Workshop "Strategy for future EMBL research infrastructures in the Life Sciences in Hamburg"

Europe/Berlin
Matthias Wilmanns (EMBL Hamburg) , Dmitri Svergun (EMBL Hamburg) , Thomas Schneider (EMBL Hamburg)
Description

EMBL Hamburg has been operating synchrotron beamlines for applications in Structural Biology on the DESY Campus for more than 40 years.

At present, EMBL is operating EMBL@PETRA3, an Integrated Facility for Structural Biology comprising beamlines for Small Angle X-ray Scattering (P12) and Macromolecular Crystallagraphy (P13, P14) including the T-REXX endstation dedicated to time-resolved MX. The Sample Preparation and Characterization Facility is available for getting samples ready for SAXS and/or MX experiments.

The Deutsche Elektronen Synchrotron (DESY, Hamburg) plans to upgrade the present synchrotron storage ring PETRA III into PETRA IV, which will have an unprecedented spectral brightness, reaching the diffraction limit up to X-ray energies of about 10 keV. The Conceptual Design Report has been published in 2019 and can be found here:  CDR. PETRA IV would lead to a great boost in performance for many techniques utilizing X-rays. The transition to PETRA IV is currently planned for 2025-26 and the beamlines portfolio for the new ring is presently being discussed. EMBL is involved in defining the future beamlines for Life Sciences at PETRA IV.

In view of these developments, and to put intended future research service directions of the EMBL Hamburg Unit into the context of the overall research infrastructure portfolio on the DESY campus in Hamburg, EMBL is planning a workshop “Strategy for future EMBL research infrastructures in the Life Sciences in Hamburg”. The workshop will take place in a virtual format on March 29-30, 2021. Its main aim will be to consult with leading experts and stakeholders about the synergistic use of the future X-ray infrastructures with complementary structural and computational methods. It is planned to review possible future needs and strategies for EMBL infrastructures at and around PETRA IV and to discuss how the interests of the research communities worldwide and in particular those in the EMBL member states could be best taken into account.

The workshop will be conducted in close coordination with DESY and will involve other relevant organizations on campus such as the European XFEL and the Centre for Structural Systems Biology (CSSB). Capitalizing on the excellent track record of EMBL in developing and providing integrated services for X-ray scattering and diffraction, we plan to expand our portfolio into X-ray imaging and to utilize the unique collaborative opportunities on the DESY campus.

The workshop will be focusing on challenges and opportunities of the transition from PETRA III to PETRA IV also taking into account the needs of the present and potential future user communities. There will be ample time for discussion. Hence there will be only short presentations of 20 minutes each (including discussion).

Confirmed Speakers:

  • Edith Heard (European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg, Germany)

  • Helmut Dosch (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Hamburg, Germany)

  • Robert Feidenhans'l (European XFEL, Schenefeld, Germany)

  • Savvas Savvides (Ghent University & VIB Center for Inflammation Research, Ghent, Belgium)

  • Poul Nissen (University of Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark)

  • Christian Schroer (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Hamburg, Germany)

  • Arwen Pearson (Hamburg Advanced Research Centre for Bioorganic Chemistry, Hamburg, Germany)

  • Kristina Djinovic-Carugo (Max Perutz Labs, Vienna, Austria)

  • Meytal Landau (Technion Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel))

  • Alexandra Pacurenau (Euroepan Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Grenoble, France)

  • Andrej Sali (University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, USA)

  • Liz Duke (European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Hamburg, Germany)

  • Bruno Klaholz (Centre for Integrative Biology, IGBMC, Strasbourg, France)

  • Gerard Kleywegt (European Bioinformatics Institute, Hinxton, United Kingdom)

  • Anton Barty (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Hamburg, Germany)

  • Jan Korbel (European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg, Germany)

  • Heinrich Haas (BioNTech, Mainz, Germany)

  • Gerard Bricogne (GlobalPhasing Ltd., Cambridge, United Kingdom)

  • Michael Hennig (LeadXPro, Villigen, Switzerland)

  • Jürgen Bauer (EMBLEM, Heidelberg, Germany)

  • Hugo van Ingen (University of Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands)

  • Maciej Kozak (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland)

  • Federico Forneris (University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy)

  • Lari Lehtiö (University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland)

  • Annette Langkilde (University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark)

  • Vladena Bauerová (Institute of Molecular Biology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Slovakia)

  • Sandra Macedo Ribeiro (Institute for Molecular and Cell Biology, Porto, Portugal)

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