Speakers-2025

Conference Speakers

Keynote Speakers

Caroline Dean (John Innes Centre, UK)

The EMBO Keynote Lecture

Research in the Dean lab focuses on how the environment influences the timing of flowering in plants, with an emphasis on the study of the interpay of chromatin, transcription, and non-coding RNAs in the process.

Michael Elowitz (California Institute of Technology & HHMI, USA)

IUBMB Jubilee Award Lecture

The Elowitz lab seeks to understand the design principles that allow molecular and cellular circuits to operate effectively, and to apply that understanding to predict and control natural cellular behaviors and design synthetic circuits that can provide interesting and useful new cellular capabilities.

Confirmed Speakers
(Alphabetical order; subject to change)

Lorena Aguilar Arnal (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México)

The Aguilar-Arnal lab investigates epigenetic regulatory mechanisms of gene expression programs that are functionally relevant in health and disease. They use a combination of mouse models of disease and human cultured cell lines to dissect critical epigenetic regulatory mechanisms responsible for transitions between health and illness.

Brenda L. Bass (University of Utah, USA)

The Bass lab is interested in the poorly understood functions of cellular dsRNA, and further, how cells distinguish cellular dsRNA (self) from the viral dsRNA (non-self).

Roberto Bonasio (University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, USA)

The Bonasio lab studies the molecular mechanism of epigenetic memory, how it is regulated by noncoding RNAs, and how it affects brain function and behavior.

Jonathan Jones (The Sainsbury Lab, UK)

The Jones lab studies the defense mechanisms that plants use to resist pathogen attack and the strategies that pathogens deploy to overcome the plant immune system.

Luis F. Larrondo (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Chile)

The Larrondo lab uses genetics and synthetic biology approach to study the molecular mechanisms underlying biological oscillators, assessing the impact that circadian clocks have on physiology and in host-pathogen interactions.

Hongjie Li (Baylor College of Medicine, USA)

Research in the Li lab focuses on applying single-cell sequencing technologies to understand aging, with the ultimate goal of improving human healthy lifespan.

Vinicius Maracaja-Coutinho (Universidad de Chile, Chile)

The Laboratory of Integrative Bioinformatics is focused on the application, development, and integration of different bioinformatics approaches and datasets to understand the functional aspects, evolution, and disease association of small and long non-coding RNAs.

Julieta Mateos (Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina)

The main focus of the Plant Functional Genomics group is to understand how post-transcriptional and post-translational regulatory mechanisms control plant development and adaptation to diverse stresses.

José Tomás Matus (Universitat de València-CSIC, Spain)

The TOMSBio lab is interested in the transcriptional regulation of secondary metabolism. The current focus of the laboratory is the study, at a global level, of gene regulatory networks that control phenylpropanoid and isoprenoid metabolism in plants.

Stephanie Moon (University of Michigan, USA)

The Moon Lab is interested in how genes are expressed via the coordinated regulation of messenger RNAs at the levels of translation, localization, and decay.

Renata M. Pereira (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

The Pereira lab studies cell signaling and transcriptional and epigenetic regulation of T lymphocytes and macrophages during infections and cancer.

Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado (Stowers Institute for Medical Research, USA)

The Sánchez Alvarado lab investigates the genetic basis and molecular processes of regeneration and tissue maintenance.

Kavitha Sarma (The Wistar Institute, USA)

The Sarma lab studies the mechanisms of RNA-mediated epigenetic gene regulation to understand how the loss of chromatin modifier-RNA interactions impacts cellular function.

Robert Schneider (Helmholtz Zentrum München, Germany)

The Schneider lab studies histones and chromatin dynamics, with a focus on the interplay between cellular metabolism and histone modifications.

Pablo Smircich (Instituto de Investigaciones Biológicas Clemente Estable, Uruguay)

Research in Smircich group uses -omics approaches to study the control of gene expression at the transcriptional and translational levels. An important research area in the lab concerns cell and genome biology of the unicellular parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative agent of Chagas disease.

Pablo Strobl-Mazzulla (Instituto Tecnológico de Chascomús, Argentina)

Research in the Developmental Biology Laboratory is focused on the epigenetic control of cell specification and differentiation during development in vertebrates

Estefanía Tarifeño-Saldivia (Universidad de Concepción, Chile)

Research in the Tarifeño-Saldivia lab focuses on the effects of metabolic diseases such as obesity on the brain. The lab uses advanced sequencing technologies to investigate epigenetic and transcriptomic changes in neurons that regulate food intake.

Maria Elena Torres-Padilla (Helmholtz Zentrum München, Germany)

The Torres-Padilla lab combines high resolution microscopy, single cell omics, and cell biology approaches to uncover the origin of stem cells and the epigenetic principles that control cellular plasticity.

Sabina Vidal (Universidad de la República, Uruguay)

Research in the Plant Molecular Biology lab focuses on plant stress responses and agricultural biotechnology. The lab uses functional genomics, transgenesis, and gene editing approaches to both understand the molecular mechanisms underlying plant stress tolerance and enhance crop yield and quality.

Koon Ho Wong (University of Macau, China)

Research in the Wong lab is centered around transcriptional regulation in pathogenic fungi.