The Microtubule field is broad and has progressively branched out into many different subdomains that only rarely enjoy occasions to communicate. Bringing together researchers from these different domains creates novel opportunities for interactions and collaborations, and is expected to catalyse new groundbreaking ideas that could significantly advance our understanding of the microtubule cytoskeleton in health and disease.

The 2016 Microtubule Symposium coincides with the 50th anniversary of the discovery of tubulin. With an eye to history and one to the future, we will bring together representative members of the main domains of the microtubule field, ranging from structural biology, biochemistry and biophysics to cell biology, genetics and chemical biology.

Each session will include a Landmark lectures, main talks and short talks selected from poster abstracts. The Landmark lectures will provide a historical perspective on each domain, thus building a bridge between initial discoveries and current research. The main talks as well as the selected short talks will present the most exciting state‐of‐the‐art advances in the field, ideally including unpublished work. A round table discussion will also take place, in which we will explore the field’s future perspectives.

"2016 - Focus on the cytoskeleton": we expect the Microtubules Symposium together with Actin Symposium to have a strong influence on the future of cytoskeleton research.

Topics

Tubulin pharmacology
Microtubule dynamic instability
Tubulin post-translational modifications and isotypes
Tubulin and microtubule structure
Microtubules in disease
Microtubules in neurons
Microtubule motors
Microtubules in cell division
Microtubules in centrosomes, cilia, flagella
Evolutionary divergence of tubulin and microtubules
Non-motile microtubule-associated proteins
Microtubule biophysics and modelling

Extracted from MT website http://www.embo-embl-symposia.org/symposia/2016/EES16-04/