Network-wide meetings
Previous network meetings.
Kick-off meeting
The BIOPOL Kick-off Meeting was held at the University of Sheffield (United Kingdom) between 13 and 15 April 2015. First day of the meeting focused on the BIOPOL scientific and training program, recruitment strategy, ethics and financial project management.
During the second day of the meeting all Principal Investigators representing Beneficiaries and Partner Organisations presented their research topics and this part of the event was open for external participants.
The third day focused on establishment of various boards and discussion on overall project implementation including deliverables, milestones and BIOPOL network meeting organisation.
Participants
- Elizabeth Smythe, BMS, University of Sheffield, UK
- Christophe Lamaze Chemical Biology of Membranes and Therapeutic Delivery, Institute Curie, Paris, France
- Torsten Müller, JPK Instruments Berlin, Germany
- David Strutt, BMS, University of Sheffield, UK
- Pietro Cicuta, Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge
- Henriëtte Lanz, MIMETAS, Leiden, Netherlands
- Jochen Guck, BIOTEC, TU Dresden, Germany
- Oilibhe Pabsch, JPK Instruments, Berlin, Germany
- Arnaud Nicolas, MIMETAS, Leiden, Netherlands
- Kai Erdmann, BMS, University of Sheffield, UK
- Ludger Johannes, Chemical Biology of Membranes and Therapeutic Delivery, Institute Curie, Paris, France
- Miguel Angel del Pozo, Integrin signalling, CNIC, Madrid, Spain
- Pere Roca-Cusachs, IEBC, University of Barcelona, Spain
- Ewa Paluch, LMCB, University College London, UK
- Stefano Piccolo, University of Padua, Italy
- Monier Sylvain, Institute Curie, France (representing Matthieu Piel)
- Cadart Clotilde, Instiute Curie, France
Fellow get-together meeting
ITN-BIOPOL fellows organised their get-together meeting between 27 and 29 April 2016 in Rome.
They invited three external speakers:
Dr. Etienne Dague (National Centre for Scientific Research, France),
Dr. Edouard Hannezo (The University of Cambridge, UK) and
Dr. Jason King (The University of Sheffield, UK)
The network fellows also prepared 20 minute talks presenting their own projects as well. Although the meeting mainly focused on science the main idea was to let fellows meet each other for the first time since they started their PhD.
Participants
- Joanna Zell
- Lokesh Pimpale
- Henry De Belly
- Joan-Carles Escolano Caselles
- Hannes Maib
- Sara Tan
- Antonio Quílez-Álvarez
- Victor Jiménez
- Shada Abu Hattum
- Larisa Venkova
- Nicola Pellicciotta
- Claire Murzeau
- Arnaud Nicolas
- Ilaria Di Meglio
- Carlos Urena Martin
1st Annual Meeting
ITN-BIOPOL Annual Meeting was held in Barcelona between 5th and 7th October 2016. One of the ITN-BIOPOL partners – Pere Roca Cusachs (Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia – IBEC) together with two Consortium Members - Miguel Ángel del Pozo (CNIC) and Kai Erdmann (University of Sheffield) organised the scientific part of the meeting ‘‘Mechanobiology across networks‘‘ between 6 and 7 October 2016.
This meeting brought together two networks dedicated to mechanobiology topic: the Spanish Network of Excellence in Mechanobiology and the European Training Network BIOPOL.
Participants
The meeting featured talks and poster presentations from both senior and junior members of both networks, and addressed fundamental and applied questions in mechanobiology from the perspectives of physics, biology, and engineering. Five of BIOPOL supervisors: Jochen Guck, Christophe Lamaze, Pietro Cicuta, Matthieu Piel, Aurelien Roux and two of BIOPOL Fellows: Arnaud Nicolas and Antonio Quílez-Álvarez presented at the meeting their research conducted within the framework of ITN-BIOPOL. The meeting was also open for attendance to anyone interested in the topic.
2nd Annual Meeting
ITN-BIOPOL Annual Meeting was held in Madrid between 13 and 14 November 2016 at headquarter of CNIC (The Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares) - one of the BIOPOL beneficiaries.
The meeting started with a short Supervisory Board Meeting during which network coordinator Dr Kai Erdmann briefly presented progress of scientific and non-scientific network activities in the past year to all PIs and students‘ representatives: Ilaria Di Meglio (ESR16) and Joan Carles Escolano Caselles (ESR 14). His presentation was followed by a discussion about future network meetings: BIOPOL Summer School and BIOPOL Final Meeting as well as other activities like workshops or training stations.
A further part of the meeting was fully dedicated to science with talks and poster presentations from all BIOPOL fellows.
Summer School - Mechanobiology of polarised cells
Building tissues and organs require cells to perform dynamic processes involving changes in their mechanical properties. Recent advances in the study of cellular processes regulating growth development, adhesion, and migration, show a significant transition towards interdisciplinary research at the interface of cell biology, physics and engineering.
The aim of the school ’’Mechanobiology of polarised cells’’ is to focus on how intrinsic physical properties of cells and environment govern cellular behaviour.
In particular, the series of lectures provided an extraordinary number of new insights into the specific relation between environmental sensing and signal transduction, membrane tension and cellular properties/activities like cell volume, endocytosis or signalling as well as force generation and tissue formation.
A few talks deciphered more technical aspects presenting recent advances in methods to measure cell stiffness and single-molecule mechanics.
Filmed lecture
Lecture presented by Pere Roca-Cusachs (University of Barcelona) on 9 April 2018 in Ecole de Physique des Houches, Les Houches, France:
Final meeting
The final event that carried particular significance in both dissemination and in opening-up of BIOPOL to the broad scientific community was the international conference ‘‘Physics of Cells: From Biochemical to Mechanical‘‘ (PhysCell2018) co-organised by BIOPOL network which took place between 3 and 7 September 2018 in The Majestic Hotel in Harrogate in the United Kingdom.
The main scientific focus of the conference was on biochemical and mechanical aspects of cells, different length scales – from molecules to tissues, subcellular to multicellular, interactions between cells and their environment. ITN-BIOPOL organised its Satellite Meeting with selected BIOPOL fellows as main presenters and two sessions ’’Membranes’’ and ’’Development’’ with BIOPOL supervisors: David Strutt, Henriëtte Lanz, Aurelien Roux and fellows: Henry De Belly and Hannes Maib, presenting their research conducted within the framework of ITN- BIOPOL.