Cell News 3
&
4/2016
18
The first day concluded with a relaxed social gathering for all
participants, hosted by the University of Leipzig's BuildMoNa
graduate school. Typical German barbeque was provided to
all attendees, and the even gave everybody several hours to
continue discussions from earlier talks, formulate plans for
new joint projects, or most beneficially, exchange career advice
and experiences from the more experienced researchers to the
many students in attendance.
October 5th (Wednesday)
The second day featured an extended two-session coverage
of the topic Membranes and the Cytoskeleton. Highlights of
the opening session included a fascinating range of results
shown by University of Maryland professor Wolfgang Losert on
advanced techniques for the quantitative imaging of inter-
nal cytoskeletal dynamics and migratory behavior of single
cells. Utilizing these methods, the effect of surface topologies
such as sawtooth ridges could be quantified, and control over
different active properties of cells such as direction or speed
could be attained by altering the height or angle of the ridges.
Prof. Sarah Köster followed with an in-depth overview of her
group's work during at Georg-August-University of Göttin-
gen during recent years of using a wide survey of biophysical
methods to uncover the structure and function of intermedi-
ate filaments such as keratin and vimentin in cells. The early
session closed with a contributed presentation from Dimitar
Stamov, a staff scientist at JPK Instruments, one of the longest
sponsoring partners of PoC. He presented a stunning collection
of data acquired in their application laboratories or through
users of their instruments, detailing, in real-time, the active re-
organization of membrane and internal cytoskeleton structures
through nanometer-resolution atomic force microscopy (AFM)
experiments.
The late morning session continued the general theme,
although with fascinating interludes into the importance of
active cytoskeleton functions even apart from cancer. To open
the session, Cambridge University group leader Kristian Franze
gave an inspirational presentation on the connection bet-
ween active sensing of substrate mechanics and neurogenesis
(Figure 2). By tuning the mechanical stiffness of the underly-
ing material, neuronal axons can either enter a state of rapid
growth (stiff substrate) or stationary behavior (soft substrate).
In the latter, the axons tended to form synaptic connections
with neighboring dendrites. Remarkably, this characteristic
was shown in vivo through tracking the growth of individual
neurons in the developing Xenopus brain, which was directly
correlated with mechanical measurements of the local brain
tissue as shown by AFM measurements. Later in the session,
Prof. Jung-Joon Min from the Chonnam National University
Hwasun Hospital in South Korea gave a historical overview as
well as details of his own group's recent results on the use of
engineered bacteria as targeted agents for cancer theranostics.
While seemingly forgotten for many decades, Prof. Min showed
that the use of bacteria offer a surprisingly elegant road to
cancer therapy. His group's recent work demonstrated a natu-
ral targeting mechanism due to the "leaky" structure of tumor
vasculature, and their local stimulation of the immune system
acts as a natural immunotherapy which was shown to elimina-
te tumor growth.
The session was followed by an extended poster session, fea-
turing a total of 36 registered posters from students, post-docs
and other participants. Several hours were left for discussions,
and provided another chance for younger researchers to mix
with the seasoned experts to discuss their projects and general
approaches to the pursuit of scientific discovery. Later in
the evening, the invited speakers were all invited to Leipzig's
historical restaurant Auerbach's Keller, purported to be one
of the five most famous restaurants in the world due to its
connection to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's classic tragic
play Faust. An excellent multi-course meal was combined with
a lively presentation of the colorful history and legends of the
centuries-old restaurant by restaurant's master of ceremonies.
The evening concluded with a small bit of athletic activity, as
the participants were encouraged to make the climb upon the
restaurant's 500+ year-old wine keg, as has been tradition
since the days of Goethe in the late 1700s. The restaurant's
master of ceremonies explained that the world record for the
number of people balanced upon the wine keg was 36, which
was well beyond what the PoC participants were able to achie-
ve (Figure 3).
October 6th (Thursday)
The final morning, dedicated to Cell Migration in Cancer star-
ted with a presentation from University of Erlangen's Ben Fab-
ry, detailing the use of several custom-developed analytical
MEETING REPORT
