We recently wrapped up our mid-term evaluation and first annual retreat in Herrsching, Germany. It was a productive few days dedicated to advancing our research, strengthening collaborations, and mapping out the future of our project.
The agenda reflected the depth and breadth of our network’s expertise:
- Roadmap: Our coordinator, Rumiana Dimova, provided a comprehensive summary of our collective accomplishments alongside a clear strategy for our next goals.
- Fellow Presentations: Our fellows delivered excellent overviews of their current research and progress. They also shared their scientific progress in engaging poster sessions.
- SAB Lecture: We had the privilege of hearing from two members of our Scientific Advisory Board. Roman Jerala presented on “Modular coiled-coil design as a platform for programmable protein architecture and cell regulation”; and Kate Adamala shared insights on “Communication, sensing, and other smart things synthetic cells can do”.
- PIs Talk: We benefited from insightful presentations by two of our PIs. Oskar Staufer, lead beneficiary for the Work Package “Applications,” shared his insights on “Synthetic Cells in Biomedicine.” Following this, Bert Poolman, lead beneficiary of our “Blocks” Work Package, explored the question, “How minimal can an energy conserving module be?”
We were also pleased to welcome our Project Officer, from the European Research Executive Agency, to the event. The opportunity to discuss our progress and receive her direct feedback was incredibly valuable. We are highly encouraged by her positive assessment and look forward to maintaining this strong momentum moving forward.
Thank you to all the participants for their engagement and contributions. We remain deeply grateful for the support of the MSCA funding program, which enables us to pursue high-impact research in synthetic biology, membranes and condensates.
