Cell News 04/2018
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to the former Cistercian monastery. The four excellent keynote
speakers from Switzerland, USA, France, and Germany as well
as the enthusiastic participants significantly contributed to the
success of the workshop. We were extremely satisfied that stu-
dents actively participated in the lively discussions with their
colleagues including the keynote speakers.
The workshop opened with the inspiring keynote lecture “The
bunyavirus envelope glycoprotein and evolutionary relations
with other membrane-fusogenic proteins” given by Prof.
Félix Rey from the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France. Prof. Rey
dedicated his career to studying the structure of viral envelope
proteins. His work is an excellent illustration of how viruses
can contribute to improve our understanding of complex cell
biological processes. During his keynote, Prof. Rey highlighted
the various class-II fusion proteins that viruses use to pene-
trate cells and drew parallels with host cell-encoded fusion
proteins involved in developmental biology.
Prof. Gisou van der Goot from the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland gave the second enlight-
ening keynote, entitled “Function and regulation of protein
palmitoylation”. Prof. van der Goot investigates molecular
mechanisms of palmitoylation and discussed the role of this
reversible post-translational modification in the intracellular
trafficking of bacterial toxins and host proteins.
The third exciting keynote, “Dynamic organelle remodeling as
a herpesvirus replication strategy”, was given by Prof. Ileana
Cristea from the University of Princeton, USA. Prof. Cristea
started her lecture by introducing herpesviruses with a special
accent on the viral replication. She put a particular emphasis
on exciting new OMICS approaches developed in her group. In
particular she showed that mass spectrometry based profiling
of posttranslational modifications can help understand how
herpesviruses subvert the host cellular machinery and remodel
organelles during infection.
Prof. Kai Grünewald from the Centre for Structural Systems
Biology, Hamburg, Germany, gave the final keynote on “Struc-
tural cell biology of virus-host interactions”. He beautifully
described latest cutting-edge electron microscopy approaches.
Prof. Grünewald then explained how state-of-the-art imaging
methods such as super resolution CLEM can improve our un-
derstanding of the virus life cycle at the molecular level, using
herpesviruses as main example.
This year, for the second time a short interactive session on sci-
entific editing was organized. Ms. Jasmin Bakker, an associate
editor at the Journal of Molecular Biology (Elsevier publishing
group), gave an entertaining and insightful talk on the editorial
process and pitfalls during manuscript submission. This provid-
ed an excellent platform for students to interactively discuss
questions regarding the submission of their scientific work to
international peer-reviewed journals.
Among the many excellent student presentations, the prize
committee had the hard task to select two prize winners. Dr.
Melina Vallbracht from the group of Dr. Barbara Klupp and
Prof. Dr. Thomas Mettenleiter at the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut
in Greifswald-Insel Riems was awarded the prize for the best
oral presentation with the title “Structure based functional
analysis of the Pseudorabies virus gB fusion loops”.
Due to the high numbers of registrations, the 2018 workshop
featured a poster session in addition to the oral communica-
tions. The poster session was extremely well attended with
many fruitful discussions in a friendly environment. Ms. Jana
Koch from the lab of Dr. Pierre-Yves Lozach at the University of
Heidelberg received the award for the best poster presentation
for her work on the “Cell biology of Toscana virus entry”.
According to immediate feedback from participants ranging
from students to keynote speakers, everybody praised the high
quality of all presentations, the friendly and engaging dis-
cussions that lasted until the last glass of wine. In particular
the students appreciated the feedback on their work and new
insights into other topics in Cell Biology of Viral Infections.
The organizers would like to thank the German Society for
Cell Biology (DGZ) and the Society for Virology (GfV) for their
support. The workshop would also not have been possible with-
out generous contributions from the Chica and Heinz Schaller
(CHS) Foundation as well as the companies ReBlikon and the
Journal of Molecular Biology.
We already look forward to the 18th annual workshop, which
will be held again at the Kloster Schöntal, October 23rd–25th
2019, with the new exciting theme, “Cell biology of zoonotic
viral infections: from reservoirs to humans”. More information
and updates can be found on the workshop’s website (www.
gfv-cellviro.de).
MEETING REPORT
