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 and coffee
Session 1 – Regulatory functions of the dark genome
- 09.30 – Welcome
- 09.45 – Emily Wong - ‘Studying cell-type specific enhancers using machine learning: lessons and opportunities’
- 10.15 – Talk 1 (to be selected from abstracts)
- 10.30 – Talk 2 (to be selected from abstracts)
- 10.45 – Talk 3 (to be selected from abstracts)
- 11.00 – Talk 4 – cutting-edge methodologies (to be selected from abstracts)
- 11.15 – Coffee break
Session 2 – RNA complexity
- 11.45 – Manuel Irimia - 'Proteome specialization by cell type specific microexons in health, disease and evolution'
- 12.15 – Talk 1 (to be selected from abstracts)
- 12.30 – Talk 2 (to be selected from abstracts)
- 12.45 – Talk 3 (to be selected from abstracts)
- 13.00 – Talk 4 – cutting-edge methodologies
- 13.15 – Lunch (posters available to view)
Session 3 – Uncharted proteins
- 14.30 – Sean Munro – ‘Approaches to assigning functions to the unknome’
- 15.00 – Talk 1 (to be selected from abstracts)
- 15.15 – Talk 2 (to be selected from abstracts)
- 15.30 – Talk 3 (to be selected from abstracts)
- 15.45 – Talk 4 – cutting-edge methodologies (to be selected from abstracts)
- 16.00 – Poster flash talks
- 16.30 – Poster session and drinks
- 19.00 – Conference dinner
Day 3 – Friday 4th April 2025
Session 4 – Cellular diversity
- 09.15 – Sarah Teichmann - ‘Cells, Tissues & Organs: assembling the Human Cell Atlas’
- 09.45 – Talk 1 (to be selected from abstracts)
- 10.00 – Talk 2 (to be selected from abstracts)
- 10.15 – Talk 3 – cutting-edge methodologies (to be selected from abstracts)
- 10.30 – Christine Cucinotta - ‘Waking up quiescent genomes’, sponsored by the Fragile Nucleosome
- 11.00 – Coffee break
Session 5 – Atomic structures at the cellular scale
- 11.30 – Wolfgang Baumeister - ‘Cryo-electron tomography: The power of seeing the whole picture’
- 12.00 – Talk 1 (to be selected from abstracts)
- 12.15 – Talk 2 (to be selected from abstracts)
- 12.30 – Talk 3 (to be selected from abstracts)
- 12:45 – Talk 4 – cutting-edge methodologies (to be selected from abstracts)
- 13.00 – Lunch
Session 6 – Discussion session, led by the organisers and invited speakers
- 14.15 – 14.45 Hidden cell
- 14.45 – 15.15 Dark genome
- 15.15 – Concluding remarks & prizes
- 15.30 – Close to general meeting
Networking event
- 15.45 – 18.00 Drinks, networking session and research flash talks
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