Future Seminars
Seminar Colour Guide:
| EMBL Distinguished Visitor Lecture | Tuesday, 26 March 2019, 15:00Exploring embryonic patterning with colonies of human embryonic stem cellsEric Siggia, The Rockefeller University, USAHost: Pierre NeveuLarge Operon, EMBL Heidelberg Abstract: The embryo evolved to make a fetus and thus multiple modes of regulation conspire to ensure a robust outcome. This makes the task of quantifying the pathways defining the mammalian embryo particularly difficult. Embryonic stem cells (ESC) give rise to all cells of the body proper. We have shown several years ago, how merely confining human ESC to two dimensional patterns, causes the cells to recapitulate the spatial patterning seen in the mouse embryo at the onset of gastrulation. We have dissected the cascade of secreted factors and the location of receptors driven by apical-basal polarity responsible for the patterns. A prediction for how morphogens are targeted in the mouse was recently confirmed by another group. Our assay can be extended to three dimensions and the model epiblast shown to spontaneously break symmetry and form a primitive streak. A second layer of extraembryonic like cells adds additional realism and new interactions. Synthetic systems allow one to peal back the layers of regulation that make embryonic development so robust. They are easy to manipulate and suggest targeted experiments to pursue in-vivo. |
| Science and Society | Thursday, 28 March 2019, 15:00How Beauty Leads Physics AstraySabine Hossenfelder, Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, GermanyHost: Halldór StefánssonLarge Operon, EMBL Heidelberg Abstract: To develop fundamentally new laws of nature, theoretical physicists often rely on arguments from beauty. Simplicity and naturalness in particular have been strongly influential guides in the foundations of physics ever since the development of the standard model of particle physics. In this lecture I argue that arguments from beauty have led the field into a dead end and discuss what can be done about it. |
| External Faculty Speaker | |
| Science and Society | Wednesday, 3 April 2019, 18:00What if getting old didn t mean getting ill?Linda Partridge, Director of the Institute of Healthy Ageing at University College London and founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne, Germany, United KingdomHost: Halldór StefánssonPrint Media Academy Abstract: What if getting old didn t mean getting ill?Although we're living longer in most parts of the world, advancing age has been revealed as the major risk factor for serious diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular disease and dementia. Increasing interest is therefore turning to the potential for intervening in the ageing process itself to prevent multiple age-related diseases simultaneously. Ageing does indeed turn out to be a malleable process and, surprisingly, to have much in common between humans and laboratory animals. Recent discoveries have revealed that existing drugs can be repurposed to combat ageing, and that it may well be possible to keep us healthier for longer as we age. |
| External Faculty Speaker | Wednesday, 10 April 2019, 14:00Neural circuits for goal-directed sensorimotor transformationCarl Petersen, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, SwitzerlandATC Auditorium, EMBL Heidelberg |
| External Faculty Speaker | Thursday, 11 April 2019, 13:30How does the hippocampus handle episodic memories? CA1 pyramidal cells organize an episode by segmented and ordered eventsSusumu Tonegawa, RIKEN-MIT Center for Neural Circuit Genetics, USAATC Auditorium, EMBL Heidelberg |
| External Faculty Speaker | Saturday, 13 April 2019, 11:15Dynamical activity patterns in the macaque posterior parietal cortex during virtual navigationDora Angelaki, Baylor College of Medicine, USAATC Auditorium, EMBL Heidelberg |
| External Faculty Speaker | |
| Science and Society | Thursday, 6 June 2019, 14:00The Trouble with Einstein's TimeJimena Canales, University of Illinois-Urbana, USAHost: Halldór StefánssonLarge Operon, EMBL Heidelberg Abstract: Einstein s famous claim that the distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion underpins most physicists current understanding of time. Yet in recent years, a growing number of contemporary physicists have opposed the need to write off our experience of emergent temporality from our understanding of the universe. The hole at the heart of physics (Scientific American, 2002) is usually traced back to how time is defined by the theory of relativity and the block universe . Can these debates be solved by science alone or are they inescapably philosophical, historical and cultural? My talk will explore the origins of this persistent quandary by focusing on the relation of physics to philosophy, and history and the humanities. |
| EMBL Distinguished Visitor Lecture | |
| Science and Society | Tuesday, 25 June 2019, 18:00Die Reise unserer Gene: Die genetische Geschichte unserer VorfahrenJohannes Krause, Max-Planck-Institut für evolutionäre Anthropologie, GermanyHost: Halldór StefánssonAlte Aula of Ruprecht-Karls-Universität, Grabengasse 1, Heidelberg Abstract: Genetische Forschung erlebte im vergangenen Jahrzehnt eine wahre Revolution. Mit der Entwicklung hochmoderner DNA-Sequenziertechnologien ist es im Laufe von nur wenigen Jahren möglich geworden die Effizienz genomischer Untersuchungen um einen Faktor von 100 Millionen zu vervielfachen. Wir befinden uns daher in einem wahren Sequenzier-Zeitalter , in welchem bereits jetzt hunderttausende Genome von Menschen aus der ganzen Welt entschlüsselt worden sind und täglich tausende hinzukommen. Die Archäogentik erlaubt es diese Technologien auch auf unsere Vorfharen zu übertragen. So wurden in den letzten Jahren die Genome von tausenden Skeletten aus der ganzen Welt genetisch untersucht. Mit diesen Analysen sollen Antworten auf die großen Fragen der Menschheitsgeschichte gefunden werden: Woher kommt der Mensch und wie hat er sich entwickelt? Welche Rolle spielt die Umwelt in dieser Entwicklung, und was sind die besonderen Anpassungsleistungen unserer Spezies? Wie sahen die Menschen vor tausenden von Jahren aus? Welche Rolle spielen unsere Gene im Wechselspiel mit Krankheitserreger und deren Verbreitung? Welche genetisch bedingten Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede gibt es zwischen menschlichen Populationen? In diesem Vortrag wird das Potential solcher Studien am Beispiel Europas dargestellt. |
| External Faculty Speaker | |
| Science and Society | Thursday, 18 July 2019, 14:00Unpacking irreproducibility in science (Joint EMBL Forum/Distinguished Visitor Lecture event)John Ioannidis, Stanford University, USAHost: Nassos TypasLarge Operon, EMBL Heidelberg |
| Science and Society | Monday, 16 September 2019, 15:00Herding Scientists - A Problem or A Solution?Michelle Baddeley, University of South Australia, AustraliaHost: Halldór StefánssonLarge Operon, EMBL Heidelberg |
| EMBL Distinguished Visitor Lecture | |
| EMBL Distinguished Visitor Lecture | |
| EMBL Distinguished Visitor Lecture | Thursday, 21 November 2019, 11:00To be announcedPascale Cossart, Pasteur Institute, FranceLarge Operon, EMBL Heidelberg |