4th Transatlantic ECI GPCR Symposium
Registrations will remain OPEN until the end of the event, September 6th, 2024.
About the Symposium
The 4th Transatlantic ECI GPCR symposium is a 2-day symposium organized by, and organized for early career investigators (ECIs) exploring the fascinating world of GPCRs. The symposium seeks to promote collaboration among early-career scientists in the GPCR field and to transfer the experience of more established researchers to ECIs to guide their future careers.
Keynote Speakers
Maria Marti Solano
Cambridge University
Context-dependent GPCR signalling through the lens of Computational Biology
Maria obtained her PhD in Biomedicine at the Pompeu Fabra University of Barcelona under the joint supervision of Dr. Manuel Pastor and Dr. Jana Selent, in which she applied advanced computational structural biology techniques to study biased agonism in GPCRs implicated in antipsychotic treatment. She later joined the group of Prof. Peter Kolb at the Philipps University Marburg, where she employed chemoinformatics and virtual screening methods to search for conformation-specific receptor modulators. In 2018, she joined Dr. Madan Babu’s lab in the Structural Studies Division of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. There, she worked on a systems pharmacology project addressing signaling variability arising from tissue-specific receptor isoform expression, with the support of postdoctoral fellowships from the Federation of Biochemical Societies (Long-Term Fellowship) and the EU Horizon 2020 Framework Programme (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship). Dr. Marti Solano became a Royal Society University Research Fellow and a group leader at the Department of Pharmacology in October 2022.
Aashish Manglik
University of San Francisco
Uncovering how unconventional stimuli activate GPCRs
Aashish was an undergraduate at Washington University in St. Louis, where he worked in the lab of Jeff McKinney on Salmonella-host interactions. He moved to California in 2008 to join the Stanford Medical Scientist Training Program. There, he worked with Brian Kobilka as a graduate student to elucidate different aspects of GPCR function, resulting in a number of important contributions to our current understanding of opioid and adrenergic receptors. After finishing his medical training in May 2016, Aashish began his independent research career as the first Stanford Distinguished Fellow at Stanford University School of Medicine within the Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology and started at UCSF in 2017.
Career Panel
Are you a grad student or postdoc interested in a career as a group leader or expert scientist? Do you want to transfer to industry or work in the science communication field? This panel is designed to give you a behind-the-scenes look at what it's like to build a career track toward your aspirations. Our diverse panelists will share their insights on navigating various job markets, securing funding, and establishing a successful skillset for any of those tracks.
Roshanak Irannejad
University of California, San Francisco
Roshanak is a Principal Investigator at the Cardiovascular Research Institute, Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics at the University of California San Francisco. Her lab focuses on understanding how intracellular compartments, like endosomes and the Golgi, influence GPCR signaling. They use novel biosensors, sophisticated microscopy, cell biology, pharmacology, and, ultimately, physiology to study compartmentalized signaling.
Reid Olsen
Exscentia
Reid is a Director of Cellular Pharmacology & head of GPCR Pharmacology at Exscentia, Technology-driven AI Drug Discovery. He joined Exscentia after a PhD with Bryan Roth at the University of North Carolina, during which he created TRUPATH, an open-source biosensor platform for interpreting the GPCR transducerome.
Andrew Alt
University of Michigan
Andrew is the Director of the Center for Chemical Genomics at the University of Michigan, where he runs a research resource for high throughput screening and assay development. Prior to joining the University of Michigan he has worked as a researcher at multiple pharmaceutical companies including Bristol Myers Squibb, Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Epix Pharmaceuticals, and Arvinas.
Matthew Torres
Georgia Institute of Technology
Matthew is an Associate Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His lab specializes in exploring how protein phosphorylation of intrinsically disordered protein structures regulates signaling pathways mediated by heterotrimeric G proteins. To investigate the impact of phosphorylated G proteins on GPCR signaling, his team employs a multidisciplinary approach that combines mass spectrometry-based proteomics with machine learning, bioinformatics, structural and cellular biology.
Katarzyna Ciazynska
Nature Structural & Molecular Biology
Katarzyna began her studies at King’s College London, where she worked in James Mason’s lab, applying biophysical techniques to investigate interactions of antimicrobial peptides with biological membranes. She carried out her doctoral work in the group of John Briggs at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, working on the structures of vesicular protein coats and viral glycoproteins using cryo-EM and cryo-ET. She joined Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, London office in 2022.
Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner sessions
THURSDAY, September 5th & FRIDAY, September 6th
9 am PT/12 pm ET/6 pm CET/your time zone
Join us for casual discussions on GPCR research in Zoom breakout rooms. Move between rooms to explore different topics. Engage with a smaller group of established/junior GPCR leaders/symposium presenters in different focus areas. Discuss current trends, career planning, and more with invited experts and fellow participants.
![Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner sessions](https://fourwaves-prod.imgix.net/static/media/filecontent/53ad8eb2-dc81-4a56-b0c2-86a370adce00/d1274057-a19f-4c92-a887-8fee212c220c.png?w=1200&fit=max&auto=format)
Organizers
Judith Alenfelder, University of Bonn
Dr. Ian Chronis, University of Michigan
Dr. Katarina Nemec, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
Dr. Aida Shahraki, University of Marburg
![Organizers](https://fourwaves-prod.imgix.net/static/media/filecontent/53ad8eb2-dc81-4a56-b0c2-86a370adce00/82d8c521-9faf-4525-b8ed-5126adad4b16.png?w=1200&fit=max&auto=format)
Thanks to our sponsors
Our generous sponsors are facilitating three poster prizes and three talk prizes! Additionally, the best poster and best talk will receive complimentary registration and accommodations for ASPET 2025.
Location
Online event
Registration period
May 17, 2024 - 9:00 AM until September 6, 2024 - 5:45 PM
Submission period
May 27, 2024 - 9:00 AM until September 4, 2024 - 11:59 AM
Contact us
If you have any questions, please contact ecigpcrsymposium@gmail.com .