The diverese program of the 6th ÖGBMT Annual Meeting featured 7 plenary speakers, a further 40 invited speakers and 61 short talks, held in a manner of 14 themed sessions, which covered the entire range of bioscientific research fields:

Bioengineering & Synthetic Biology – Bioresources – Cancer – Chromatin & Epigenetics – Entrepreneurship - Glycobiology – Immunology & Allergology - Infectiology – Molecular Diagnostics – Plant Biology & Biotechnology - Science in Biotech Companies – Signaling – Structural Biology & Bioinformatics -
Translational Biotechnology - Translational Systems Medicine – Biophysics

Click image to download Abstractbook as PDF (4.8MB)

Plenary Speakers

The scientific program was spear-headed by a heterogenic group of top researchers from various backgrounds and fields within the bioscientific sphere. Austrias top-tier was represented by Pascale Ehrenfreund (FWF), who concluded the first conference day with a spectacular lecture about biological life in space, and Jürgen Knoblich (IMBA), who presented his findings on neural stem cells and the creation of miniature artifical brains. International invitees like Peter Tompa (Flanders Institute for Biotechnology) and Jan Tavernier (Ugent/VIB) from Belgium, Stefan H.E. Kuafmann of the Max Planck Institue for Infection Biology (Germany) and Pieter Dorrestein from UCSD (USA) – creator of “Google-Map streetview”-like applicatons for molecular space – succesfully rounded up the broad spectrum.

Program Overview

The many faces of Life Science

To delve deeper into the many facets of biosciences, many renowned speakers from the Austrian Life Science scene were invited to particpate. The following speakers contributed to the 14 concurrent sessions - each featuring four topically related talks – sharing detailled infromation about their own research. Abstracts of the respective lectures – as well as all other short talks held at the meeting - can be found in the Abstract Book, which is available for Download here.

Another scientific perspective was added by the poster session and walks: 220 Posters were submitted, with young scientists in particular using the opportunity to promote their research for the first time in front of an interested, like-minded audience - which was also engaged by several school students invited in the OpenScience project  – and as a smooth conversation starter during social breaks.

The Entrepreneurial Adventure

The strong focus on entrepreneurship was apparent in the session assigned to Science in Biotech Companies, chaired by Michael Bergmann and featuring invited speakers Tilmann Bürckstümmer (Haplogen Genomics, Austria), Thomas Felzmann (Activartis Biotech GmbH, Austria), Dorothee Holm-von Laer (ViraTherapeutics GmbH, Austria), Lukas Paul (Lexogen GmbH, Austria) and Patrick Sagmeister (Exputec GmbH, Austria). The following Entrepreneurship-Track allowed attendees an intimate look at the Ups and Downs in the lifes of young entrepeneurs like Frederik Debong (mySugr GmbH, Austria). Sanja Selak (ORIGIMM Biotechnology GmbH, Austria), Franz Obermayer (Panoptes Pharma GmbH, Austria) and Karl Skriner (DRDX GmbH, Germany).

Rounding up the links between Life Sciences and Entrepreneurship, Irene Fialka (INits) and Rudolf Dömötör (WU, ECNetwork) - who were responsible for establishing the cooperation with ÖGMBT along with Joachim Seipelt (AWS) - held an interesting podium discussion to conclude upon the acquired perspectves. Irene Fialka seemed content with the outcome of this years focus, summing up the project accordingly:

„The 4 Entrepreneurs presented their personal stories and answered many questions from the audience that participated in the discussion very actively. That the entrepreneurship track seemed to be one of the most interesting topics was shown by the highest number of registrations amongst the breakout sessions. Despite the difference of personalities, technologies and diseases adressed there was common sense: about the importance of the definition of goals to be prepared for the roller coaster, how much fun it is to be entrepreneur and how high the learning curve. On top of all that, failure would not stop all four speakers from starting it all over again as it is part of the (ad)venture.“