Jahresbericht 2021 für

LS2 Life Sciences Switzerland: Life Sciences Switzerland


Präsident/Präsidentin: Prof. Didier Picard University of Geneva

Von: Adela Calvente Arroyo, adela.calvente@ls2.ch

Zusammenfassung


·       LS2 Annual Meeting 2021: “Mechanisms in Health, Disease and Ageing” and Young Scientists’ e-Symposium (YSS) - Online. 17, 18 and 19 February 2021.

The LS2 Annual Meeting 2021 and its YSS were initially planned on-site in Geneva, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic the organization committee moved it to an online format. The chair of the meeting was Prof. Dr. Mario Tschan (University of Geneva), who created a concept and a schedule to include participants from different time-zones, taking advances of the online possibilities. The conference and its satellite gathered 405 participants from 12 countries. The LS2 Annual Meeting is mostly financed by the participants, sponsors and exhibitors. However, this year we also received support from SCNAT to develop an online platform where all sessions (including an e-poster gallery) took place. More details here: https://annual-meeting.ls2.ch/2021

·       Physiology Section Meeting with the Young Investigator Award. 

·       Inclusion of new Membership categories: Lifetime and Honorary

·       28 prizes were given to Young Researchers in LS2 conferences

·       4 Webinar series: 

With the objective of keeping the community together under the uncertain circumstances due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in LS2 we launched 4 webinar series in 2021: LS2 Prestige Webinars, LS2 Proteomics Webinar Series, LS2 Microscopy Webinar Series and Innovation in Undergraduate Teaching of Life Sciences. With more than 960 participants registered, this format was very well received by the audience. 



Publikationen


·       Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery Symposium at the LS2 Annual Meeting 2021.

Chimia 75-342 (2021) C. Heinis & A. Calvente



Tagungen / Kurse


·       30th Cytomeet - Online 19 January 2021.

Meeting organized by Section Molecular & Cellular Biosciences. The objective of Cytomeet was always to connect the Swiss community interested in the cytoskeleton and cell migration. The conference has been organized for 30 years and it is still a success and an important point of networking and career develop for young researchers in the field. SCNAT supported the activity. 

·       Rigi Workshop “Cell Biology of Infection”. Hotel Rigi Kulm. 30 January – 1 February 2022. 

The workshop was organized by Hubert Hilbi (SSM section Molecular Microbiology), Urs Greber (LS2, SSM section Virology) and Claudia Rutte (Swiss Academies of Sciences, SCNAT). 

·       Cell Migration Retreat and event “celebrating the 30th Cytomeet”. Studen. 23, 24 & 25 August 2021.

Meeting organized by the Section Molecular & Cellular Biosciences. With keynote lectures from Gerhard Christofori (Department of Biomedicine of UniBS), Curzio Rüegg (OMI, UniFR) and Tim Lämmermann (MPI-IE, Freiburg i.Br), the conference was organized by Britta Engelhardt (UniBE), Jens V. Stein (UniFR) and Daniel F. Legler (BITg) and it had the support of SCNAT. 

·       LS2 Annual Meeting 2021: “Mechanisms in Health, Disease and Ageing” and the Young Scientists’ e-Symposium (YSS) – Online. 17, 18 and 19 February 2021.

The LS2 Annual Meeting 2021 and its Satellite were initially planned on-site in Geneva, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic the organization committee moved it to an online format. The fact that many of the events and conferences during 2020 and at least the first half of 2021 had to change format from an on-site program to a virtual format, if not cancelled, does not remove the fact that it was a challenge.  In this context, for us, the LS2 annual meeting is much more than a meeting point, it is also the society's biggest event and a place of knowledge exchange, and we took up that challenge with enthusiasm. The chair of the meeting was Prof. Dr. Mario Tschan (University of Geneva), who created a concept and a schedule to include participants from different time-zones, taking advances of the online possibilities, for that it was key to condense the sessions in three afternoons, including the sessions organized by young researchers within the “Young Scientists’ e-Symposium” into the main program. Also, we slightly reduced the length of talks and symposia to adapt to a virtual format, but our priority was to include all the traditional highlights of the annual event. To integrate all that, we used an external virtual platform, supported by SCNAT, from where the participants could access to all the content with a single link, a personal login link. The conference and its satellite gathered 405 participants from 12 countries. A full report of the LS2 Annual Meeting 2021 and the YSS can be read https://annual-meeting.ls2.ch/2021

Highlights in 2021: 

- 10 Scientific Symposia with 22 international invited speakers and 24 short talks from young researchers.

- The competition PIs of Tomorrow. Winners of 2021: Elisa Araldi from ETH – winner of Jury Prize, Karina Silina from UZH – winner of Public Prize. 

- 3 Keynote lectures from international speakers: Dario Valenzano from Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing. Germany; Tony Wyss-Coray from Stanford University. US and Katrien De Bock from ETH Zürich. Switzerland.

- 3 lectures from 3 Swiss Awards: Prof. Andrea Ablasser (EPFL) & Prof. Prisca Liberali (FMI) winners of the Friedrich-Miescher Award 2021, Prof. Jean Gruenberg (UNIGE) the Lelio Orci Award 2020 and Dr. Alice Berhin (Université Catholique de Louvain - BE) winner of the Prix Schläfli Award 2020.

- 75 e-poster with 3 dedicated sessions. 

Additionally in 2021 we held a workshop organized by The Forum for Genetic Research (SCNAT): “Dialogue on Human Genome Editing”. The workshop was very well received. Details and reports of this session can be read https://bit.ly/3M21bLb

The Young Scientists’ e-Symposium (YSS) was included into the program the first day and it had a keynote lecture from Dr. Lars Dittrich covering the topic “Sciences Communication – but reasonable”.  We also had 4 breakout rooms with the following topics: (i) Career corner: A Stepping Stone for Careers in Life Sciences (Excerpts from the feminno program); (ii) Science Communication with FameLabs; (iii) Starts-ups and Entrepreneurship; (iv) Academic funding; and a scientific symposia with short talks selected from abstracts. The chairs of the YSS 2021 were: Dr. Alexandra Bondaz, University of Geneva, Dr. Michael Bachmann, University of Geneva, Dr. Shalu Jhanwar, University of Basel and Dr. Noémie Frézel,University of Zurich with the collaboration of Dr. Fanny Georgi, University of Zurich. 

·       Cardiovascular Research Meeting - Online. 15 & 17 June 2021

141 registered participants. 8 invited speakers and talks selected from abstracts, including flash talks instead of posters.  3 prizes for best talks to young researchers. With the support of the Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Kardiologie. All details on https://meetings.ls2.ch/cardiovascular2021

·       Swiss Physiology Meeting – Fribourg. 6 September 2021

Annual Meeting of our Physiology Section. 70 participants. Two Keynote speakers, talks for the Young Investigator Award supported by the "Stiftung Physiology" (former Oetliker Foundation) and poster sessions. With the support from SCNAT. https://meetings.ls2.ch/physiology2021

·       Swiss Apoptosis and Autophagy – Hybrid / Bern. 9 & 10 September 2021

Biannual meeting of our Autophagy Section. 155 participants. 1 Keynote lecture, 15 invited speakers, talks selected from abstracts and poster sessions. 3 prizes for best posters. In 2021 the participants could join on-site or online. With the support of SCNAT for the participation of young researchers. https://meetings.ls2.ch/sa2m-2021

·       Swiss Proteomics Meeting – Montreux. 14 October 2021

Annual meeting of our Proteomics Section. 83 participants. 2 keynote lectures, 6 short talks and 10 flash talks selected from abstracts. https://meetings.ls2.ch/proteomics-2021

·       Systems Biology Meeting – Münchenwiler. 15 & 16 November 2021

The first meeting of our section Systems Biology. 55 participants. 2 Keynote speakers, 14 invited speakers, short talks selected from abstracts and poster sessions. The meeting was co-organized with NCCR Microbiomes and supported by SCNAT. https://meetings.ls2.ch/systemsbiology2021



Internationale Aktivitäten


·       100th Annual Meeting German Physiology Society. Frankfurt am Main. Germany. 30 September – 2 October 2021. Joint meeting with LS2 Section Physiology and Austrian Physiological Society (APS). Prof. Dr. Zhihong Yang, president of the Section Physiology until August 2021, was part of the program committee. https://www.dpg2021.de/

·       The Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS): the 2021 council meeting took place online on 21 October 2021.  Prof. Dr. Monica Gotta attended as secretary of the LS2 MCB section representing Switzerland. Prof. Dr. Beat Sutter attended as representative of LS2 and MCB Section. LS2 is a constitute society of FEBS. 

·       FEBS Education Ambassador Meetings. The 5th meeting was planned in Vilinius, Lithuania on 8-9 May 2020, but it was cancelled. Instead, a half-day event was held online on 20 May 2021. Prof. Dr. Didier Picard, LS2 president attended the meeting as ambassador. LS2 is a constitute society of FEBS.

·       Representation at the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology: Prof. Dr. Marcus Thelen (board member of MCB section and national committee of the IUBMB) and Prof. Dr. Daniel Legler (president of MCB section) attended as delegates to the 25th IUBMB Ordinary General Assembly on 15th July 2021, online. 

·       Prof. Dr. Aleksandra Radenovic presented our Biophysics section at 13th European Biophysics Conference (EBSA meeting) on 24 – 18 July in Vienna.

·       Dr. Lydie Lane and Dr. Loïc Dayon attended the EuPA (European Proteomics Association) General Council 2021, online. 



Nachwuchsförderung


·       Young Scientists’ e-Symposium as part of the LS2 Annual Meeting 2021 – Online. 17 February 2021. The YSS aims to promote the participation of young researchers to the e-meeting, and the networking among young, non-professorial scientists. With the support from SCNAT.

·       PIs of Tomorrow – Postdoc Competition. as part of the LS2 Annual Meeting 2021 – Online. 18 February 2021. This session offers an opportunity for postdocs and senior researchers interested in pursuing an academic career to present a talk similar in format to a professorship application interview. With the support from SCNAT.

·       Satellite to the Swiss Apoptosis and Autophagy Meeting 2021 for young PhDs students and Postdocs - Bern. 9 September 2021. Topic: “Concepts and Methods in Programmed cell Death and Autophagy”. With the support of SCNAT, including travel grants for young researchers. In collaboration with the Graduate School for Cellular and Biomedical Sciences. 

·       Young investigator Award during the Swiss Physiology Meeting. Fribourg 6 September 2021. This Award is supported by the Stiftung für Physiologie and includes 6 awards: 3 for PhD students and 3 for junior Postdocs in 3 different categories, Bets oral presentation, 2nd Best oral presentation and Bets poster. 

·       LS2 PhD travel grants to visit conferences abroad and online. Total grants given in 2020: 8, supported by SCNAT, https://www.ls2.ch/files/c729/tg-reports-2021.pdf

·       LS2 Sonderpreise. Supported by SCNAT, LS2 sponsored 3 Sonderpreis to the winners of Geneva Biochemistry Days 2021 (Rémi Patouret), winners of Swiss Biology Olympics 2020 (Kaspar Lanz, Kalila Hoerler, Anna Salud, Orna Frohnert) and the winner of the “Nationalen Wettberwerb” of “Schweizer Jungend Forscht” (Andrea Hunn). The prize was to attend the LS2 Annual Meeting 2021, travel and accommodation. 

·       BC2 Basel Computational Biology. SCNAT and LS2 supported the participation of Bachelor, Master or PhD (Doctorate) students to attend the [BC]2 Basel Computational Biology Conference on 13-16 September 2021 at the Congress Center Basel.



Forschungsunterstützende Informations- und Koordinationsaufgaben


·       Microscopy Core Facility Day – Hybrid/Basel. 7 September 2021. Meeting point of staff of Swiss Core Facilities to network and exchange of ideas. The event aims to develop long-term and joint strategies that will enable the microscopy infrastructures distributed throughout Switzerland to guarantee their users access to the latest technologies and provide optimal support to researchers in the use of the equipment. In collaboration with the LS2 Intersection Microscopy. With kind support from SCNAT.

·       Mailchimp-based newsletter. With all relevant info of LS2 and general life sciences events and activities, newsletter archive at: https://www.ls2.ch/about-us/ls2-newsletter-archive

·       Supporting calendar on website: https://www.ls2.ch/events/other-events with a focus on scientific conferences in Life Sciences 

·       Job board: Window on our website where members of LS2 and collaborators can post new open positions: https://www.ls2.ch/links/job-board

·       Member database, open to all members, allows to enter areas of expertise and fosters exchange

·       Active social media channels



Ethik


·       Contribution of Prof. Dr. Didier Picard (President of LS2) to the organization of the “Achieving Gender Equality & Diversity in the Natural Sciences” webinar series: https://bit.ly/3wtebmG. Organized by the Platform Biology of SCNAT from September to November 2021



Dialog mit der Gesellschaft


·       Science Policy news ticker from ScienceGeist onto the ls2.ch homepage. (http://www.sciencegeist.com) ScienceGeist is a curated collection of over 3500 constantly updated science policy issues and supported by SNSF (subscription possible for everybody). 

·       Innovation in Undergraduate Teaching of Life Sciences - Webinar series. This webinar series aimed to create a forum and a community to help improve the quality of undergraduate education in the life sciences. https://meetings.ls2.ch/innovation-teaching-life-sciences-webinars

·       LS2 Prestige Webinars. This is a series of webinars with keynote speakers invited by our sections and intersections. It aims to extend the excitement around the plenary lectures of the LS2 Annual Meeting. https://www.ls2.ch/events/ls2-prestige-webinars

·       LS2 Proteomics Webinar series “A Tour of Switzerland”. Organized by the LS2 Proteomics Section, these virtual sessions brought the participants to different cities in Switzerland to discover what Proteomics is all about there. https://meetings.ls2.ch/proteomics-webinars-series

·       LS2 Microscopy Webinar series. This was launched as an opportunity to bring together microscopists, computer scientists and life scientists within Switzerland and beyond to build a lively community. https://meetings.ls2.ch/microscopy-webinars-series