Nordic Symposium on Integrative Structural Biology
The Nordic Symposium on Integrative Structural Biology at the University of Bergen invites speakers from all the five Nordic countries and beyond to share experiences on combining methods to answer exciting scientific questions in structural biology and beyond.
The event will take place in Bergen, at the Department of Biomedicine, on Oct 8th 2025.
We aim to present latest science from various subfields of structural biology and promote networking between participants to facilitate idea exchange and future collaboration. In addition, we wish to discuss the importance of structural biology research infrastructures.
We will have rather short talks and time for discussion, to promote spontaneous interactions within an informal, inclusive setting.
The methods within the presented science cases will include, but not be limited to:
- X-ray/neutron crystallography and structural enzymology
- structure-based drug discovery
- molecular dynamics simulations
- NMR and EPR spectroscopy
- cryo-EM
- small-angle X-ray scattering, including time-resolved experiments
Draft Programme:
Session 1 – structural enzymology (09:00 – 10:20)
- 09:00 Welcome by the organisers
- 09:05 Preben Morth (Copenhagen, Denmark) - Structural and biochemical optimization of a urethane degrading amidase
- 09:25 Chinmay Kamale (Oulu, Finland) - Structural insights into the catalysis and glucose tolerance of beta-glucosidases for rational enzyme engineering
- 09:40 Daan van Aalten (Aarhus, Denmark) - Models and mechanisms of O-GlcNAc transferase intellectual disability
- 10:00 Jens Hjörleifsson (Reykjavik, Iceland) - Screening for allosteric sites in ‘undruggable’ enzymes
10:20-10:40 coffee
Session 2 – X-ray and neutron applications, drug discovery (10:40 – 12:00)
- 10:40 Tomás Plivelic (MAXIV, Lund, Sweden) - Solution X-ray Scattering and the new opportunities in high brilliance synchrotron sources
- 11:00 Swati Aggarwal (ESS, Lund, Sweden) - Structural biology with Neutron Macromolecular Diffractometer at ESS
- 11:15 Daniel Sarabi (LINXS, Lund, Sweden) - Light-Driven Conformational Changes and Protein Aggregation: Time-Resolved Solution Scattering Studies
- 11:30 Jude Santhampillai (Oulu, Finland) - Crystallography based fragment screening for malaria parasite profilin
- 11:45 Jan-Åke Husmann (Bergen, Norway) - Structure-based design of FMN riboswitch ligands as new leads for broad-spectrum antibiotics
12:00-12:45 lunch
Session 3 – cryoEM and related methods (12:45 – 14:00)
- 12:45 Øyvind Halskau (Bergen, Norway) - AlphaFold and CryoEM applied to honey bee vitellogenin, sudden success after years of failure?
- 13:05 Andreas Brech (Oslo, Norway) - Array STEM tomography in combination with CLEM for studies of intracellular traffic
- 13:25 Derek Logan (Lund, Sweden) - The amazing allostery of the ATP-cone in enzyme and transcriptional regulation
- 13:45 Esa-Pekka Kumpula (Helsinki, Finland) - Predictions meet Single Particle Analysis: Piecing Together the Commander Complex Jigsaw
14:00-14:20 coffee
Session 4 – simulation and spectroscopy (14:20 – 15:30)
- 14:20 Tiago Ferreira (Santiago, Spain) - Exploring lipid behavior in myelin with solid-state NMR and molecular dynamics simulations
- 14:40 Sebastian Michler (Halle, Germany) - CW and Pulsed EPR Spectroscopy as Powerful Tools to Decode the Dynamics in Complex Biosystems
- 14:55 Qaiser Waheed (Manchester, UK) - Revealing the conformational ensemble of membrane proteins by integrating EPR spectroscopy with Molecular Dynamics
- 15:10 Ilpo Vattulainen (Helsinki, Finland) - Biological barriers in silico
Early-career scientists and students are especially welcome to attend!