From basic research to applications

Around 200 researchers traveled to the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern on September 1 to take part in the All SystemsX.ch Day 2016. Scientists from different systems biology-related disciplines took over the museum for the day, where a packed program offered talks from project leaders and a comprehensive poster exhibition.

At the beginning of his talk, Sebastian Maerkl from EPF Lausanne spoke about his particular love-hate relationship with cells, and raised the question of how we can sustain the production of proteins without cells. The presentation of his “repressilator” and the moving images of oscillating green proteins captivated the audience.

The poster exhibition was also well received. Nearly 90 authors presented their work, answering questions and engaging in lively discussions with interested visitors throughout the two poster sessions. For the first time, lightning poster talks were also offered. Here, young researchers were given the chance to present their projects on stage. They each had only 90 seconds and a single slide with which to convince the audience to visit their posters. The aim was to explain the main points of their project simply, clearly and understandably in this short time; a great challenge, given the complexity of the projects.

There were awards for the best posters and lightning talk. The winners were Jasmin Hafner from EPF Lausanne in the PhD student category, Hartland Jackson from the University of Zurich in the postdoc category, and Atul Sethi from FMI for the best lightning talk.

At the end of the event, keynote speaker Jan Ellenberg (EMBL Heidelberg) provided a special highlight with his first-class presentation. He showed, using cell division as an example, how exciting systems biology could be, as well as how much recent technological advances had given it a development boost. Cell division, along with all of the involved proteins, can now be observed and recorded with the help of new technologies in light microscopy.