Program
Venue: Van Swieten Saal of the Medical University of Vienna
Address: Van-Swieten-Gasse 1a, 1090 Vienna (see here on the map).
See the PDF version the Program Booklet here.
Print-outs of the program will be available on-site at the symposium.
Wednesday, 29 April 2026
| 08:00-09:00 | Registration and poster setup |
| 09:00-09:05 | Welcome & introduction |
| SESSION 1 | Molecular Insights into the UPS |
| 09:05-09:35 | Paul Elliott (University of Oxford, UK) |
| Specificity within the Ub/UBL conjugation pathways | |
| 09:35-09:50 | Stefan Arold (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal, SA) |
| How to awaken Striga with a hydrolytic E3 ubiquitin ligase complex | |
| 09:50-10:20 | Hemmo Meyer (University of Duisburg-Essen, DE) |
| | Loading of ubiquitylated substrates onto the VCP/p97Ufd1-Npl4 for unfolding and degradation |
| 10:20-10:35 | Thomas Hermanns (University of Cologne, DE) |
| | Transubiquitination: A new arrow on the ubiquitination map |
10:35-11:00 | Coffee break |
| 11:00-11:15 | Tânia Francisco (University of Porto, PT) |
| Uncovering a dual role for the ubiquitin-(de)conjugating enzyme UBE2D3 in the non-conventional ubiquitination of PEX5 | |
| 11:15-11:30 | Eric Kummelstedt (ETH Zurich, CH) |
| Comprehensive synthesis of K48/K63 ubiquitin pentamers by graph-empowered automation | |
11:30-12:00 | Brenda Schulman (MPI of Biochemistry, Martinsried, DE) |
| 2-RNA-factor authentication mechanism specifying a protein ubiquitylation substrate | |
| 12:00-12:30 | Flash talks 1 – odd poster numbers |
12:30-14:00 | Lunch & poster session 1 (odd numbers) – sponsored by BioDuro |
| 14:00-14:15 | Group photo |
SESSION 2 | Expanding the Ubiquitin Toolkit |
| 14:15-14:45 | Cristina Mayor-Ruiz (IRB Barcelona, ES) |
| Unlocking and decoding the chemical rewiring of E3 ubiquitin ligases | |
14:45-15:00 | Tamara Prentzell (German Cancer Research Center DKFZ, Heidelberg, DE) |
| Targeted degradation of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) using PROTAC-based strategies | |
| 15:00-15:15 | Hirokazu Arimoto (Tohoku University, Sendai, JP) |
| Autophagy-targeting chimeras: progress towards practical, autophagy-based TPD | |
15:15-15:45 | Coffee break |
| 15:45-16:00 | Mónica Pozo-Rodriguez (CIC bioGUNE, Derio, ES) |
| Development of BioDUB, a biotin-based approach to identify specific targets of deubiquitinases | |
16:00-16:15 | Johannes Bigenzahn (CeMM, and Medical University of Vienna, AT) Genetic identification of the RAS proteostatic machinery and its failure to regulate oncogenic variants |
| 16:15-16:30 | Tim Aguirre (Leiden University Medical Centre, NL) Chemically synthesized serine- and threonine-linked di-ubiquitins enable assessment of oxyester stability and sensitivity towards DUBs |
| 16:30-17:00 | Flash talks 2 – even poster numbers |
17:00-18:15 | Poster session 2 (even numbers) – sponsored by MedChemExpress |
| 18:25 | Departure to conference dinner venue: Heuriger Maly. Address: Sandgasse 8, 1190 Vienna. Transfer by public transport using tram line 38. Destination tram stop: “Grinzing”. |
Thursday, 30 April 2026
| SESSION 3 | Protein folding — Starting at the Ribosome |
| 09:00-09:30 | David Balchin (The Francis Crick Institute, London, UK) |
| Molecular logic of a chaperone generalist | |
| 09:30-09:45 | Max Seidel (EMBL Heidelberg, DE) |
| Mapping the ubiquitin code of translation: Ubiquitin selective ribosome profiling reveals the blueprint of co-translational quality control | |
| 09:45-10:15 | Juliette Fedry (MRC LMB, Cambridge, UK) |
| CryoET insights into the ribosome collision stress response | |
10:15-10:45 | Janine Kirstein (Leibniz Institute on Aging – Fritz Lipmann Institute, Jena, DE) DNAJB2a, a J-domain protein triaging proteotoxic stress |
| 10:45-11:15 | Coffee break |
| SESSION 4 | Quality Control in Cellular Compartments |
| 11:15-11:45 | Yasin Dagdas (University of Heidelberg, DE) |
| UFMylation anchors splicing factors at the ER to reprogram nuclear splicing | |
11:45-12:00 | Mihaela Pravica (University of Zagreb, HR) |
| Quiescent yeast cells maintain active degradation-mediated protein quality control through ubiquitin-proteasome system, nucleus-vacuole junctions and selective autophagy | |
12:00-12:15 | Krystof Knapp (Max Delbrück Center, Berlin, DE) |
| Synthetic cargo for functional and structural studies of autophagy initiation | |
12:15-12:30 | Gopal Jayaraj (MPI of Biochemistry, Martinsried, DE) |
| Ubiquitin signalling mediated chaperone function regulates stress-responsive nucleolar adaptation and quality control | |
12:30-12:45 | Anastasia Okun (Max Perutz Labs, Vienna, AT) |
| The role of the protein quality control machinery in Stress Granule disassembly | |
12:45-13:45 | Lunch break |
13:45-14:15 | Aakriti Jain (University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, US) Uncovering novel regulators of lysosome membrane repair |
14:15-14:30 | Delong Li (MPI of Biophysics, Frankfurt, DE) Cathepsin-dependent amyloid formation drives mechanical rupture of lysosomal membranes |
| 14:30-15:00 | Ian Ganley (MRC PPU, University of Dundee, UK) Using a kinase to compensate for loss of a ligase: Can AMPK activation be beneficial for FBXL4-related mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome? |
15:00-15:15 | Award ceremony & Closing remarks |