LS² Annual Meeting 2026

Bio: Sarah-Maria Fendt is a Principal Investigator at the VIB Center for Cancer Biology and full Professor of Oncology at KU Leuven, Belgium. Sarah has a Master of Science degree in Biochemistry from TU Munich and a PhD in Molecular Systems Biology from ETH Zurich. Sarah worked as postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), before starting her independent research program in 2013. Sarah’s lab is specifically interested in understanding the role of metabolism in driving metastasis formation and in defining the principles of metabolic regulation that enable cancer cells to communicate with and respond to their environment. Her team applies the powerful technologies of single cell and spatial multi-omics analysis in pre-clinical mouse models and patient samples to study this interplay between cancer cells and their metabolic environment during metastasis formation. The research of Sarah’s lab has been published in high impact journals including Nature and has been funded by multiple (inter)national grants and industry, which include ERC consolidator and proof of concept grants.  In 2020 Sarah has been awarded with the highly prestigious EMBO Gold Medal and was elected in 2022 as EMBO member. In 2023 Sarah received the Francqui-Collen prize (most important science prize in Belgium) and the 51st Léopold Griffuel award as well as the 2024 AACR Outstanding Achievement in Basic Cancer Research award.

Talk title: Metabolic rewiring driving metastasis formation

Abstract: Metastasis formation is the leading cause of death in cancer patients. We find that metabolic rewiring is a liability of metastasizing cancer cells. For example, we discovered that extracellular remodeling of the metastatic niche, a process essential to metastasis formation, requires a transcriptional-independent regulation via the metabolites. Moreover, we provide knowledge on intratumor heterogeneity of metabolism and its role in pre-metastatic niche and metastasis formation. Thus, we study the metabolism of metastasizing cancer cells with the goal to define novel therapeutic strategies.

Bio: Dr. Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz is a Senior Group Leader at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Research Campus and Head of the Research Program on 4D Cellular Physiology. Lippincott-Schwartz has pioneered the use of green fluorescent protein technology for quantitative analysis and modelling of intracellular protein traffic and organelle dynamics in live cells. Her innovative techniques to label, image, quantify and model specific live cell protein populations and track their fate have provided vital tools used throughout the research community. Her findings using these techniques have reshaped thinking about the biogenesis, function, targeting, and maintenance of various subcellular organelles and macromolecular complexes and their crosstalk with regulators of the cell cycle, metabolism, aging, and cell fate determination. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the American Society of Arts and Sciences and the European Molecular Biology Organization. She is also a Fellow of The Biophysical Society, The Royal Microscopical Society and The American Society of Cell Biology. Her awards include the E.B. Wilson Medal of the American Society of Cell Biology, the Newcomb Cleveland Prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Van Deenen Medal, the Keith Porter Award of the American Society of Cell Biology, the Feodor Lynen Medal, and the Feulgen Prize of the Society of Histochemistry. She co-authored the textbook “Cell Biology” and was President of the American Society of Cell Biology. Dr. Lippincott-Schwartz attended Swarthmore College, received her MS from Stanford University, and obtained her PhD in Biochemistry from Johns Hopkins University.

Talk title: Looking under the hood of cells from micron to atomic scales

Abstract: Powerful new ways to image the internal structures and complex dynamics of cells are revolutionizing cell biology and bio-medical research. In my talk, I will focus on three emerging technologies capable of revealing new properties of cellular organization at scales ranging from nanometer to atomic resolution. Whole cell milling using Focused Ion Beam Electron Microscopy (FIB-SEM) was used to reconstruct the entire cell volume at 4-nm voxel resolution, revealing all membrane-bound organelles and their trafficking intermediates at isotropic resolution. Single particle tracking using Halo dyes revealed unexpected features of mRNA trafficking, including sites where secretory proteins are translated on ER and their regulation by lysosomes. Finally, High Resolution Template Matching (HRTM) of ribosome subunits in cryo-EM images of intact human cells afforded a look at ribosomes at different stages of peptide elongation at the atomic scale. Together, these new tools open-up a plethora of questions related to mechanisms of cell structure/function that can now be studied in intact cells at the nanometric/molecular level.  

Bio: Dr. Laurence Romy is a scientist-turned-strategist with a passion for life sciences innovation. She holds a PhD in Immunology and Cancer from the University of Lausanne, where her research focused on uncovering novel therapeutic targets in B-cell lymphomas. Currently, Laurence serves as Business Intelligence Manager at Biopôle SA, a leading Swiss life sciences campus. In this role, she leads innovation scouting, Scientific evaluations of biotech and medtech startups, and manages key corporate partnerships. She is also the driving force behind the Biopôle Discovery Day, a flagship event showcasing cutting-edge life sciences ventures. Beyond her role at Biopôle, Laurence is the founder of Lormina.ch, a platform dedicated to supporting career transitions for PhDs and early-career researchers through interviews and practical resources. Her work has been featured in Le Temps a Swiss media. A strong advocate for community building, and inclusive innovation, Laurence brings both analytical depth and a people-first mindset to every conversation.

Talk title: tba

Abstract: tba

Bio: Ben trained in carbohydrate chemistry with Peter Seeberger at the Max Planck Institute in Potsdam, and in chemical glycobiology with Carolyn Bertozzi at Stanford. Combined with a background in biochemistry, Ben has learnt to use synthetic tools to probe, understand and manipulate glycans particularly in the secretory pathway of mammalian cells. A breakthrough technology in his lab features the use of engineered glycosyltransferases and biosynthetic enzymes to generate “precision tools” for individual enzymes, glycan sub-types and cells. Ben has received multiple awards including the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Chemical Biology Horizon Prize (2021), the Dextra (2023) and Heatley (2024) Awards. He has been awarded a Biochemical Society Early Career Award (2024), is an EMBO Young Investigator and a Fellow of the RSC. Since summer 2025, Ben is a Full Professor of Biochemistry at TUD Dresden University of Technology, advancing the mission to develop chemical Precision Tools for protein glycosylation.

Talk title: Chemical Precision Tools to Dissect Protein Glycosylation

Abstract: Alterations in glycoprotein expression and composition are an undisputed corollary of cancer development. Consequently, some of the most important tumor biomarkers are heavily glycosylated. Understanding cancer-induced glycoproteome changes is paramount but hampered by experimental limitations. For instance, protein O-GalNAc glycosylation is among the most abundant and important cancer-relevant posttranslational modifications. Glycans are primed by the activities of 20 GalNAc transferase (GalNAc-T1…T20) isoenzymes located in the secretory pathway. Since these transferases are interdependent through compensation and competition, traditional methods of molecular cell biology do not address the complexity of glycoprotein biosynthesis. Furthermore, workflows in mass spec-glycoproteome analysis are often restricted to isolated cell lines that do not adequately reflect the interaction between tumor and microenvironment. Thus, we lack strategies to understand 1) the protein substrate specificities of individual GalNAc-Ts and 2) which glycoproteins are made by cancer cells in response to their microenvironment. Here, I describe our development of chemical “Precision Tools” to dissect cellular O-GalNAc glycosylation. We employ bump-and-hole (BH) engineering to render GalNAc-Ts receptive to a chemically modified nucleotide-sugar substrate that carries a bioorthogonal tag and is not used by wildtype transferases. Engineering individual transferases allows differential profiling of their protein substrate specificities. We found that establishing a cellular BH system required an artificial biosynthetic pathway to deliver the corresponding nucleotide-sugar to the secretory pathway. Since such metabolic engineering could be introduced into only one cell line in a co-culture system, we employed the principle to develop a tactic for Bio-Orthogonal Cell-specific TAgging of Glycoproteins (BOCTAG). Thus, chemical Precision Tools allow us to profile O-GalNAc glycosylation as a key player in cancer biology.

Bio: Marc-David Ruepp is a Professor of RNA Biology and Molecular Neurodegeneration at the UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI) at King’s College London. His laboratory is interested in RNA metabolism in health and disease with a specific focus on neurodegeneration. He received his PhD in 2009 (Graduate School of Cellular and Biomedical Sciences, University of Bern) and started his independent scientific career as Junior Group Leader in 2014 in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Bern, Switzerland. He habilitated at the Faculty of Science, University of Bern, and received his Venia Docendi in RNA biology in 2018. The same year he joined the UK DRI as Group Leader and King’s College London as Senior Lecturer in Neuroscience. In 2022 he was promoted to Reader and in 2025 to Professor of RNA Biology and Molecular Neurodegeneration.

Talk title: Dissecting the molecular determinants of FUS function

Abstract: Mutations in the gene encoding the RNA-binding protein Fused in Sarcoma (FUS) are linked to an aggressive form of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and typically cause mis-localisation of the mutant protein from the nucleus to the cytoplasm. Evidence from mouse models strongly suggests that FUS causes motor neuron degeneration via a toxic gain-of-function in the cytoplasm, though the molecular underpinnings of this toxicity remain enigmatic. Notably, we lack detailed knowledge of how the ability of FUS to interact with RNA and undergo phase separation influence its functions and contribute to motor neuron degeneration in mammalian systems. In this study, we identified and validated point mutations that robustly and specifically impair either RNA-binding or phase separation of FUS in vitro and subsequently performed a thorough validation and characterisation of these mutants upon endogenous expression in U2OS cells. Using a combination of automated high-content imaging, RNA sequencing and individual nucleotide resolution cross-linking and immunoprecipitation (iCLIP), we uncovered unexpected roles of RNA-binding and phase separation by FUS in the formation of nuclear RNA/protein condensates, the regulation of gene expression, and the cellular response to DNA damage.

Bio: Elisa Oricchio is an associate professor at EPFL, and she is Director of the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC). Her research focuses on cancer genomics and B-cell malignancies. Over the course of her career, she has identified oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes as new therapeutic targets or as biomarkers to better classify cancer patients. She has integrated linear cancer genomic analyses with tridimensional analyses of the genome to better understand tumor development and evolution. Her work has been recognized with the Blavatnik Award for Young Scientist by the New York Academy of Science, the Lorini Award for Italian Scientist in Cancer Research and in 2021 she received the Prix Leenaards for Translation Research. In 2024, Elisa won the 2024 Pezcoller Foundation-EACR Award. She is a board member of the European Association of Cancer Research (EACR), which is the major association for cancer research in Europe.

Talk title: tba

Abstract: tba

Bio: Jana Seifert studied Geoecology at the Technical University Bergakademie Freiberg, Germany. During her studies she got fascinated about microbiology and decided to move on this subject. She did her PhD in biology about the degradation of chloroaromatic hydrocarbons by gram-positive bacteria. As a Post-Doc she focused on geomicrobiology and analyzing microbial communities with molecular-genetic techniques. As a group leader at the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research – UFZ in Leipzig, Germany she started to focus on the functionality of microbial communities setting up metaproteomics and protein-SIP. From 2013 to 2018 she was a junior professor, since 2018 she is a full professor at the University of Hohenheim. She is the head of the Functional Microbiology of Livestock group and member of the Hohenheim Center for Livestock Microbiome Research (HoLMiR), where she works on the microbiome-animal interaction and the use of feeding resources by the gut microbiome.

Talk title: Using metaproteomics for livestock microbiome research

Abstract: Microbial communities (microbiomes) are major drivers for digestive processes in the gastrointestinal tract of animals, especially in ruminants. The great variety of microbes and the complexity of microbiomes is known due the recent progress in genome sequencing approaches. Intestinal microbiomes are essential for efficient feed conversion as well as the health of animals. This requires a detailed understanding of microbes on a functional level by identifying cellular functions (metabolism, transport, stress response) which are represented by proteins. Metaproteomic approaches move beyond the genetic potential addressed by metagenomics by highlighting the metabolic and cellular pathways that are expressed by the microbiome. Together with metabolomic analyses, metaproteomics can lead to an improved holistic picture of the active microbiome. Examples will be given where we used those combined approaches to study the influence of different feeding strategies on the entire GIT microbiome of dairy cows. Stable isotope labelling approaches (13C) are used to identify main carbon utilizers in the chicken gut.

Bio: Marc Aurel Busche is Professor of Dementia and Neurodegeneration at the University of Basel, where he directs the Memory Clinic and Old Age Psychiatry at the University Hospital of Geriatric Medicine FELIX PLATTER and leads the "Brain Ageing and Neurodegeneration" research group at the Department of Biomedicine. He concurrently holds a position as Programme Leader at the UK Dementia Research Institute, University College London. Until 2025, he also served as an honorary consultant psychiatrist at the Cognitive Disorders Clinic, Queen Square National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, London. Professor Busche’s research aims to uncover cellular and neural-circuit mechanisms underlying Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and related disorders, translating these insights into early biomarkers and more effective therapies. His pioneering work has advanced understanding of neuronal circuit dysfunction in AD, including the discovery of neuronal hyperactivity near amyloid plaques and the previously unrecognised role of oligodendrocytes as key producers of amyloid-beta driving early disease progression. Using advanced in vivo imaging and high-density electrophysiology in disease models, his lab recently identified novel cellular mechanisms linking tau pathology to cognitive impairment, as well as specific neuronal populations and circuits that become dysfunctional at very early disease stages. Professor Busche studied medicine at Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich, completed his doctoral training (MD, PhD) and psychiatry residency at the Technical University of Munich, and conducted postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School. His contributions to dementia research have been internationally recognised with numerous awards, including a prestigious UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship. 

Talk title: tba

Abstract: tba

Bio: Dr Philippe Menasché is a cardiac surgeon at the Hôpital Européen Georges Pompidou, Professor of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery at the University of Paris-Cité and responsible for an INSERM research team (UMR 970-Paris Cardiovascular Research Center). The group has a long-standing interest in basic and clinical research on stem cells for the treatment of heart failure. After the successful completion of a phase I trial testing cardiac progenitors derived from human embryonic stem cells (ESC) embedded in a patch, the recognition of the predominant role of paracrine signalling has led to shift towards an a-cellular cell therapy based on the exclusive use of the extracellular vesicle-enriched secretome of a similar cell type to further streamline the clinical translatability of this myocardial repair strategy. A clinical trial testing this approach is underway.

Talk title: Extracellular vesicles for the treatment of heart failure: a translational experience

Abstract: Over the past years, it has been progressively recognized that the major mechanism of action of transplanted cells was a paracrine signaling whereby the blend of biomolecules secreted by the cells and largely clustered in extracellular vesicles (EV) harness endogenous repair pathways. For a given level of functional equivalence with their parental cells, EV feature clinically appealing advantages, including a pharma-like manufacturing process more akin to that of a drug, a minimal loss of bioactivity after cryopreservation compatible with an off-the-shelf availability and, importantly, the lack of immunogenicity compared with their parental cells. However, several translational issues still need to be addressed which will be discussed. They primarily include (1) the choice of the optimal parental cells; (2) the extent of purification of the conditioned medium; and (3) the optimization of delivery strategies which depends  on the clinical setting but increasingly tends to privilege the intravenous route with the underlying assumption that EV trapped peripherally could reprogram the endogenous immune cells towards a reparative pattern, thereby making them the conveyors of the EV protective signals as they traffic to the target organ through the bloodstream. A clinical trial entailing repeated intravenous infusions of the EV-enriched secretome derived from cardiovascular progenitor cells in patients with non ischemic dilated cardiomyopathy has now started in our department and will provide the opportunity to report how we have tried to address the above mentioned issues to make this secretome a clinical-grade therapeutic product.