International Membrane Protein Conference
This Membrane Protein Conference is open to all researchers interested in membrane proteins, including students with an interest in entering this growing field and researchers developing new technologies for membrane protein analysis. We welcome scientists from around the world to present and discuss the latest developments in membrane structural biology, lipid biophysics, trafficking and cellular functions of membrane zones, as well as technologies for preparing physiologically representative targets, screening tools and a variety of systems to stabilize and solubilize native membrane assemblies.
Schedule
We'll begin with Introductions, where participants are free to introduce themselves, ask questions about techniques or offer advice on methods, share news, opportunities and job postings.
A series of 8 short talks (15 minutes each) are followed by Q&A (5 minutes) with breaks for discussions.
Speakers on December 1, 2026 include:
Marilina de Sautu, Postdoctoral Research Fellow with Stephen Harrison, Harvard Medical School, who used cryo-electron tomography and single-molecule fluorescence to visualize, step by step, how a non-enveloped virus enters a cell, perforating the vesicular membrane to deliver its transcriptionally active core into the cytosol, as published in Science.
Feel free to nominate a speaker with an exciting story to tell here.
The program will be similar to that of our previous meeting on Sept 15, 2026, which is below.
14:00 CEST Introductions and Tips & Tricks
Session 1 chaired by Gestél Kuyler, Nanosene CEO and co-Founder
14:10 Salma Dienta Salsabila, PhD Student with Jungwook Kim, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, who published Structural mechanism of membrane-associated cytidine diphosphate diacylglycerol diphosphatase in Escherichia coli in Int J Biol Macromol.
14:30 Alexej Kedrov, Associate Professor, University of Düsseldorf on the substrate-induced assembly and functional mechanism of the bacterial membrane protein insertase SecYEG-YidC using nanodiscs and cryo-EM, which was published in EMBO J.
14:50 Meseret Haile, PhD Student with Chi-Min Ho, Assistant Professor of Microbiology & Immunology at Columbia University, and recently published structural basis for host membrane binding and remodeling by invading malaria parasites in Cell, having purified the native complex directly from invasion-stalled parasites on host cells for CryoEM.
15:10 Break and open discussion
Session 2 chaired by Orestes Karatzas, MSc Student, Biochemistry Dept, UofA
15:15 Bernadette Byrne, Professor in Molecular Membrane Biology, Imperial College London, focusses on eukaryotic membrane protein structure and function, with emphasis on transporters and receptors, and will give a talk on the RAMP Lipid Screen.
15:35 Shiv K. Sah Teli, Postdoctoral Researcher with Juha Huiskonen, Laboratory of Structural Biology, University of Helsinki, who published Gating Mechanism of the Human Connexin 45 Gap Junction in bioRxiv.
15:55 Break and open discussion
Session 3 chaired by Manan Upadhyaya, Research Assistant, Biochemistry Dept, UofA
16:00 Surbhi Dhingra, Postdoctoral Fellow with Kenton Swartz, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, NIH, who recently published Mechanisms of ligand recognition and channel opening for P2X2 receptors in lipid nanodiscs in Science Advances.
16:20 Hayarpi Torosyan, Postdoctoral Scholar with Kliment A. Verba and Natalia Jura at University of California, San Francisco, who recently published Structures of the PI3Kα/KRas complex on lipid bilayers reveal molecular mechanisms of PI3Kα activation in Mol Cell.
16:40 Moitrayee Bhattacharyya, Associate Professor of Pharmacology, Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine, Yale University, on Single molecule microscopy and cryo-EM with native nanodiscs in understanding neurodegeneration and pain.
Participants are invited to vote for the best talk by a junior scientist thanks to support from Nanosene. We'll also decide the next webconference date.
17:00 Discussion and close
Organizers
- Alice Rothnie, Senior Lecturer, School of Biosciences Biosciences Research Group, College of Health and Life Sciences, Aston University
- Barry Bruce, Charles P. Postelle Distinguished Professor, Dept. Microbiology; Dept. Biomolecular and Chemical Eng., University of Knoxville, Tennessee
- Bert Klumperman, South African Research Chair in Advanced Macromolecular Architectures at the Department of Chemistry and Polymer Science at Stellenbosch University
- Frank Sobott, ,Chair in Biomolecular Mass Spectrometry, Faculty of Biomedical Sciences, University of Leeds
- Michael Overduin, Professor, Department of Biochemistry, University of Alberta, Canada
Tim Dafforn, Professor, School of Biosciences, University of Birmingham - Naomi Pollock, Lecturer in Biosciences, School of Biosciences, College of Health and Life Sciences, Aston University
- Stephen Muench, Lecturer in Membrane Biology, School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Leeds
- Tomas Laursen, Assistant Professor, Section for Plant Biochemsitry, University of Copenhagen
- Youzhong Guo, Professor, Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Virginia Commonwealth University
Supporting Partners
Creative Biolabs
Fluidic Sciences
Molscreen
Nanosene
RANE Pharmaceutical
Contact us
Let us know if you would like to get involved, we welcome any organizations that would like to contribute at any level. Sponsors and partners have complimentary passes, as well as a range of benefits.