‘Sweeping across the vast scope of biological sciences, a rapidly accumulating body of evidence now supports the hypothesis that the liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS)–a class of phase transition–is a universal biological strategy: it allows for a facile, rapid, and dynamic association of disparate biomolecules to facilitate, regulate, and control diverse functions of the living system in space and time, both inside and outside the cell in response to changes in their environmental conditions. In other words, LLPS enables a heretofore unrecognized level of functional organization–one which resides between the level of individual proteins and that of a whole living cell–reverberating across all of biology: the emergence of “organelle on demand” in space and time. Implicit in the LLPS hypothesis is the emphasis on the molecular collective: it shifts the focus from single molecules, championed in the past decades by the spectacularly successful reductionist molecular biology, to dynamic compartmentalization produced by LLPS. It thus places the questions of spatio-temporal organization, complex properties, and emergent behaviors of collections of molecules at the center-stage in the workings of a living cell. In parallel, the cooperative strategy of LLPS in living systems is being exploited to reprogram cellular responsiveness to demanding environments, and to develop new principles for biomedical applications, including stimuli-responsive carriers in therapeutic treatments, intra/extra-cellular biosensors, wet adhesives for tissue repair, and micro-droplets for cell-free gene expression, among other promising translational applications.

Phase Separation Regulated Life, In and Outside of Cells’ is a 3-day research workshop to be held in Singapore during 1-3 March 2023 and will feature talks from the leading experts in the area of liquid liquid phase separation (LLPS)/coacervation in life and physical sciences. The workshop is organised jointly by faculty from SBS and MSE at NTU and is primarily funded by the Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE) and NTU.

The program schedule features a distinguished list of speakers including 16 overseas speakers and keynote presentations from Ashutosh Chilkoti (Duke University, USA), Manajit Hayer-Hartl (Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Germany) and Rohit Pappu (Washington University in St. Louis, USA). For those interested in phase-separation research, the workshop is a good opportunity to learn about the recent advances in the field while also giving the participants a chance to meet and network with fellow-researchers. PhD students and postdocs working in the field of phase-separation are likely to benefit the most from this workshop.

Participants will have the opportunity to share and showcase their research at the workshop via short talks and/or poster presentations by submitting their research abstract during the online registration process. Please visit the event website at www.LLPSworkshop.com for more info. The workshop is limited to 200 participants and early-bird pricing for registration ends on 1^st Feb 2023.