The cell cycle: exploring conservation and divergence in life's engine
The EMBO workshop on the Cell Cycle: Exploring Conservation and Divergence in Life’s Engine will bring together scientists from around the world to explore how the mechanisms that drive cell division have evolved, diversified and converged across life forms.
Taking place just outside Lisbon, Portugal, the EMBO Workshop will focus on how variation in cell cycle regulation shapes cellular behavior, development, and disease, highlighting both shared principles and mechanistic innovation.
This EMBO workshop will open with a keynote lecture by John Diffley (The Francis Crick Institute), a world leader in DNA replication research. His talk will provide an evolutionary perspective on the control principles underlying genome duplication, setting the conceptual framework for this EMBO Workshop and stimulating discussion on the broader logic of cell cycle regulation.
The scientific program will feature six thematic sessions, reflecting the natural flow of the cell cycle – from the decision to divide all the way to specialised adaptations in development and disease. Across 17 invited speakers and 17 selected presentations, participants will hear the latest discoveries from leaders and emerging voices in the field.
Complementary poster and flash-talk sessions, as well as meet-the-speaker and meet-the-editor events, will further promote interaction, mentorship, and cross-disciplinary dialogue in an open and collaborative environment.
By bringing together researchers studying division cycles across prokaryotic and eukaryotic systems – from bacteria and archaea to yeast, plants, and mammals – this EMBO workshop will illuminate both the conserved logic and the remarkable diversity of cellular reproduction, inspiring new collaborations and perspectives on the engine that drives life itself.
EMBO courses and workshops are selected for their excellent scientific quality and timelines, provision of good networking activities for all participants and speaker gender diversity (at least 40% of speakers must be from the underrepresented gender).
Organisers are encouraged to implement measures to make the meeting environmentally more sustainable.
