The 32nd BioCity Symposium will explore the mechanisms regulating tissue architecture and homeostasis in biological organisms. This complex and dynamic “sculpting” process is carefully coordinated from the very beginning of life. Cells build tissues by proliferating, migrating, altering phenotype and generating a modifiable extracellular matrix (ECM).

In turn, the ECM’s biochemical and biomechanical properties determine cell behaviour and cell-cell crosstalk to control gene expression and cell state and the response to injury and insult (tissue repair, fibrosis, inflammation, cancer) and therapeutic targeting. Next year’s BioCity Symposium will focus on this reciprocal interplay between cells and their microenvironment to build healthy tissues, and how dysregulation ultimately leads to disease.

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Confirmed speakers

Christopher Chen, The Biological Design Center; Boston University; Harvard University, USA

Miki Ebisuya, European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) Barcelona, Spain

Peter Friedl, Radboud University Medical Center, Netherlands

Edouard Hannezo, Institute of Science and Technology Austria, Austria

Kairbaan Hodivala-Dilke, Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London, UK

Daniel Krueger, Hubrecht Institute, Netherlands

Rachel Lennon, Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell-Matrix Research, UK

Alexandra Naba, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA

Michael Sixt, Institute of Science and Technology Austria, Austria

Fiona Watt, European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), Germany

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Organizing committee

Jyrki Heino
Johanna Ivaska (organizing committee chair)
Guillaume Jacquemet
Veli-Matti Kähäri
Emilia Peuhu
Cecilia Sahlgren