Events and training

Events and training opportunities

Virus club seminar, Viikki

Virus club seminar is a montly seminar series at the Viikki Campus, University of Helsinki. It is open to all students and reserchers.

The program can be found here, see the section for seminar series.

Molecules club seminar, Viikki

The seminar series is a campus-wide structural biology, biophysics and biochemistry seminar series open to all researchers and students.

The program can be found here.

Microbiology seminars, Viikki

Microbiology seminars is a montly seminar series at the Viikki Campus, University of Helsinki. It is open to all students and reserchers.

The program can be found here, see the section for seminar series.

ScanVir2019 conference, June 3-5, 2019 in Turku, Finland

The first ScanVir Conference will be held on June 3rd to 5th, 2019 in Turku, Finland. This meeting initiates a series of Scandinavian conferences, held every third year in one of the Scandinavian countries. The meeting will bring together Scandinavian and other international virologists, and creates opportunities for fruitful collaboration.

The topics include all aspects of virology and viral immunology - basic, applied and clinical virology. The program is divided into parallel sessions with plenary lectures given by distinguished keynote speakers. We will put extra effort in creating possibilities for stimulating cooperation by offering interactive sessions on the hot topics in virology and by providing the possibility of reserving "a think-tank room" for brainstorming sessions by small groups.

The meeting is committed to being "a green meeting": the venue, hotels and Turku city attractions, are all within walking distance and the venue providers and hotels are committed to taking responsibility for the environment. The sessions will be held on two locations conveniently connected by a pedestrian bridge over the river Aura and offering lovely views and short walking breaks between the sessions.

Information about the ScanVir2019 Meeting will constantly be updated on the conference webpage. Please see the link.

Registration and abstract submission will start on January 2, 2019.

Organizing Committee

Prof. Ilkka Julkunen

Dr. Veijo Hukkanen

Dr. Laura Kakkola

Dr. Petri Susi

Dr. Sisko Tauriainen

Dr. Matti Waris

The International School of Crystallography, May 31-June 8, 2019 in Erice, Sicily, Italy

The International School of Crystallography (ISCoC) will take place May 31st-June 8th, 2019  in Erice, Sicily.  The ISCoC is a Scientific Session of the Ettore Majorana Foundation and Centre for Scientific Culture (EMFCSC) devoted to promoting structural biology knowledge for the international scientific community.  The School was officially started in 1974 under the scientific direction of Nobel Laureate Dorothy Hodgkin, and Lodovico Riva di Sanseverino (Bologna University). Professor Sir Tom Blundell, FRS, (Cambridge University, UK) is the current scientific director of the School.

The 54th course, will be  the inaugural School on 3D CryoEM image analysis at Erice. 3D Cryo-EM image analysis refers to the current practices in image processing and analysis both for  single particle analysis and  tomography. The School aims at providing a current snapshot of this evolving field, complete with workshops demonstrating state-of-the art software. Topics will include: Deep learning,  map validation and improvement , GPU processing and data handling, cellular tomography, sub-tomogram averaging, and automated data collection. Keynote talks will be delivered by Joachim Frank, David DeRosier and Wolfgang Baumeister.

Attendance to the ISCoC is by application. We will expect 80 total participants, selected from the most geographical diverse student body possible, to enable and facilitate international collaborations. For the same reason, lecturers and students are encouraged to spend the full period of the course in Erice to optimize the person-to-person exchange of ideas and expertise.  

The  deadline for registration is on November 30, 2018.

We encourage you to register soon!  Poster abstracts must be submitted  to be included in the program and, more importantly,  to be considered for the short talk sessions. 

The preliminary program and registration details can be found at ( https://crystalerice.org/2019/ )

See you soon in  Erice,

Dorit Hanein, Steven Ludtke and Stefan Raunser , Directors of the Course   

Instruct Biennial Structural Biology Conference May 22-24, 2019 in Madrid, Spain

The 4th Instruct Biennial Structural Biology Conference, which will take place in Alcalá de Henares, Spain, from May 22 till May 24, 2019.

Submission deadlines

  • Abstract submission: March 1st, 2019
  • Registration closed: April 1st, 2019
  • Student fellowship: March 1st, 2019

More information: link

Written on August 29, 2018

Exploring cellular complexity by cryoEM on February 28, 2019 in Helsinki

This one-day symposium organised by HiLIFE - Helsinki Institute of Life Science will showcase uses of cryo-EM (cryogenic electron microscopy) in studying biological mechanisms at different levels of complexity - ranging from macromolecules to cells. Distinguished international speakers will discuss how cryo-EM is now helping to understand illness and how it is starting to inform drug discovery. We welcome anyone who is interested in hearing about cutting-edge science and methods bridging cell biology, neuroscience, biochemistry, virology, and microbiology.

Venue: Biomedicum 1, Lecture Hall 2 (Haartmaninkatu 8) Meilahti Campus, University of Helsinki.

Visit the web site of the event here

Proteopedia event at FBMM at the University of Oulu, February 27-28, 2019

Proteopedia event at FBMM at the University of Oulu, February 27-28, 2019

Proteopedia is a Resource for structural biology developed by Joel Sussman and Jaime Prilusky at the Weizmann institute, together with an international group of experts plus many contributions from researchers that annotate their structure(s) using the tools available in Proteopedia. It is setup also as a teaching and educational tool. Several journals now offer to authors help for making a Proteopedia description of their structural data (see for example http://scripts.iucr.org/cgi-bin/paper?S2059798318015322  http://scripts.iucr.org/cgi-bin/paper?S2053230X18016217   http://proteopedia.org/wiki/index.php/Proteopedia:I3DC  )

Joel and Jaime have taken the initiative to visit several  Structural Biology reseach centers in Europe and in this context they will visit FBMM of the Univesity of Oulu on February 27/28. On wednesday Feb-27 starting at approximately 10:00 there will be an Introduction by Joel and Jaime about Proteopedia as a tool for research and teaching at Universities. In the afternoon there will be a similar session for high school teachers. Tuomo Glumoff, dean of eduaction of FBMM will moderate these sessions. The planning for thursday is still rather open but Joel and Jaime are also keen on having face-to-face discussions in smaller groups on how to develope Proteopedia further for research and teaching. Using Proteopedia for annotating your structure is not difficult and we will also have sessions where this will be explained further. This event is an ELIXIR activity and it is coorganised with PDBe and an expert from EBI might also join. The program is still very flexible and anyone interested in interacting with Joel and Jaime can contact Rik Wierenga for making a schedule.

Rik Wierenga, FBMM

See also:

Proteopedia: http://proteopedia.org     

General info:http://proteopedia.org/wiki/index.php/Help:Contents#Generic_help_in_using_Prote…

Teaching, general: http://proteopedia.org/wiki/index.php/Help:Contents#Teaching_and_Education

Teaching, high school: http://proteopedia.org/wiki/index.php/High_school_teachers%27_resources

 

Past event: Future of Instruct-ERIC in Finland - A Landmark European Research Infrastructure for Structural Biology, Special Seminar on December 21, 2018, Viikki Campus, Helsinki

Future of Instruct-ERIC in Finland - A Landmark European Research Infrastructure for Structural Biology

Friday December 21 at 9.00-9.30 in Biocentre 1, Room 1401 (Learning Centre), Viikinkaari 9, University Helsinki

Speaker: Sarah Butcher, Director of Instruct-FI Consortium (Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences & Institute of Biotechnology, HiLIFE, UH)

Instruct-HiLIFE: https://www.helsinki.fi/en/infrastructures/integrated-structural-cell-biology

National Consortium Instruct-FI: https://www.biocenter.fi/index.php/technology-platform-services/structural-biology

ESFRI Instruct-ERIC: https://www.instruct-eric.eu/

We have been working hard to move Finland in to the Instruct-ERIC, which is a European infrastructure for structural biology. There have now been multiple hearings in the parliament to pass a law so that Finland could join, and it looks like the process will be finished in January at the latest. After that, the Ministry of Education and Culture representative  will ask the ERIC Council (meeting in May 2019) for Finland to become a member.

What does that means for you? Around 300 different platforms will become available to any scientist in Finland, with supported (partially funded) access through a peer-reviewed application process. We are happy to give advice when the time comes. Those platforms through the Instruct Centres are all currently available for you, without financial support from the Instruct ERIC. So by writing a short application, you may get upto 2600 € support for instrument usage per application. If we have a lot of successful applicants e.g. for cryoEM, then that will also mean that we can potentially lower the fees for those applicants that are not going through the Instruct Center, but are using the cores as normal because of the Instruct ERIC subsidy helping to cover the very high service fees of the instruments.

There will also be changes locally, as some of our local and national services will also be open through this agreement. The new Instruct Centre Finland would include the following units and services: The proposed Instruct-ERIC Centre Finland will be a distributed centre having nodes at the Universities of Helsinki, Oulu, and Eastern Finland, and it is coordinated by the University of Helsinki. We have proposed to the Instruct-ERIC Council (successfully reviewed) that the Finnish ERIC services in Helsinki will be Biomolecular complex purification (Biocomplex), cryoEM, segmental labeling, and single-cell proteomics (ScopeMS). Oulu will offer services in X-ray crystallography and data management. Eastern Finland will provide services and expertise in native mass spectrometry.

Sarah Butcher

Organizer: Hanna Oksanen, Coordinator of Instruct-FI Consortium (Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, UH; hanna.oksanen at helsinki.fi)

Past event: Scientific workflow app introduction, November 19, 2018 in Helsinki, Finland

Scientific workflow app introduction

Monday 19.11.2018, Helsinki

Welcome to introduction of Scientific workflow app created by FEI/Thermo Fisher. It provides workflow recommendations to optimize the electron microscopy process based on system configuration, sample and grid type.

FEI representative will give us a short introduction presentation of Scientific workflow app followed by three demonstration sessions with Talos Arctica.

Please, fill in registration form by Tuesday 13.11.2018.

https://elomake.helsinki.fi/lomakkeet/93386/lomake.html

Venue is Biocenter 1, Viikki, Helsinki. Because the number of participants is limited (Introduction: 30 person and Demonstrations: 9 person), all applicants will receive separate verification email after registration period.

Schedule for the day

9:00 – 10:00     Presentation: Introduction to Scientific workflow app

                           Biocenter 1, Viikki     Room: 1401.3

10:00 – 11:30   Demonstration: Group 1, Counting/Linear mode

                           Biocenter 1, Viikki     Room: 1408

11:30 – 12:30   Lunch

12:30 – 14:00   Demonstration: Group 2, Counting/Linear mode

                           Biocenter 1, Viikki     Room: 1408

14:00 – 15:30   Demonstration: Group 3, Phase plate

                           Biocenter 1, Viikki     Room: 1408

For further information, please contact Benita Löflund grp-cryoemservice@helsinki.fi

Past event: Joint Annual Meeting of Finnish Synchrotron Radiation User Organisation (FSRUO) and Finnish Structural Biology Network (FinnBox), November 15-16, 2018

Joint Annual Meeting of Finnish Synchrotron Radiation User Organisation (FSRUO) and Finnish Structural Biology Network (FinnBox) on at the University of Oulu on November 15-16, 2018

Registration is now open. Registration link and more details are available here

PhD students and postdoctoral researchers please submit a short abstract for the talk selection. Suggestions from PIs are also welcome. 

No registration fee, the registration includes the conference dinner.

Written on 4.9.2018

Past event: Workshop on Remote X-ray Data Collection, May 2018

Open SESAME & Instruct-ERIC Workshop on Remote X-ray Data Collection from European Synchrotrons at the Weizmann Institute of Science

For further information, please see http://www.weizmann.ac.il/conferences/RXDC2018/

Written on 15.01.2018

Past event: Translating Structural Biology into Biomedical Applications (iNEXT workshop) March 2018

Translating Structural Biology into Biomedical Applications (iNEXT workshop)

Structure-based and biophysical approaches are now well established in industry as major tools contributing to drug development and there is a growing interest among academic labs in applying these techniques to help develop chemical tools. New technologies for HT fragment-based screening and cryo-electron microscopy are rapidly changing the field and there is a strong potential for collaborations between scientist in industry and academia on this area. The aim of the workshop is to present the state of the art as well as to provide a meeting ground for scientist from public and private institutions. The workshop will include keynote lectures from scientist in industry and academia as well as presentations on new technologies and access opportunities within iNEXT. Abstracts from participants with a focus on areas of high translational potential will be selected for oral presentations.

Additional information and registration through this link

Dedine for registration is February 5th, 2018.

iNEXT is a consortium funded by the Horizon2020 program that is pioneering coordinated access to infrastructures for macromolecular crystallography, SAXS, NMR, electron microscopy, advanced light microscopy and biophy! sics. In addition to providing access, the consortium has established ambitious collaborative structural biology research programs to develop advanced methodologies for ligand screening, the study of membrane proteins and acquiring structural information in the context of the living cell. The iNEXT workshop will be preceded by the iNEXT Users Meeting March 19-21 2018.

Written on 15.01.2018.