The Congress offers a series of technical workshops during the Tuesday and Thursday lunch
breaks, exclusively for Congress delegates. Bookings will be opened shortly, and
spaces will be limited. Congress delegates will be notified when bookings
open.
For now, please click on the workshops below to view more details.
WORKSHOP IS FULLY BOOKED Date: Tuesday 24 September 2024, 1330-1415
Summary: Undoubtedly AI-based protein structure prediction tools such as
AlphaFold
have revolutionised the field of structural biology. Thanks to the work of Sergey
Ovchinnikov and others, these tools are available to everyone in a simple to
use
format.
Part 1 of this workshop will provide a brief introduction to AlphaFold, running a prediction
and crucially how to interpret the outputs. Part 2 looks at application of AlphaFold to
predict immune complexes. The binding of peptide antigens to human leukocytes antigen (HLA)
molecules is critical in triggering T cell mediated immune responses in humans. Here, we
will discover TFold, an AlphaFold-based tool dedicated to the prediction of peptide-HLA
structures with high accuracy
Workshop facilitators:
Michael Healy
University of Queensland
Janesha Maddumage
La Trobe University
Date: Tuesday 24 September 2024, 1330-1415
Summary: ANSTO’s Australian synchrotron houses a suite of beamlines that generate
powerful X-rays and infrared radiation, driving forward both fundamental and applied
research across diverse fields including human health, agriculture, biomedicine,
environmental science, food technology, and advanced materials. Dr Christopher Szeto will
introduce the myriad of capabilities the synchrotron offers with a special focus on those
most suited to the biosciences. Whether you're a seasoned researcher or new to synchrotron
science, gain invaluable insights into accessing and leveraging the extraordinary resources
of the Australian Synchrotron. Dr Annmaree Warrender will highlight one of the synchrotron’s
newest beamlines; BioSAXS, used for small angle solution scattering. Learn how high-flux
X-ray beams are used to study biological and chemical nanostructures including lipid
nanoparticles, mRNA vaccines, protein-DNA complexes, and many more applications.
Join us for an enlightening journey into how synchrotron light can enhance your research
discoveries.
Workshop facilitators: Alan Riboldi-Tunnicliffe, ANSTO Australian Synchrotron.
Christopher Szeto
MX Industry Specialist
Annmaree Warrender
Beamline Scientist (BioSAXS)
Workshop Sponsor:
Date: Tuesday 24 September 2024, 1330-1415
Summary: The evolving landscape of scientific publishing is increasingly
focused on
transparency, accessibility, and collaboration. Innovative platforms and practices are
redefining traditional publishing models to improve the speed, reach, and integrity of
scientific communication. The growing acceptance of preprint servers has transformed how
researchers share their findings by allowing rapid dissemination of work before peer review.
Most importantly, the amount of information is ballooning, meaning that pointers to quality,
for the sake of both readers and writers is increasingly important, and sometimes hotly
contested.
In this workshop, we will hear perspectives on the future of scientific publishing from Prof
Pamela Silver, a member of the advisory board of bioRxiv, a leading preprint server for
biology, and A/Prof Benjamin Parker, a reviewing editor at Elife, a platform known for its
innovative approach to peer review and commitment to open science.
Workshop facilitators: Alisa Glukhova, WEHI and University of Melbourne & Merlin
Crossley, University of New South Wales
Benjamin Parker University of Melbourne
Pamela Silver
Harvard Medical School
Workshop Sponsor:
Date: Thursday 26 September 2024, 1315-1400
Summary: Cryo-electron
microscopy (cryoEM) is a cutting-edge imaging technique that
provides the atomic resolution structure of the macromolecules. The field of structural
biology has been revolutionized by cryo-EM. In this technique, samples are applied on a 3mm
diameter copper mesh known as a grid, flash-frozen to extremely low temperatures and imaged
using a transmission electron microscope which captures high-resolution images of
biomolecules in their native state. This method allows scientists to visualize the
three-dimensional structures of proteins, viruses, and other biological macromolecules with
unprecedented detail, providing invaluable insights into their functions and interactions.
CryoEM has rapidly emerged as a powerful tool in drug discovery, offering new avenues for
understanding the fundamental mechanisms of macromolecular interactions at the atomic level.
This workshop introduces cryo-electron microscopy (cryoEM) and its two main methods:
single-particle analysis (SPA) and cryo-electron tomography (cryoET).
Workshop facilitators: Sepideh Valimehr and Eric Hanssen, Ian Holmes Imaging Centre,
University of Melbourne.
Sepideh Valimehr
University of Melbourne
Manasi Arcot Anil Kumar
University of Melbourne
Gökhan Tolun
University of Wollongong
Date: Thursday 26 September 2024, 1315-1400
Summary: In recent years
there has been an explosion of technologies that allow
profiling the spatial organisation of cells within tissues. These high-plex technologies
enable measurement of dozens of proteins and thousands of genes, often at single-cell level
and even sub-cellular resolution. This provides an unprecedented opportunity to understand
the complex and dynamic ecosystem of interactions between a diversity of cell types in
tissues, while gaining insights on cell-cell communication, cell plasticity and
differentiation. In this workshop we will introduce a host of spatial-omics methods and
present example applications used across fields.
Workshop facilitators: Anna Trigos, PeterMac, David Kaplan, PeterMac, Claire
Marceaux, WEHI
Anna Trigos
Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre
David Kaplan
Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre
Claire Marceaux
Walter + Eliza Hall Institute
Date: Thursday 26 September 2024, 1315-1400
Summary: To standardize the
nomenclature of the tens of thousands of proteins, the IUBMB established the Non-enzyme
Protein Nomenclature Subcommittee in 2022. This workshop is organized to discuss issues of
protein nomenclature.
Jun Yu
Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Daniel Haft
National Center of Biotechnology Information (NCBI), USA
Michele Magrane
EMBL-EBI, Wellcome Genome Campus, UK
Workshop Topics:“Nomenclature for genes and their RNA and protein products”. Naming
convention for genes and their products can build on a definition (a list of existing
names), a framework (a list of legitimate names), implementation (how appropriate names are
chosen), and prioritization (tasks allocated to different communities).
“The importance of protein naming in biological databases”. This talk will outline common
nomenclature problems and will describe UniProt efforts to provide consistent protein naming
and to contribute to nomenclature standards.
“Packing information into brief, portable protein names”
Workshop Sponsor:This workshop is kindly sponsored by the Chinese Society of Biochemistry and
Molecular Biology.
Date: Thursday 26 September 2024, 1315-1400
Summary: Are there curly
questions you would like to (politely) ask an Editor/ Publisher? Questions like: What
is the
role of the editor in modern publishing practice? How can predatory publishing practices
be counteracted? What is the process for ensuring bad
science is retracted? How can journal decision-making processes be made more transparent?
Are there opportunities for innovation in the peer review process to meet the needs of
modern science, e.g. for multidisciplinary projects? What lies behind the lack of
reproducibility in some hot topic areas?
This Workshop will bring together some insiders in today’s publishing landscape to grapple
with these important questions.
Workshop facilitators:
