GRC on cell-cell fusion

GRC on cell-cell fusion

07 Jun 2022

After 2 years of waiting, the Gordon Research Conference (GRC) on Cell-Cell Fusion took finally place at Stonehill College in Massachusetts, US. This conference brought together a diverse group of scientists studying anything related to fusion - from highly mechanistic studies on intracellular fusion driven by SNARE proteins, the use of nanodiscs and membrane modeling to viral and cellular fusogens, the role actin cytoskeleton in cell fusion and more big-picture biological observations of fusion of myoblasts and other cell types (hybrid cells in cancer, Drosophila epithelia etc).

Beyond discussing the newest science, it was fantastic to interact again in person with old friends from the fertilization field (e.g. Beni Podbilewicz & Nico Brukman, Bill Snell & Jennifer Pinello, Amber Krauchunas), make new connections (e.g. Ori Avinoam, Douglas Millay, Pablo Aguilar) and interact with both established investigators and PhD students & postdocs from other labs. This has been really missing in the past two years, and we from the Pauli lab (Theresa, Andreas and Andi) had a blast!