Dear colleagues and friends

It is our pleasure to invite you to the LS² Annual Meeting 2018 with the topic "Metabolism & Signaling in the Life Sciences", held on the 12th and 13th of February, 2018 at the Amphimax/Amphipôle Campus of the University of Lausanne. The LS² Annual Meeting brings together scientists from all nations and backgrounds to explore the large spectrum united under the umbrella of Life Sciences. 

Find the plenary speakers of the next edition and the meeting content overview below.

We are looking forward to welcome you at the LS² Annual Meeting 2018 in Lausanne!

The Organizing Committee: Christian Münz (Chairman of the Meeting, UZH), Jean Gruenberg (LS² President, UNIGE), Urs Greber (LS² Vice-President, UZH), Thierry Soldati (LS² Past President, UNIGE) 

& the LS² Management Team: Carolin von Schoultz and Jacqueline Oberholzer

& the Scientific Committee: Stefan Kunz (CHUV) - Gilbert Greub (CHUV) - Petr Broz (UNIBAS) - Bruno Lemaitre  (EPFL) - Giuseppe Pantaleo  (CHUV) - Matthias Peter (ETHZ) - Pedro Romero (UNIL) - Daniel Speiser (UNIL) - Fabienne Tacchini-Cottier (UNIL) - Mario Tschan (UNIBE) - Justine Collier (UNIL)

What we offer in the 2018 edition:

• A scientific program with more than 30 (inter)nationally renowned speakers over two days plus 30+ selected speakers from abstracts
• 4 international plenary lectures all around autophagy research
• 10 scientific symposia:
  Molecular and Cellular Biosciences - Neurosciences - Infection/Proteomics  - Physiology -
  Systems Biology by SystemsX - Autophagy/Cell Death - Experimental Pharmacology - Bioinformatics - Physics of Biology
• Round table discussions about Careers in the Life Sciences
• The popular Postdoc contest "PIs of Tomorrow" where the best future projects from diverse disciplines are being showcased  (see separate menu bar)
• A transdisciplinary panel discussion on CRISPR/Cas9
• A Science Crowdfunding evening event
• A large industry exhibition with 40+ industry partners
• 150+ posters presented by promising young scientists who can enter the competition for various poster prizes
• As every year, the winner of the Friedrich-Miescher Award and the Lelio Orci Award will be honored in a special ceremony

*BSc/MSc students*
We do not only offer an informative session on opportunities in and outside the academic world, but also offer the first 20 to register 50CHF to support their registration fee and travels to the meeting! Update: The offer is now closed.

*PhD students*
...can meet their peers at the poster and Apéro session and win one of the prestigious poster prizes (worth up to 500 CHF). In addition to the poster sessions, long and flash talks selected from abstracts will be embedded in the scientific symposia.

*Postdocs*
Apply for the "PIs of Tomorrow" session if your planning to pursue an academic career!

21.01.2018: The final meeting booklet is online!

Please find it here.

Note that on-site registration to the meeting is possible (150 CHF, all categories). 
Feel free to spread the word!

Accreditation of the meeting

We requested the accreditation for continuous education in the field of animal experimentation by RESAL/SGV in December 2017.

The request is still pending, but once approved, a link to register on the RESAL website to collect the certificates after the meeting will be posted here soon!

09.01.2018: The Lelio Orci prize 2017 goes to Mike Hall / Biozentrum Basel!

We're very happy to announce that Mike Hall from Biozentrum Basel received the Lelio Orci Award 2017 for his outstanding performance in fundamental Cell Biology research!
The award lecture & ceremony will take place during the LS² Annual Meeting 2018 on February 13, 2018.

Sponsored by Prof.em. Lelio Orci from the PHYM department at the University of Geneva.

#LS²AM2018

04.01.2018: All invited speakers and speakers selected from abstracts are now online!

...All abstracts will get a slot for the poster session (including the ones that have been selected to give talks)!

03.01.2018: Final meeting registration extension until January, 10, 2018!

20.12.2017: Announcement of the winner of the Friedrich-Miescher-Award 2018!

Dear colleagues

The jury committee of the Friedrich-Miescher-Award has selected two candidates for 2018: 

Dr. Marek Basler (Biozentrum Basel) 
and 
Dr. Paola Picotti (ETHZ) 

About the award: To commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the discovery of nucleic acids the Molecular and Cellular Biosciences section of Life Sciences Switzerland (formerly Swiss Society for Molecular and Cellular Biosciences/Swiss Society for Biochemistry) has created the Friedrich-Miescher-Award. The prize is intended to honour young biochemists and is donated by the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research (FMI) in Basel. 

The price consists of 20’000 CHF (shared by the two awardees), a medal, and a certificate. The official award ceremony will take place during the LS² Annual Meeting 2018 in Lausanne (12.02.2018, 16:15-16:45, Amphimax, www.annual-meeting.ls2.ch), where both awardees will give an award lecture.

On behalf of the entire jury, we congratulate the two awardees and are looking forward to the ceremony! 

With kind regards
Marcus Thelen (jury member of the award & president of the MCB section of LS²)

05.12.2017: Five different poster prizes at the meeting!

*Submit your abstract until 10 December 2017 to enter the competition for these four poster prizes at the meeting!*

Selected LS² sections and partner/guest societies will award poster prizes for outstanding research in their respective fields:

• The “Swiss Young Cell Biologist of the Year”, awarded by the LS² section MCB, which consists of a free registration to the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) Meeting 2018, Dec 8-12, 2018, San Diego, CA and 1400 CHF of travel support to the meeting!
• The Journal of General Virology (JGV) poster prize to a young virologist 

• The Physiology Poster prize, awarded by the LS² section Physiology and realized by the Physiology department of UNIGE, worth 500 CHF 

• The Swiss Society for Experimental Pharmacology (SSEP) will offer a poster prize of 500 CHF 
  
  
• The Autophagy poster prize, sponsored by "Cells", the Open Acess Journal by MDPI. This prize includes a free publication of a manuscript in "Cells" in 2018 (that is equal to 550 CHF)

The poster award session will take place on Friday, 13rd of February, from 4.30 pm to 5.15 pm in the Amphimax main plenary hall.

Submitted abstracts, in case they fit the field of research, automatically enter the competition for all following poster prizes.

24.11.2017

88 (inter)national applications have been received for the PIs of Tomorrow session!!!

This is a new record!
An amazing evaluation committee of 30 members is currently evaluating them and will come up with the finalists very soon!!!

12.11.2017: Check out all our special sessions!

...on www.annual-meeting.ls2.ch/2018/program/special-sessions

25.10.2017: Science Crowdfunding Session - Check out the invited speakers!

We're happy to announce the complete program of the Crowdfunding Science session
"Candies, LSD and Crowdfunding", February 12th, 5.30-6.30 pm:

Featuring the incredible LSD research story of Robert Carhart-Harris and David Nutt and more successful projects from the first Swiss science crowdfunding channel, science.wemakeit.com:

Introduction
Mirko Bischofberger and Luc Henry, science.wemakeit.com

Keynote lecture
Robin Carhart-Harris, Imperial College, London, UK

Psychedelics: therapeutic potential and mechanisms of action

3 Short project presentations from science.wemakeit.com

1. HORAO
Prof. Ph. Schucht, Inselspital Bern, https://wemakeit.com/projects/horao
The HORAO project puts the most brilliant minds to work on improving technologies that visualize the exact border between brain tumor and healthy brain through a global prize-based competition!

2. At The Heart of Congo Kids
Prof. H. Abriel und P. Teixidor, Universität Bern, https://wemakeit.com/projects/at-the-heart-of-congo-kids
A pediatric doctor from the University Clinics of Kinshasa (DR Congo) needs to purchase scientific equipment to do his research and get advice from Swiss cardiologists.

3. ftero - Airborne Wind Energy
F. Wiesemüller, ETH Zürich, https://wemakeit.com/projects/ftero-airborne-wind-energy
Student project at ETH Zurich with the goal to develop an autonomous and aerodynamical optimized Airborne Wind Energy System.

Special Offer for BSc and MSc Students!

The first 20 students to register online get 50 CHF on-site to support their registration fee & travels!

UPDATE December 1, 2017: The offer is now closed.

To receive the grant, show your student card at the registration desk for this offer. You will be informed after registration if you were amongst the first 20 to register!

Good luck!