The EMBO Meeting 2013

Kai Simons will deliver the opening keynote lecture and explain how intricate changes in membrane structure can influence how cells work. In further keynote lectures, Hans Clevers will discuss how stem cells are involved in self-renewal and disease and Sir Michael Stratton will talk about how genetic changes contribute to cancer in humans. Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel will discuss optogenetics.

Scientific programme highlights include:

• Jürgen Knoblich speaking about neural stem cells and brain development in Drosophila and humans.

• Yoshihiro Kawaoka discussing how to quell the impact of the influenza virus in his talk Why influenza kills and will kill again.

• Award-winning Australian writer Cordelia Fine, a psychologist with interests in neuroscience and gender, speaking in the Women in Science session.

• Vishva Dixit, Vice President of Physiological Chemistry at Genentech, part of the Roche Group, and Adjunct Professor at the University of California, San Francisco discussing the role of ubiquitin signalling in cancer.

• Christopher McKay, planetary scientist with the Space Science Division of NASA, delivering an update about the Mars Curiosity Rover in The Special Lecture Is there life on other planets?

The full programme can be viewed at www.the-embo-meeting.org.

Online press registration and more information for journalists are available at: www.the-embo-meeting.org/press.html. The link to the Abstract Book will be emailed to registered participants and journalists a week before the conference starts. Interviews can be arranged with speakers prior to the conference or on site. A dedicated press room can be found in room G101 on the first floor of the Amsterdam RAI.

Sir Michael Stratton, Director of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Kári Stefánsson, Chief Executive Officer of deCODE Genetics, and Thijn Brummelkamp, Group Leader at the Netherlands Cancer Institute and winner of the 2013 EMBO Gold Medal, will discuss The Future of Cancer Genomics in an exclusive press conference for journalists and science writers from 11-12 am on Monday 23 September.

On the same day, Anne Glover, Chief Scientific Adviser to José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, will be talking to journalists in a Meet the Press event at 6.00 pm.

Sessions on epigenetics, vaccines, stem cell signalling and European science policy are also part of the programme for The EMBO Meeting.

The EMBO Meeting first took place in Amsterdam in 2009, when the conference attracted more than 1300 participants from 50 countries. Attendees at this year's meeting will include researchers at all stages of their scientific career. Policy makers, editors, career advisors, journalists, science bloggers and exhibitors from industry will also be attending the conference.

The EMBO Meeting 2013 will offer plenaries and concurrent sessions by first-rate speakers. Media participants will have multiple opportunities to cover news and also gather ideas for future stories:

• At a keynote lecture at 9:00am on Monday, 23 September, Hans Clevers will discuss the challenges in identifying and targeting tumour stem cells (Lgr5 stem cells in self-renewal and cancer).
• The Women in Science session features award-winning Australian writer Cordelia Fine, a psychologist with interests in neuroscience and gender. Her latest book, Delusions of gender: The real science behind sex differences, was short-listed for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Non-Fiction, the Best Book of Ideas Prize 2011 and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize 2010.
• The Special Lecture explores the question Is there life on other planets? Christopher McKay who is Planetary Scientist with the Space Science Division of NASA, will deliver an update about the Mars Curiosity Rover.
• The role of ubiquitin signalling in cancer is the topic of Vishva Dixit, Vice President of Physiological Chemistry at Genentech, part of the Roche Group, and Adjunct Professor at the University of California, San Francisco.
• Albert Osterhaus is one of the speakers at the concurrent session on vaccines on Tuesday 24 September from 9-11 am. His team played an important role in the identification of the SARS virus in the Hong Kong outbreak in 2002 and was one of the first to identify human infection with the avian influenza strain H5N1.

The full programme can be viewed at www.the-embo-meeting.org. Online press registration and more information for journalists is available at: www.the-embo-meeting.org/press.html. The Abstract Book will be emailed to registered participants and journalists two weeks before the conference starts. Interview opportunities can be arranged prior to the conference or on site, beginning on Saturday evening after the opening address.

The EMBO Meeting is an annual conference that offers a forum for the exchange of scientific ideas on topics that cover the entire range of the life sciences.