, UK
Keynote speaker
17:25
18:00
Re-building the Operating System of Photosynthesis: Exploring new ways to capture CO2 with Synthetic Biology
Tobias Erb
Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, DE
Keynote speaker
Organizing committee
Anastassia Vorobieva
VIB-VUB Center for Structural Biology, BE; VIB.AI, BE
Toon Swings
VIB Technologies, BE
Sven Eyckerman
VIB-UGent Center for Medical Biotechnology, UGent, BE
Sibylle Vonesch
VIB-KU Leuven Center for Microbiology, BE
Jonas Blomme
VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology, BE
Eveline Peeters
VUB, BE
Evy Vierstraete
VIB Training & Conferences, BE
Abstracts
Poster information
The format for your poster should be: A0 (841 x 1189 mm / 33.1 x 46.8 in), portrait orientation. All accepted poster submissions will have a chance to win the EMBO Poster Prize & the Trends in Biotechnology Poster Prize!
The full list of abstracts will be available on 25-11-2024 until 10-03-2025
This list will only be available for registered attendees of the event.
This list will only be available for registered attendees of the event.
Attendees
The full list of attendees will be available on 25-11-2024 until 10-03-2025
This list will only be available for registered attendees of the event.
This list will only be available for registered attendees of the event.
Sponsors
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