SINGLE CELL GENOMICS 2019, September 24-26, 2019, Djurönäset, Stockholm, Sweden
Reporter: Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN
4.1.6 SINGLE CELL GENOMICS 2019 – sometimes the sum of the parts is greater than the whole, September 24-26, 2019, Djurönäset, Stockholm, Sweden http://www.weizmann.ac.il/conferences/SCG2019/single-cell-genomics-2019, Volume 2 (Volume Two: Latest in Genomics Methodologies for Therapeutics: Gene Editing, NGS and BioInformatics, Simulations and the Genome Ontology), Part 4: Single Cell Genomics
http://www.weizmann.ac.il/conferences/SCG2019/single-cell-genomics-2019
Organizing committee
- Ido Amit
- Amos Tanay
- Sten Linnarsson
- Rickard Sandberg
- Aviv Regev
- John Marioni
- Alexander van Oudenaarden
Sponsored by:
Single cell genomics has emerged as a revolutionary technology transforming nearly every field of biomedical research. Through its many applications (single cell genome sequencing, single cell transcriptomics, various single cell epigenetic profiling approaches, and spatially resolved methods), researchers can characterize the genetic and functional properties of individual cells in their native conditions, leading to numerous experimental and clinical opportunities. As technology is leaping forward, many critical questions are arising:
• How can the behavior of groups of thousands or tens of thousands of single cells be analyzed and modeled?
• How can samples of precise single-cell-states be converted to inferred cellular behaviour, in space and time?
• How can multimodal single-cell datasets be integrated?
• What can we learn about cell-cell interactions?
• What are the immediate implications to fields like neuroscience, immunology, cancer research and stem cells?
• What will the longer-term impacts be for clinical research and practice?
The conference will bring together many of the pioneers and leading experts in the field to three days of extensive, interdisciplinary and informal discussion. Our goal is to create a forum where knowledge is shared, hoping to define together the agenda of this new community. The meeting will include presentations from invited leaders and several selected abstracts, a poster session and many opportunities for interaction. We encourage students and postdocs to participate by presenting abstracts.
Speakers
- Ed Boyden, MIT
- Long Cai, CalTech
- Joe Ecker, Salk Institute
- Guoji Guo, Zhejiang University
- Shalev Itzkovitz, Weizmann Institute of Science
- Maria Kasper, Karolinska Institutet
- Job Kind, Hubrecht institute
- Allon Klein, Harvard
- Keren Leeat, Standford
- Ed Lein, Allen Institute
- Evan Macosko, Broad Institute
- Dana Pe’er, MSKCC
- Nikolaus Rajewsky, Max Delbrück
- Alex Shalek, MIT
- Fabian Theis, Helmholtz Munich
- Barbara Treutlein, Max Planck Institute
- Hongkui Zeng, Allen Institute
- Xiaowei Zhuang, Harvard
This is very insightful. There is no doubt that there is the bias you refer to. 42 years ago, when I was postdocing in biochemistry/enzymology before completing my residency in pathology, I knew that there were very influential mambers of the faculty, who also had large programs, and attracted exceptional students. My mentor, it was said (although he was a great writer), could draft a project on toilet paper and call the NIH. It can’t be true, but it was a time in our history preceding a great explosion. It is bizarre for me to read now about eNOS and iNOS, and about CaMKII-á, â, ã, ä – isoenzymes. They were overlooked during the search for the genome, so intermediary metabolism took a back seat. But the work on protein conformation, and on the mechanism of action of enzymes and ligand and coenzyme was just out there, and became more important with the research on signaling pathways. The work on the mechanism of pyridine nucleotide isoenzymes preceded the work by Burton Sobel on the MB isoenzyme in heart. The Vietnam War cut into the funding, and it has actually declined linearly since.
A few years later, I was an Associate Professor at a new Medical School and I submitted a proposal that was reviewed by the Chairman of Pharmacology, who was a former Director of NSF. He thought it was good enough. I was a pathologist and it went to a Biochemistry Review Committee. It was approved, but not funded. The verdict was that I would not be able to carry out the studies needed, and they would have approached it differently. A thousand young investigators are out there now with similar letters. I was told that the Department Chairmen have to build up their faculty. It’s harder now than then. So I filed for and received 3 patents based on my work at the suggestion of my brother-in-law. When I took it to Boehringer-Mannheim, they were actually clueless.