Monday, July 7, 2025
7:45 – 18:30
Registration/Information
8:45 – 9:00
Welcome and Opening Remarks
Session I: Lipid Sensing and Homeostasis
Ilya Levental, University of Virginia, USA, Chair
9:00 – 9:20
Itay Budin, University of California, San Diego, USA
Title TBD
9:20 – 9:40
Robert Ernst, University of Saarland, Germany
Membrane Property Sensors for Membrane Homeostasis and Adaptation
9:40 – 10:00
Maria Laura Fanani, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina
Bioactive Amphiphiles and Lipid Membranes: Unraveling the Biophysical Foundations of Functional Interactions
10:00 – 10:15
Camilo Aponte-Santamaria, Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Germany *
Staphyloxanthin Modifies the Structure of Bacterial-Model Phosphoglycerol Membranes
10:15 – 10:30
Round Table Discussion
10:30 – 11:00
Coffee Break
Session II: Consequences of Lipid Asymmetry
Frederick Heberle, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA, Chair
11:00 – 11:20
Andre Nadler, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Germany
Title TBD
11:20 – 11:40
Erwin London, Stony Brook University, USA
Constitutive Plasma Membrane Raft Formation in Both Exponential and Stationary Growth Phase Saccharomyces Cerevisiae and Other Fungi: Relationship to Vacuolar Rafts
11:40 – 12:00
Milka Doktorova, University of Stockholm, Sweden
Phospholipid Number Imbalance: An Emerging New Angle of Plasma Membrane Organization
12:00 – 12:15
Rana Ashkar, Virginia Tech, USA *
Unified Laws of Membrane Elasticity: From Fundamental Principles to Practical Applications
12:15 – 12:30
Round Table Discussion
12:30 – 13:30
Lunch
Session III: Sterols and Hopanoids as Membrane Masters
James Saenz, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany, Chair
13:30 – 13:50
Arun Radhakrishnan, UT Southwestern Medical Center, USA
Chemical Activity of Cholesterol in Membranes
13:50 – 14:10
James Saenz, Technosphere Universität Dresden, Germany
Hopanoids and the Evolution of Lipid Ordering
14:10 – 14:30
Alex Sodt, NIH, USA
Membrane Mechanical Effect of Small Changes in Lipid and Sterol Chemical Structure
14:30 – 14:45
Ankur Gupta, University of Copenhagen, Denmark *
Exploiting Plasma Membrane Heterogeneity to Delineate Molecular Mechanisms of GPCR Potency and Efficacy
14:45 – 15:00
Round Table Discussion
15:00 – 17:00
Poster Session I
Session IV: Special Symposium on the Science of Luis Bagatolli
John Ipsen, Copenhagen University, Denmark, Chair
13:30 – 13:50
Adam Cohen Simonsen, University of Southern Denmark *
Synergy Between Membrane Curvature and Area Expansion in A Mechanism of Plasma Membrane Repair
17:15 – 17:30
Yannick Azhri Din Omar, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA *
Beyond Saffman–Delbrück Theory: Diffusion of Membrane Protein Aggregates
17:30 – 17:50
Lionel Malacrida, Institut Pasteur de Montevideo, Uruguay
The Phasor Approach for Studying Cellular Complexity with Dan Probes in Membranes and Cellular Crowding: Persuading Luis Constituted a Remarkable Journey Spanning Over a Decade of Friendship
17:50 – 18:10
Natalia Wilke, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina
The Selectivity of the Antimicrobial Peptide Mp1 Is Controlled by Multiple Membrane Factors
18:10 – 18:25
Johannes Thoma, University of Gothenburg, Sweden *
In-Situ Structure of the Bacterial Outer Membrane Protein A
18:25 – 18:40
Round Table Discussion
Tuesday, July 8, 2025
8:30 – 17:00
Registration/Information
Session V: Advances in Modeling Biomembranes
Edward Lyman, University of Delaware, USA, Chair
9:00 – 9:20
Mario del Popolo, ICB-CONICET, Argentina
Theoretical Insights into the Membrane Adsorption of Ph-Sensitive Peptides: Influence of Lipid Acidity on Binding Mechanisms
9:20 – 9:40
Naomi Oppenheimer, Tel Aviv University, Israel
Flow, Friction, and Elasticity: Theoretical Insights into Membrane Mechanics
9:40 – 10:00
Mark Uline, University of South Carolina, USA
Using Molecular Field Theories to Study Plasma Membrane Complexity
10:00 – 10:15
Yuka Sakuma, Tohoku University, USA *
Long-Range Membrane Viscosity of Living Cell
10:15 – 10:30
Round Table Discussion
10:30 – 11:00
Coffee Break
Session VI: Engineering Lipid Metabolism in Microbiology
TBD, Chair
11:00 – 11:15
Carolyn Shurer, University of Virginia, USA *
Probing Biophysical Paralipidomes: A Novel Toolbox for Studying Lipid Nano-Environments in Live Cells
11:15 – 11:30
Raya Sorkin, Tel Aviv University, Isreal *
Pressure-Dependent Tension Propagation in Crumpled Cell Membranes
11:30 – 11:50
Diego de Mendoza, IBR-CONICET, Argentina
The Role of Lipid Environment in Membrane Protein Signaling and Catalysis
11:50 – 12:10
Chad Leidy, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia
The Membrane of Staphylococcus Aureus: Modulation of Membrane Biophysical Properties and the Inhibition of Antimicrobial Peptide Activity
12:10 – 12:25
Anand Srivastava, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India *
Soft Dynamic Channels in Liquid Ordered Lipid Membrane
12:25 – 12:40
Round Table Discussion
12:40 – 13:30
Lunch
Session VII: Lipidomic Complexity and Engineering
Sarah Keller, University of Washington, USA, Chair
13:30 – 13:50
Maria Makarova, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
Title TBD
13:50 – 14:10
Takeshi Harayama, CNRS-IPMC, France
Regulation of Plasma Membrane Organization by Lipid Tail Lengths
14:10 – 14:30
Isabella Graf, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Germany
Critical Behavior in Multicomponent Mixtures with Structured Interactions: From Tuning to Function
14:30 – 14:45
Sergei Sukharev, University of Maryland, USA *
On the Lipid Dependence of Bacterial Mechanosensitive Channels Gating
14:45 – 15:00
Round Table Discussion
15:00 – 17:00
Poster Session II
Wednesday, July 9, 2025
8:30 – 12:30
Registration/Information
8:45 – 9:00
Welcome and Opening Remarks
Session VIII: Protein Regulation by Lipids
Sarah Veatch, University of Michigan, USA, Chair
9:00 – 9:20
Karen Fleming, Johns Hopkins University, USA
The Lipid Bilayer Modulates Membrane Protein Energetics
9:20 – 9:40
Matt Eddy, University of Florida, USA
Mechanisms of Lipid-Driven GPCR Activation
9:40 – 10:00
Anna Duncan, Aarhus University, Denmark
Protein-Lipid Interactions in Complex Crowded Membranes
10:00 – 10:15
Chin Fen Teo, University of California, San Francisco, USA *
A Cell-Based Scrambling Assay Reveals Phospholipid Headgroup Preference of Tmem16f on the Plasma Membrane
10:15 – 10:30
Round Table Discussion
10:30 – 11:00
Coffee Break
Session IX: Membrane Mechanobiology
Juan Vanegas, Oregon State University, USA, Chair
11:00 – 11:20
Ana Garcia-Saez, Max Planck Institute for Biophysics, Germany
Shedding New Light on Mitochondrial Permeabilization in Apoptosis
11:20 – 11:40
John Ipsen, Copenhagen University, Denmark
To See or Not to See: Lateral Organization of Biological Membranes
11:40 – 12:00
Margarita Staykova, Durham University, United Kingdom
Interstitial Hydrodynamic Instabilities Sculpt Cell Adhesions
12:00 – 12:15
Peter Kasson, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA *
Membrane Complexity in Enveloped Viral Entry: Multifactorial Effects and Hints of Emergent Phenomena
12:15 – 12:30
Round Table Discussion
12:30 – 17:00
Free Time
Thursday, July 10, 2025
8:30 – 15:00
Registration/Information
Session X: Advances in Imaging and Spectroscopy
Dylan Owen, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, Chair
9:00 – 9:20
Jay Groves, University of California, Berkeley, USA
Title TBD
9:20 – 9:40
Erdinc Sezgin, Karolinska Institute, Sweden
Biophysical Properties of Cells and Nanoscale Bioparticles as New Bi-Omarkers in Health and Disease
9:40 – 10:00
Kenichi Suzuki, Gifu University, Japan
Regulation Mechanisms of Receptor and Signaling Molecule Activities in Lipid Domains as Revealed by Single-Molecule Imaging and Super-Resolution Microscopy
10:00 – 10:15
Robert Vacha, Masaryk University, Czech Republic *
Peptide Translocation Across Asymmetric Phospholipid Membranes
10:15 – 10:30
Round Table Discussion
10:30 – 11:00
Coffee Break
Session XI: Coupling Between Cytoplasmic Condensates and Membrane Structure
Benjamin Machta, Yale University, USA, Chair
11:00 – 11:20
Jeanne Stachowiak, University of Texas at Austin, USA
Intrinsic Disorder as an Organizing Principle for Biological Membranes
11:20 – 11:40
Rumiana Dimova, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Germany
Shaping Membranes with(out) Proteins: How Simple Physicochemical Factors Drive Curvature and Remodeling
11:40 – 12:00
Siddharth Deshpande, Wageningen University, The Netherlands
Flowers, Petals & Buds: Membrane Remodeling Via Associative and Segregative Phase Separation
12:00 – 12:15
Sasiri Vargas Urbano, University of Delaware, USA *
Pressure Dependent Elastic Constants of Membranes
12:15 – 12:30
Round Table Discussion
12:30 – 13:30
Lunch
Session VII: Membrane Organization in vivo
Dimitrios Stamou, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, Chair
13:30 – 13:50
Sarah Keller, University of Washington, USA
Micron-Scale, Liquid-Liquid Phase Separation in Vacuole Membranes in Living Yeast
13:50 – 14:10
Madan Rao, National Center for Biological Sciences, NCBS, India
Title TBD
14:10 – 14:30
Anne Kenworthy, University of Virginia, USA
Biophysical Basis for Caveolae Formation and Function
14:30 – 14:45
Xueping Zhao, University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China *
Theory of Non-Dilute Binding and Surface Phase Separation Applied to Membrane-Binding Proteins
14:45 – 15:00
Round Table Discussion
15:00 – 15:30
Closing Remarks and Biophysical Journal Poster Awards
* Contributed talks selected from among submitted abstracts