ENPER 2026 Programme

ENPER 2026 Programme

26th August (Wednesday)
08:30–09:30 Registration and poster mounting
09:30–09:40 Opening remarks
Session 1: ER ‐ Golgi trafficking and exocytosis
Chair: Joe McKenna (University of Warwick, UK)
09:40–10:00 ARF small GTPase machinery regulation by the δ-COP coatomer subunit at the Golgi apparatus Maciek Adamowski (Institute of Science and Technology, Austria / University of Gdańsk, Poland)
10:00–10:20 Dynamics of exocyst in streptophytes Samuel Haluška (Institute of Experimental Botany, Prague, Czech Republic)
10:20–10:40 Defective endoplasmic reticulum quality control promotes cadmium tolerance through brassinosteroid-associated metabolic reprogramming Maria De Benedictis (Institute of Sciences of Food Production, C.N.R., Lecce, Italy)
10:40–11:10 Coffee break
Session 2: Endocytosis: PM ‐ TGN
Chair: Roman Pleskot (Institute of Experimental Botany, Czech Republic)
11:10–11:30 Investigating the role of plant formins in clathrin-mediated endocytosis Aqsa Ahmad (Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic)
11:30–11:50 Functional and phosphorylation diversification of Arabidopsis TOL proteins links endocytic trafficking to auxin homeostasis Dmitrii Vladimirtsev (Institute of Science and Technology, Austria)
11:50–12:10 BIN2-mediated phosphorylation of AtEH1/Pan1 regulates clathrin-mediated endocytosis in plants Tingyu Zhu (VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology, Belgium)
12:10–13:20 Lunch break
Session 3: Vacuolar trafficking
Chair: Peter Grones (Wageningen University, The Netherlands)
13:20–13:40 Vacuolar sorting determinant of Cru2 is recognized and sorted by RMR2 Yihong Chen (The Chinese University of Hong Kong, China)
13:40–14:00 How plants protect their largest organelle Jose Julian (BOKU University, Austria)
14:00–14:20 Actin-driven endomembrane organisation by RabG3 GTPases occurs via novel plant-specific IRQ effector proteins Patrick Duckney (Oxford Brookes University, UK)
Session 4: Autophagy
Chair: Xiaohong Zhuang (CUHK, Hong Kong)
14:20–14:40 Isolation and comparative analysis of the autophagosome proteome of plant cells Jérôme Koestel (UCLouvain, Belgium)
14:40–15:00 Cross-species interactome analysis uncovers a conserved selective autophagy mechanism for protein quality control in plants Anita Bianchi (Gregor Mendel Institute, Austria / Heidelberg University, Germany)
15:00–15:20 The wild card SNARE: how VTI12 plays multiple roles in plant stress response João Neves (University of Porto, Portugal)
15:20–15:40 Role of vacuolar hydrolases in the desintegration of autophagic bodies in plants Karolina Wleklik (Adam Mickiewicz University Poznań, Poland)
15:40–16:10 Coffee break
Session 5: Endomembrane plasticity
Chair: Andrea Paterlini (University of Edinburgh, UK)
16:10–16:30 Pump it, block it, break it: structural and regulatory insights from the Arabidopsis V-ATPase Nadja Wunsch (University of Heidelberg, Germany)
16:30–16:50 How does phosphatidylinositol 4-phosphate (PI4P) function in the plant endomembrane system? Yoko Hasegawa (Université de Lyon, ENS de Lyon, France)
16:50–17:10 A plant-specific membrane-perforating module drives endomembrane disruption during programmed cell death execution Jian Chen (VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology, Belgium)
17:10–17:30 Role of S-acylation, oligomerization and lipid environment in the dynamics of the nanodomain-organized protein HIR2 in Arabidopsis Jesús Amo (University of Montpellier, France)
17:30–19:00 Poster session & wine reception
27th August (Thursday)
09:30–10:30 Keynote talk: Integrative phylogenomics reveals life cycle-coupled evolutionary trajectories of flagellar loss in Archaeplastida Gautam Dey (EMBL Heidelberg, Germany)
10:30–11:00 Coffee break & Conference photo
Session 6: Nuclear envelope assembly and cytokinesis
Chair: Maciek Adamowski (University of Gdańsk, Poland)
11:00–11:20 Exploring the recruiting mechanisms of the ESCRT machinery to the nuclear envelope in Arabidopsis thaliana Carolin Stengelin (University of Konstanz, Germany)
11:20–11:40 Very-long-chain fatty acid-containing lipids control cell plate insertion into the plasma membrane Yutaro Shimizu (University of Bordeaux, France)
11:40–12:00 Interplay between the lipid phosphatase SAC9 and the vesicle tethering complex TRAPPII during plant cytokinesis Samantha Moulin (ENS de Lyon, France)
12:00–12:20 Spatiotemporal regulation of membrane identity throughout cytokinesis Julia Hagn (Technical University of Munich, Germany)
12:20–13:30 Lunch break
Session 7: Polarity maintenance
Chair: Maria De Benedictis (Institute of Sciences of Food Production, Italy)
13:30–13:50 Roles of RAB23 in axonemal and flagellar membrane organization of Marchantia polymorpha spermatozoids Naoki Minamino (Fukuoka University / NIBB / Kumamoto University, Japan)
13:50–14:10 Elucidating the role of SABRE in coordinated basal PIN2 polarity Matija Stanic (University of Potsdam, Germany)
14:10–14:30 You have to break it to understand how it works: dissecting plant polarity via controlled experimental manipulation Eli Edita Lileikyte (Biology Centre CAS, Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic)
14:30–15:30 Coffee break and poster session
15:30–20:00 Guided tour in Sofia city centre / networking
20:00- Conference dinner: At The Eagles panorama restaurant https://www.priorlite.com/en
28th August (Friday)
Session 8: Trafficking and immunity
Chair: Marion Clavel (Max-Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, Germany)
09:30–09:50 Fueling infection: lipid droplet remobilization through peroxisomal β-oxidation supports potyvirus infection in plants Marguerite Batsale (University of Bordeaux, France)
09:50–10:10 Taking the sting out of crop disease: harnessing venom and plant antimicrobial peptides for sustainable defence Dan Jackson (Oxford Brookes University, UK)
10:10–10:30 Identification of the genes involved in host invasion of parasitic plants Tomohiro Hirai (Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Japan)
10:30–10:50 Induction of pro-viral microenvironments by Tombusviridae effector proteins Jens C. Mülders (Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, Potsdam, Germany)
10:50–11:20 Coffee break
Session 9: Trafficking and signaling
Chair: Yoko Ito (Ochanomizu University, Japan)
11:20–11:40 Deciphering PHOT1 membrane targeting in Arabidopsis roots Peter Sabol (Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic)
11:40–12:00 Exocyst-mediated regulation of BRI1 receptor trafficking in optimal and suboptimal conditions Violeta Ivanova (Institute of Plant Physiology and Genetics, Bulgaria)
12:00–13:30 Lunch break and poster session
Session 10: Endomembranes and environmental sensing
Chair: Jose Julian (BOKU University, Austria)
13:30–13:50 The God of plant small-GTPase: an updated view of ADP-ribosylation factor-like GTPase TITAN5 and its role in trafficking components involved in iron acquisition Sibaji Kumar Sanyal (Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany)
13:50–14:10 Secretory carrier membrane proteins regulate aquaporin trafficking in Arabidopsis Omar Hdedeh (VIB-UGent Center for Plant Systems Biology, Belgium)
14:10–14:30 The molecular architecture of the Arabidopsis CALLOSE SYNTHASE complex David Ušák (Institute of Experimental Botany, Prague, Czech Republic)
14:30–14:50 ER protein quality control components influence callose enzymes and plasmodesmatal transport Andrea Paterlini (University of Edinburgh, UK)
14:50–15:10 Identifying interactors of barley ESCRT-0-like proteins under salt stress Stefan Plott (University of Vienna, Austria)
15:10–15:40 Coffee break
Session 11: Technologies for endomembrane research
Chair: Lukas Synek (Institute of Experimental Botany, Czech Republic)
15:40–16:00 Development and application of advanced imaging platforms in plant cell and organelle biology research Liwen Jiang (The Chinese University of Hong Kong, China)
16:00–16:20 Sofia BioImaging Node – Advanced Light Microscopy Node Sofia Bulgaria: A case study for SARS-CoV-2 virus-like particles entry into cells Aleksandar Atemin (Institute of Molecular Biology, Bulgaria)
16:20–16:40 Tracking of intracellular structures with machine learning Rumen Stamatov (Institute of Molecular Biology, Bulgaria)
16:40–17:00 Membrane trafficking markers in stomatal cluster development in Begoniaceae revealed through interactive deep-learning assisting in trait analysis Thu Phan Ly (University of Glasgow, UK)
17:00–17:10 Best poster design award
17:10–17:30 ENPER bell transfer and closure