ESF Research Conferences

ESF-EMBO Symposium

MOLECULAR BIOENERGETICS OF CYANOBACTERIA: TOWARDS SYSTEMS BIOLOGY LEVEL OF UNDERSTANDING

Chaired by

Eva-MariAroE-Mail
University of TurkuFaculty of Natural SciencesDepartment of BiologyLaboratory of Plant Physiology and Molecular BiologyTurkuFinland

CO-CHAIRS:

Cheng-CaiZhangE-Mail
Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Aix-Marseille UniversitéUniversité d'Aix-Marseille II and CNRSFaculté des Sciences de LuminyLaboratoire de Chimie BacterienneMarseilleFrance
ElkeDittmannE-Mail
Humboldt UniversityInstitute of BiologyDepartment of Molecular EcologyBerlinGermany

Dates

29 March - 3 April 2008

Location

Hotel Eden Roc, Sant Feliu de Guixols, Spain
The conference will take place in Sant Feliu de Guixols, on the Spanish Costa Brava, 120 km north of Barcelona and 30 km south of Girona. Group transportation will be arranged from/to Barcelona airport, on arrival and departure days.

Final Programme & List of Accepted Participants

© Jan-Christoph Kehr, Humboldt University Berlin

Cyanobacterial research has paved the way for a number of significant discoveries in photosynthesis, a process which is the source of energy for all living organisms and which has produced our fossil fuels. Today we are facing severe environmental problems due to global warming, which results from using fossil fuels as major energy source and consequent increase in atmospheric CO2. We see that dedicated cyanobacterial research can have a strong impact on our environmental and energy problems.

  • Cyanobacteria serve as model organisms in photosynthesis research. They have been particularly useful in solving the crystal structures of energy conversion complexes in the thylakoid membrane and thereby strongly contribute to biomimetic approaches to construct artificial photosynthesis devices for clean and sustainable energy production.
  • Cyanobacterial cells can also be harnessed to biohydrogen production, directly from water by using sunlight. Such clean energy production in bioreactors can be applied from small "family" scale to a large industrial scale.
  • There are also vast possibilities to use cyanobacteria as “cell factories” for different high-value metabolites.

To address these challenges, there is an urgent need to advance our knowledge on "Molecular Bioenergetics of Cyanobacteria". Progress in this field must be an interdisciplinary effort, including structural biologists, physicists, chemists, bioinformaticists, biochemists, microbiologists and physiologists. Research approaches also have to be expanded to systems biology level to find the regulatory loops and interacting networks that govern cyanobacterial bioenergetics and metabolism.

The conference will include short talks selected from the submitted abstracts as well as poster presentations.

Final Programme PDF (261 KB) Last Updated 19-March-2008
List of Invited Speakers & Accepted Participants

Abstracts, Posters & Short Oral Contributions

There will be no short talks other than those listed on the programme. All other abstracts have been accepted as posters.

Posters can be fixed with blue tack or tape onto poster panels. Poster size should be no more than 130 cm high x 130 cm wide. Use letters and drawings that can be read from approximately 100 cm distance.

Invited Papers

List of Accepted Posters PDF (182 KB)

Group Transportation & Practical Information Guide

Detailed information on all practical aspects of the conference (access to site, registration & fee payments, accommodation, travel reimbursements...) is available from the Practical Information Guide. Please read it fully and carefully...

Practical Information Guide PDF (196 KB)

GROUP TRANSPORTATION
Three buses will be arranged on arrival day from Barcelona airport to Sant Feliu. The journey takes approximately 2 hours, depending on traffic.

Bus departure times – Saturday 29 March: 16.30 and 17.30 and 18.30

Airport departure point: the buses will wait in the special bus parking area located just before the A terminal. Each bus has been requested to be at the meeting point 20-30 minutes before scheduled departure. The coaches will have a sign in the window indicating “ESF Research Conferences” for easy recognition.

Group transportation back to Barcelona airport will be arranged in a similar way for the departure day.

Bus departure times – Thursday 3 April: 08.00 and 09.00

ACCOMMODATION
Please note that SINGLE accommodation can only be guaranteed to invited speakers. All other participants will have to share a TWIN room. In case single rooms would become available at the time of the conference, rooms will be attributed on a “first come, first served” basis. Only the TWIN conference fee should be paid to the ESF when registering. The supplement for single should be paid to the venue directly. Should you wish to be put on waiting list for single accommodation, please contact Ms. Anne Blondeel-Oman.

Conference Fees

Fees

What the fees cover

EUR 730

conference, meals and twin OR double room

EUR 520

non-resident: conference, meals (no room)

Registration Form

All participants - including speakers & session chairs - are kindly expected to confirm their attendance (and, when applicable, to pay the conference fee) by filling in a Registration Form.
Closing date for registration & fee payment: 29 February 2008

ESF Contact

AnneBlondeel-OmanE-Mail
Senior Conference Officer

Phone: +32 (0)2 533 2020
Fax: +32 (0)2 538 8486
Please quote 08-253 in any correspondence.

Partnership

This conference is organised by the European Science Foundation (ESF) in partnership with the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO).

With Support from