We will celebrate our 20 years of existence. The Symposium will honor life sciences in the context of a technical university; reflect on the key developments in the last 20 years in life sciences; and look out to the next two decades of opportunities of multidisciplinary life sciences, bioengineering and the impact of our work on society.

Session 1 | Cell biology and mechanics

• Buzz Baum – Evolution of cell division: from archaea to eukaryotes
• Julie Theriot – Mechanics of cell migration
• Sophie Martin – Mechanisms of cell-cell fusion
• David van Valen – Everything as code

Session 2 | Stem cells and cancer genomics

• Fiona Doetsch – Stem cells in the adult brain: Regulation and diversity
• Michelle Monje – Neuron-glial interactions in health and disease: From cognition to cancer
• Mike Stratton – Mutational processes in normal human tissue

Session 3 | Organisms navigating a changing environment

• Moi Expósito-Alonso – The genomics of climate adaptation (and extinction)
• Leslie Vosshall – Neurobiology of the world’s most dangerous animal
• Manu Prakash
• Ken Oye – Governing risks and benefits of biotechnology: Exemplary cases and cautionary tales

• Session 4 | From the origin of animals to brain function

• Nicole King – A history of hypotheses on the origin of animals
• Caroline Uhler – Causality, perturbations, gene regulation, and drug repurposing
• Rafael Yuste – Can you see a thought? Neuronal ensembles as emergent units of cortical function

Session 5 | Deciphering sub-cellular assemblies

• Tony Hyman – Biomolecular condensates and their implications for cell physiology (remote tbc)
• Gaia Pigino – Structural cell biology of cilia and eukaryotic flagella
• Ron Vale – Structure of the sperm axoneme
• Melina Schuh – Illuminating the beginning of life (remote)

Session 6 | Embryogenesis and animal evolution

• Barbara Treutlein – Human organoid development through the lens of single-cell technologies
• Pavel Tomancak – Evolution of morphogenesis
• Sean Carroll – Butterfly Spots and Rattlesnake Tales: The Evolution of Novelty

Session 7 | Immunity and microbiota

• Lluis Quintana-Murci – Darwin meets Pasteur: evolutionary genetics dissection of human immunity
• Joel Doré – Host-Microbes symbiosis in human nutrition and medicine
• Eran Elinav – Host microbiome interactions in health and disease

Session 8 | Engineering biological systems

• Ed Boyden – Optical tools for analyzing and controlling biological systems
• Cori Bargmann – Integrating behavior across timescales (remote)
• Michael Elowitz – Multicellular circuit design: natural and synthetic