The ‘Hidden Cell, Dark Genome’ conference will be held in Edinburgh on the 2-4th April 2025
This international conference is inspired by the combined aims of the Wellcome Discovery Research Platform for Hidden Cell Biology and MRC Human Genetics Unit at the University of Edinburgh in uncovering currently hidden areas of genetics, cellular and structural biology. It will provide a forum to present cutting-edge research, and to discuss how novel approaches and methodologies will make substantial breakthroughs in these critical areas of biology. Specifically, it will focus on the following challenge areas:
- Regulatory functions of the dark genome,
- Uncharted proteins and RNA complexity,
- Atomic structures at the cellular scale, and
- Cellular diversity
The conference will open with a drinks reception and a public-facing lecture on the evening of 2nd April. There will then be scientific sessions over two days covering the above challenge areas. The conference will then conclude on the afternoon of the 4th April with a discussion session led by all keynote speakers on how the challenges of the hidden cell and dark genome may be overcome in the coming years and decades.
Update: Hidden Cell, Dark Genome programme now available – see bottom of the page.
Deadline for registrations, 12pm Friday 21st March 2025!
Wednesday 2nd April 2025
Evening public-facing lecture
Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh
Thursday 3rd - Friday 4th April 2025
‘Hidden Cell, Dark Genome’ Conference
John McIntyre Conference Centre
Keynote Speakers
Our invited speakers will lead discussions on our conference themes of Regulatory functions of the dark genome, Uncharted proteins and RNA complexity, Atomic structures at the cellular scale, and Exploring cellular diversity.
Kat Arney
Kat Arney will deliver a public-facing keynote lecture as the opening event of the conference. Kat is an award-winning science communicator and the author of the ‘How to Code a Human’, ‘Herding Hemingway’s Cats’ and ‘Rebel Cell’ books. She has also hosted the ‘Genetics Unzipped’ podcast from The Genetics Society and fronted several BBC Radio 4 science documentaries. Booking required.
Contact
Contact us at: hcdg2025@ed.ac.uk
Organisers
Wendy Bickmore, Adele Marston, Shipra Bhatia, Owen Davies, Georg Kustatscher and Hannah Long.
Sponsors
We are grateful to our sponsors for supporting HCDG2025.
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)
Hidden Cell, Dark Genome Programme
Day 1 – Wednesday 2nd April 2025
- 18.00 - Public lecture delivered by Dr Kat Arney
- 19.00 - Drinks reception
Day 2 – Thursday 3rd April 2025
- 09.00 – Registration with pastries, tea and coffee
Session 1 – Regulatory functions of the dark genome
Pentland Chair: Hannah Long
- 09.30 - Welcome – Wendy Bickmore and Adele Marston
- 09.45 - KEYNOTE: Emily Wong 'Studying cell-type specific enhancers using machine learning: lessons and opportunities'
- 10.15 - Michael Robson 'Reconfiguration of genome-lamina interactions marks the commissioning of limb cell-fates'
- 10.30 - Elias Friman 'The impact of loop extrusion dynamics on enhancer-driven gene activation'
- 10.45 - Cei Abreu-Goodger 'Evolution of transposable elements as the source of extracellular RNA'
- 11.00 - Kirsty Uttley, with sponsor talk from QIAGEN 'Defining key sequence features of SOX9 structural elements in locus topology and transcriptional regulation'
- 11.15 - Tea, coffee and biscuits
Session 2 – RNA complexity
Pentland Chair: Shipra Bhatia
- 11.45 - KEYNOTE: Manuel Irimia - 'Proteome specialization by cell type specific microexons in health, disease and evolution'
- 12.15 - Julie Aspden 'Discovery and characterisation of novel peptides translated from neuronal long non-coding RNAs'
- 12.30 - Ansgar Zoch 'C19ORF84 connects piRNA and DNA methylation machineries to defend the mammalian germline'
- 12.45 - Ferenc Mueller 'Transcription initiation site selection diversifies and defines posttranscriptional mRNA fate'
- 13.00 - Andrea Weisse 'The role of RNA repair in transient resistance to ribosome-targeting antibiotics'
- 13.15 - Sponsor talk from Biochemical Society
- 13.20 - Lunch (posters available to view in Prestonfield and Salisbury)
Session 3 – Uncharted proteins
Pentland Chair: Georg Kustatscher
- 14.30 - KEYNOTE: Sean Munro – ‘Approaches to assigning functions to the unknome'
- 15.00 - Melania D’Angiolo 'Functional profiling of unknown fission yeast genes reveals novel mitochondrial players'
- 15.15 - Simon Biddie 'Isoform-specific protein coding variants in human disease'
- 15.30 - James Wright 'Where no peptide has gone before: Boldly exploring ‘Dark’ Non-Canonical Cancer Peptides'
- 15.45 - Jonathan Mudge 'An international community effort to elucidate non-canonical translation and the dark proteome'
- 16.00 - Poster flash talks
- 16.30 - Tea, coffee and cakes / Poster session – Prestonfield and Salisbury
- 19.00 - Conference dinner – South Hall
Day 3 – Friday 4th April 2025
08.45 - Pastries, tea and coffee
Session 4 – Cellular diversity
Pentland Chair: Adele Marston
- 09.15 - KEYNOTE: Sarah Teichmann - ‘Cells, Tissues & Organs: assembling the Human Cell Atlas’
- 09.45 - Jana Travnickova 'Role of cancer-associated fibroblasts in melanoma residual disease'
- 10.00 - Gerard Pieper 'Defining the composition of vertebrate meiotic kinetochores'
- 10.15 - Lucas Guirardel 'Mapping transcriptomes to variant effects with deep learning'
- 10.30 - FRAGILE NUCLEOSOME SPECIAL LECTURE: Christine Cucinotta - ‘Waking up quiescent genomes’
- 11.00 - Photo on the terrace followed by tea, coffee and biscuits
Session 5 – Atomic structures at the cellular scale
Pentland Chair: Owen Davies
- 11.30 - KEYNOTE: Wolfgang Baumeister - ‘Cryo-electron tomography: The power of seeing the whole picture’
- 12.00 - Martin Singleton 'Electron Microscopy for Exploring the Cell'
- 12.05 - Priya Crosby 'How cells keep time: Biochemical mechanisms of circadian rhythmicity'
- 12.25 - Ane Valera 'Exploring the activity of the SPARC complex and its PTMs binding domains'
- 12:40 - Kyle Muir 'Wrapping up genome segregation: assembly of a nucleosome-like particle by the human inner kinetochore'
- 13.00 - Sponsor talk from Active Motif
- 13.05 - Lunch
Session 6 – Discussion session, led by the organisers and invited speakers
Pentland Chairs: Wendy Bickmore and Shipra Bhatia
- 14.15 - Hidden cell, Dark genome – Discussion Session (Lead by the organisers and invited keynote speakers)
- 15.15 - Tea, coffee and cakes
- 15.35 - Networking research talks - Pentland
- 16.15 - Announcement of poster and speaker prizes
- 16.30 - Beer, wine and soft drinks with networking
- 18.00 - End of the meeting
This article was published on