Welcome to ECBS 2012
July 1–3, Vienna, Austria
Small molecules can have a profound impact on biological systems. To discuss topics such as “finding the small molecules”, “big questions on the cell cycle”, “big roles - big tasks”, “one drug - one system approach”, the 3rd European Chemical Biology Symposium (ECBS) / 2nd CeMM Vienna Drug Action Conference took place at CeMM and in the Festive Hall of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
The 3-day conference, on July 1-3, 2012, was literally the hottest conference to be held at CeMM, with temperatures of 40°C due to a local heatwave.
The meeting was attended by more than 130 researchers from all over the world, sharing an interest in the interdisciplinary field of Chemical Biology. It opened with a keynote lecture by Stuart Schreiber, Director of the Chemical Biology Program of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, and comprised 20 talks by invited speakers as well as short talks from participants and extended poster presentations. The sessions encompassed a broad spectrum of modern chemical biology research from drug screening and drug discovery to cell differentiation and therapeutic innovation in the systems biology era.
ECBS 2012 Organization
The biennial series of the European Chemical Biology Symposia (ECBS), dedicated to interdisciplinary research on the systematic investigation of biological processes using chemical tools, high throughput screening and drug discovery, is organized by partners of EU-OPENSCREEN, a European research infrastructure initiative of open screening platforms for Chemical Biology.
EU-OPENSCREEN (www.eu-openscreen.eu) is listed on the ESFRI roadmap of future key infrastructures for the European Research Area and was initiated by the FMP as a development of its open access infrastructure policy. The EU-funded preparatory project, coordinated by FMP, now includes institutions from 14 countries.
After symposia in Barcelona (2008) and Prague (2010), the 3rd ECBS2012 was hosted by EU-OPENSCREEN’s Austrian partner, the CeMM in Vienna, and in conjunction with the 2nd Vienna Drug Action Conference. The event was held from 1-3 July in the beautiful Festive Hall of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
Topics and key areas
The program put together by the organizers – the local host Guilio Superti-Furga (CeMM), Ronald Frank (FMP), Petr Bartunek (IMG, Prague) and Ulrike Eggert (Kings College, London) – featured distinguished experts in the field of Chemical Biology and was tailored to the central theme of “Small Molecules for Big Biology”, with impressive reports from large scale, as well as deep drilling, research projects. Stuart Schreiber (Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard), a pioneer of the field, opened the proceedings with a keynote lecture on results from profiling the effects of over 30, 000 compounds on 850 genetically fully-characterized cancer cell lines delineating novel drug combinations and regimes for cancer treatments that might overcome drug resistance.
The following sessions addressed topics ranging from novel screening technologies, drug discovery and synthesis, data and material repositories, to systems biology and therapeutic innovations. Plenty of time was also allowed for discussions at posters. This ‘hot science’ event, remarkably, coincided with an extraordinary few days of the highest temperatures ever recorded for that time of year in Vienna.
“This meeting was a very successful continuation of our intense scientific exchange with European and world scientists, providing insights into drug actions and screening, understanding the cell cycle and cell differentiation, as well as elucidating the potential therapeutic roles of small molecules in the systems medicine era” said Ronald Frank, coordinator of the EU-OPENSCREEN project.
The next symposium in this series is planned as a world summit, to be held jointly with the newly inaugurated International Chemical Biology Society ICBS. Why not in Berlin?