Keynote lecture:
Malgorzata is the head of the Department of Biophysical Microstructures at the Institute of Nuclear Physics (Polish Academy of Science, IFJ PAN, Kraków, Poland). She studied physics at Jagiellonian University (Kraków, Poland) and completed her studies in 1993. In 1993, she started to work at the IFJ PAN, where she obtained a PhD in 1998 in Physics (specialization: biophysics) with a PhD thesis focused on the elasticity of cancer cells. Her over 30 years of experience in atomic force (bio)microscopy (AFM) is directed mainly to advancing AFM for disease diagnostics (biomechanical/biorheological properties of cells and tissues as indicators of various pathologies such as cancers, muscular dystrophy, asthma, multiple sclerosis and processes like drug resistance in prostate cancer), standardizing the AFM mechanical measurements, and mechanics of bladder cancer.
She was awarded a NATO fellowship within the Collaborative Research Grant (2004-2006), which she realized at the École Polytechnique Fédéral de Lausanne (EPFL). She obtained a research fellowship (visiting professor, 2011) within the GROWTH program at the Nicolaus Copernicus University (UMK, Torun, Poland). She has been involved as PI in national and international projects and mentored over 20 PhD students and post-docs.
Chair Persons & Invited Speakers
Session: AFM developments
chair person: George Heath (U. Leeds)
George is a University Academic Fellow at the University of Leeds, UK, appointed across the School of Physics & Astronomy and the School of Biomedical Sciences. George obtained his PhD in Physics from the University of Leeds in 2015. He has held postdoctoral positions in New York with Prof. Simon Scheuring at Weill Cornell Medicine, Cornell University and previously a position in Leeds with Prof Lars Jeuken.
George started his independent research group in Leeds in 2019. His current research focuses on developing High-Speed Atomic Force Microscopy methods both experimentally and computationally to study the structural dynamics of single biomolecules. In 2023, George was awarded a 5 year EPSRC Open Fellowship to continue developing AFM methods.
invited person: Georg Fantner (EPFL Lausanne)
Georg E. Fantner received his MS degree from the University of Technology Graz in 2003, and his PhD degree from UC Santa Barbara in 2006. After a Postdoc in the biomolecular materials lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he joined the École Polytechnique Fédéral de Lausanne in 2010. He leads the laboratory for bio- and nano-instrumentation in the institute for bioengineering.
His research, which has been funded by the European Research Council with an ERC starting grant and an ERC consolidator grant, focusses on the development of new technologies to measure and manipulate nanoscale structures in general, and the development of atomic force microscopy instrumentation in particular. He applies these instruments to answer questions in a variety of fields ranging from materials science and nanotechnology to biology and life science. His interdisciplinary work has been published in many high impact journals such as Nature, Nature Materials, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Cell biology, Nature Microbiology, Nature Communications, Nano Letters, and Science, as well as featured in a number of popular science- and general-interest magazines. He serves as co- Editor-In -Chief for the journal Microsystem Technologies (Springer/Nature) and as scanning probe microscopy editor for Microscopy and Microanalysis.
Prof. Fantner hold several patents in the field of nanotechnology and is the co-founder of two nanotechnology companies. Recently he has become active in the field of open hardware, where he explores new avenues to foster free academic exchange of knowledge, particularly for the development of highly sophisticated custom instruments. He serves as the president of the EPFL open science strategic committee and the ETH-domain open research data steering committee.
Session: From membranes to cells
Filomena Carvalho completed her PhD in Biomedical Sciences in 2012, after her graduation in Chemical Engineering. She is now one of the principal investigators of the Biomembranes & Nanomedicine Unit, and she is Assistant Professor of the Faculty of Medicine, Univ. Lisbon. She has been responsible to set up all AFM experiments done in the lab, especially working with human cells, in health and disease. Her studies focus on fibrinogen interactions with blood cells, doing also cell indentation and cell-cell adhesion studies in cardiovascular and neurovascular diseases. Filomena (co)authored 52 articles in peer-reviewed international journals, being the first author of 17 and the corresponding author of 11 of them, which received more than 1600 citations (h-index 23, publishing since 2004). Additionally, she (co)authored 3 book chapters and is co-editor of 2 books. She was awarded with Wiley Young investigator award in 2017 and in 2016. She have experience in supervising different grades of students: 3 PhD students (2 in co-supervision already finished, 1 currently being the main supervisor); 5 MSc students (all finished; 4 as supervisor and 1 in co-supervision); and also around 25 undergraduate students. She has been involved in different teams of funded scientific projects as researcher. She was the project leader of one FCT funded project (finished in November 2019) and is currently the co-principal investigator of one FCT financed project (PTDC/EMD-TLM/7289/2020) and team researcher of 4 funded projects (HORIZON-WIDERA-2023-ACCESS-06, Project: 101160069 — SynEry - Hop On from Horizon (Europe), EXPL/MED-ANM/1616/2021 from FCT; PTDC/BIA-BFS/0812/2021 from FCT; and Project#11: ImPlat; FPJ001595 CTI - NSANTOS). She has 85 communications in International Conferences (as oral or poster communications) and 33 communications in national conferences.
invited person: Martin Pešl (Masaryk U. Brno)
Dr. Martin Pešl is a clinical cardiologist at St. Anne's University Hospital Brno, specializing in heart rhythm disorders, and a professor at the Department of Biology, Masaryk University. During his Ph.D. studies at the University of Minnesota in 2009, he initiated research on the differentiation of stem cells into cardiomyocytes. In collaboration with Dr. Jan Přibyl from CEITEC MU, he developed a pioneering AFM-based technique to measure cardiomyocyte cluster contraction, providing insights into how various pharmacological treatments and genetic conditions affect heart function.
Martin’s research has been further advanced through collaboration with the Technical University of Genoa, where he refined AFM methodologies for cardiomyocyte biomechanics alongside Professor Reiteri's group. His work in the Interventional Electrophysiology group includes experimental and clinical utilization of electroporation as an alternative ablation tool for arrhythmia treatment, along with other clinical projects. Martin was awarded a three-year clinical project (NU20-06-00156) to utilize AFM in exploring arrhythmias induced by pulmonary medication, and is currently investigating how diabetic-altered glucose concentrations affect cardiomyocyte mechanics (CarDia Excelles LX22NPO5104). He is also collaborating with Professor Nogaret from Bath University on the development of novel cardiac pacemaking strategies (H2020 CResPace)
Session: Single molecules
Fernando Moreno-Herrero is a CSIC Research Professor in the Department of Macromolecular Structures at the National Center of Biotechnology in Madrid, where he leads the Molecular Biophysics of DNA Repair Nanomachines group since 2009. His research is centered on developing innovative instruments and methods, utilizing state-of-the-art single-molecule technologies to study key biological processes, with a particular emphasis on DNA-protein interactions and the mechanics of nucleic acids. His work addresses fundamental aspects of DNA replication, organization, and repair, and has introduced new insights into the mechanical properties of both DNA and RNA.
Fernando specializes in atomic force microscopy (AFM) imaging techniques and manipulation tools such as optical and magnetic tweezers, often integrating them with fluorescence methods. Recent achievements from his lab include new protocols for AFM imaging of RNA and the development of techniques for analyzing lncRNA structural domains. His research has made significant contributions in areas such as bacterial chromosome organization, DNA break repair in both humans and bacteria, and the biophysics of nucleic acids. Fernando’s research has been supported by several ERC grants (Starting, Proof of Concept, Consolidator) and has been recognized with several prestigious awards for its impact on the fields of molecular biology and biophysics.
invited person: Nancy Forde (Simon Fraser Univ., Burnaby, Canada)
Nancy Forde is a Professor of Physics at Simon Fraser University, in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. Her research interests lie in molecular biophysics, where her research group explores the molecular basis for collagen mechanics and designs and simulates novel molecular motors. Through this, Forde has been able to follow wide-ranging interests from single-molecule manipulation and instrumentation development to protein biochemistry and nonequilibrium statistical physics explorations.
Of relevance to this conference, Forde’s group has developed image analysis approaches for AFM that have provided deep insight into the molecular features responsible for stabilizing the triple helix structure of collagen proteins and that influence its variable mechanics. Forde has received many honours throughout her career, including a Michael Smith for Health Research (MSFHR) Scholar award, a Cottrell Scholar award, university teaching and supervision awards, the Michèle Auger Award from the Biophysical Society of Canada, and being named an APS Fellow.
Session: Multicellular systems and biointerfaces
chair person: Delphine Sicard (Université Sorbonne Paris Nord)
Formally trained as a physicist at University of Toulouse (France), Dr. Delphine Sicard obtained her PhD in physics and material sciences from Ecole Centrale de Lyon in 2012 under the supervision of Pr. Magali Phaner-Goutorbe (Lyon Institute of Nanotechnology) studying structural arrangement of lectin/glycocluster complexes using AFM imaging. In 2014, she joined Pr. Daniel Tschumperlin Lab at Mayo Clinic (USA) to investigate lung tissue stiffening in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. During 9 years, she developed a robust experimental method using AFM micro-indentation to estimate the tissue stiffness at microscale and demonstrated some significant mechanical changes in physiological and pathological conditions working in collaboration with several institutions (Brigham and Women's Hospital (USA), University of Groningen (The Netherlands), Northwestern University (USA), University of Utah (USA)). She moved back to France in 2023 at Pasteur Institute of Lille in Dr. Frank Lafont research team to work on airway mechanical remodeling in asthma. Since September 2024, she has been appointed as lecturer at University Sorbonne Paris Nord (Bobigny campus) and has joined the Hypoxy & Lung Lab lead by Dr. Carole Planès.
Dr. Delphine Sicard is specialized in AFM micro-indentation technique to estimate biological tissue stiffness at microscale. Her current research goals are focused on the tissue mechanical properties that drive disease development and progression such as fibrosis and cancer in lung tissue.
Her research projects have been supported by NIH grants and the Young Investigator program from Region Hauts-de-France (Dispositif STaRS) in addition to industrial fundings (Boehringer Ingelheim, MedImmune LLC). She has also received Young Investigator Award from the 9th AFM BioMed conference (Germany).
invited person: Elias Barriga (TU Dresden, Germany)
Elias Barriga, PhD, leads the Mechanisms of Morphogenesis lab at the Cluster of Excellence Physics of Life, TU Dresden in Germany. Dr Barriga’s group focusses in understanding how large groups of cells synchronize their collective behaviours during tissue morphogenesis. For that, his group takes integrative approaches in which they consider how biomechanical and bioelectrical signals synergise with molecular frameworks to achieve robust tissue morphogenesis in both embryo development and regeneration.
Elias' research has received support from ERC Starting and EMBO Installation Grants as well as a La Caixa Foundation and has recently joined the EMBO-YIP network.