Sixth Birmingham Symposium on Genome Structure and Function

We invite researchers from the UK and abroad to participate in our sixth international symposium on Genome Structure and Function. It will be a 2-day event with talks and posters from invited speakers and selected abstracts from the gene regulation, epigenetics, RNA biology, DNA replication, DNA repair and computational biology fields.

Confirmed invited speakers                                                      

• Professor Hilary Ashe (University of Manchester, UK)                                      
• Professor Anthony Chalmers  (University of Glasgow, UK)                                    
• Professor Jessica Downs  (Institute of Cancer Research, UK)                             
• Professor Bertie Göttgens  (Cambridge, UK)                                                               
• Dr Catarina Henriques  (University of Sheffield, UK)                             
• Professor Douglas Higgs  (Oxford, UK)                                                                      
• Professor Nick Lakin  (Oxford, UK)                                                                                  
• Dr Hannah Long  (University of Edinburgh, UK)                                      
• Professor Matthias Merkenschlager  (MRC LMS, UK)         
• Dr Lori Passmore  (MRC LMB, Cambridge, UK)                                                           
• Dr Diu Nguyen  (Queen Mary University of London, UK)                                     
• Professor Ellen Rothenberg  (CalTech, USA)                                                 
• Professor Daniel Tenen  (Harvard, USA; National University of Singapore)

Short talks and Poster presentations will be selected from the abstracts submitted.

This symposium will also celebrate the retirement at the end of 2023 of the BCGB founding director Constanze Bonifer and her partner Peter Cockerill.

The Genetics society is sponsoring four carer awards of £60 to support costs of attendees childcare.

Organisers: Professor Constanze Bonifer, Professor Peter Cockerill, Dr Clare Davis, Dr Aga Gambus, Dr Paloma Garcia, Dr Martin Higgs, Dr Rui Monteiro, Professor Jo Morris, Professor Ferenc Müller, Dr Marco Saponaro, Dr Matthias Soller and Professor Grant Stewart.

Participants viewing posters at the 2019 BCGB symposium.

Previous BCGB symposia

2022 symposium

This one day symposium was the first post-COVID gathering of BCGB members.

The keynote speaker was Professor Kristian Helin, the Chief Executive of the Institute of Cancer Research, London. Kristian has since taken on the role of being a member of the BCGB advisory board, alongside Professor Wendy Bickmore, the Director of the MRC Human Genetics Unit, University of Edinburgh.

The full list of invitees can be found in the 2022 BCGB symposium poster.

2019 symposium

This two day symposium was the last full scale BCGB symposium before COVID struck. It had a full programme of distinguished invited speakers, and the list of invitees can be found on the 2019 symposium web site.

They included

Wendy Bickmore - University of Edinburgh
Keith Caldecott - University of Sussex
Amanda Fisher - Imperial College London
Frank Hirth  - Kings College, London
Timothy Humphrey - University of Oxford
John Mattick - University of Oxford
Nicholas Proudfoot - University of Oxford
Jesper Svejstrup - Francis Crick Institute, London

The symposium was opened by Professor Tim Softley, who was pro-vice chancellor for research at the time.

The symposium also had busy poster sessions, including the two shown above. 

The symposium also featured a poster of members at previous away days at the Malvern Hills, Packwood House and Soho house, seen here together with Professor Peter Cockerill, the BCGB away day organiser.

The symposium was well catered for, allowing plenty of time for social interactions at lunch and at this reception at the end of day one. 

2016 symposium      

The inaugural BCGB symposium had a full 2 day programme, featuring a keynote lecture at the end of day one by Professor Wendy Bickmore, University of Edinburgh, who joined the BCGB advisory board.