ISCO - ISCO

The human body consists of trillions of cells, but a mutation in one of them can cause cancer.

This example demonstrates that biology is not a process driven by averages and highlights the importance of single cell-level studies. The last years have seen a rapid expansion of the field of single-cell genomics, which has enabled paradigm shifts in many fields of biological sciences, ranging from evolutionary biology over stem cell biology to cancer research. 

The ISCO conference  is co-organized by leading  centres  for  genomic and  biomedical  research in  Berlin and Barcelona and brings together  young  single cell researchers from different disciplines to  enable scientific exchange and  foster new international collaborations. Topics are innovations in single-cell and spatially-resolved technologies, new computational approaches and applications in the medical arena. ISCO puts special emphasis on providing networking opportunities for PhD students and postdocs, with a large number of talks from selected abstract, a poster session and a proper party.

This year’s 4th edition of ISCO is back in Berlin.

Registration and abstract submission can be found here.

Registration Fees

PhD and Postdocs 200€
PI and senior scientists 250€
Scientists from industry 500€

If 5 or more members from the same lab want to register for the event, we offer a discount. Please contact grietje.krabbe@mdc-berlin.de for instructions.

Registration deadline is 1 May, 2025

Abstract deadline for oral and poster presentations: 30 March, 2025

The registration fee includes coffee breaks, lunch buffet and access to all parts of the scientific program, including the Nightscience Workshop. The costs for accommodation and travel to the venue are not included in the registration fee and must be arranged independently.

A networking event is planned at the end of day 1 which will be kindly supported by ISCO sponsor Bruker Spatial Biology and Moleculent.

There will be also a separate Workshop about "Mitochondrial single cell-multi-omics for lineage tracing and genetics".

Venue

Langenbeck Virchow Haus
Luisenstraße 58/59
10117 Berlin
Germany

Dates

May 12, 2025, 12:00 AM - May 13, 2025, 12:00 AM

Join the Nightscience Workshop with Itai Yanai as part of the ISCO conference program !

Experience a unique, interactive session led by Itai Yanai (NYU), where we explore the power of creativity in scientific discovery. Nightscience is about embracing intuition, curiosity, and unconventional thinking to spark groundbreaking ideas. This workshop will challenge traditional scientific approaches, helping you unlock new perspectives in single-cell research. Don’t miss this chance to think differently and ignite your next big breakthrough!

ISCO website Add to calendar

Keynote Speakers

Pulin Li

MIT Boston

Shalin Naik

Walter and Eliza Hall Insitute for Medical Research (WEHI)

Australia

Itai Yanai

NYU Grossman School of Medicine

Invited Speakers

Emmanuel Saliba

HIRI Wuerzburg

Germany

Michael Ratz

Karolinska Institue, Stockholm

Sweden

Barbara Grünwald

University Hospital Essen

Germany

Maria Colomé-Tatché

Helmholtz Munich

Germany

Mohammad Lotfollahi

Sanger Institute Cambridge

Fabian Coscia

Max Delbrück Center for Molacular Medicine

Germany

Teresa Krieger

Charité University medicine Berlin

Germany

Invited speakers

Program

1st Day - 12 May 2025

8:30 - 9:00

Registration

9:10 - 10:00 Keynote

Pulin Li (MIT Boston, US) How signaling landscapes control tissue form and function

Session 1 | Advanced Immunology

10:00 - 10:30

Emmanuel Saliba (HIRI Wuerzburg, Germany) TBA

10:30 - 10:45

Ayan Mallik (Inst. Curie) “Unravelling the crosstalk between macrophages, epithelial and endothelial cells in the pathophysiology of radiation-induced lung fibrosis”

10:45 - 11:00

Lea Jopp-Saile (Heidelberg) “Ultra-high scale cytometry-based cellular interaction mapping”

11:00 - 11:10

sponsor talk: BD "The exCITEment of single-cell sequencing: Unlocking the secrets of life by driving advancements in single-cell multiomics from CITE-Seq to Epigenomics."

11:10 - 11:40

coffee break & continued registration

Session 2 | Tumor Microenvironment

11:40 - 12:10

Barbara Grünwald (University Hospital Essen, Germany) Foundations of function: tissue self-organization in the tumor microenvironment

12:10 - 12:25

Maria Puschhof (DKFZ) “Molecular drivers of low- to high-grade transition in IDH-mutant glioma”

12:25 - 12:40

Nora Fresmann (MDC) “Transcriptional diversity and cellular plasticity in neuroblastoma”

12:40 - 13:45

Lunch and poster viewing

Session 3 | Cellular recording

13:45 - 14:15

Michael Ratz (Karolinska Institut, Stockholm) "Clonal tracing in the mouse brain with single-cell in situ RNA-seq"

14:15 - 14:30

Andrea Polazzi (IRB) “SPECTRA: A Cre-Based System for Recording Gene Activity Through Cumulative Fluorescent Recombination”

14:30 - 14:45

Martina Braun (CRG, DKFZ) “Clonal tracing with somatic epimutations reveals clonal dynamics of blood aging”

14:45 - 14:55

sponsor talk: Moleculent "TBA"

14:55 - 15:30

coffee break

Nightscience Workshop

15:30 - 17:30

Itai Yanai (NYU Grossman School of Medicine, US) In this unique, interactive session participants explore the power of creativity in scientific discovery. Nightscience is about embracing intuition, curiosity, and unconventional thinking to spark groundbreaking ideas. This workshop will challenge traditional scientific approaches, helping you unlock new perspectives in single-cell research.

17:30 - 18:45

Poster Session

2nd Day - 13 May 2025

9:30 - 10:15 Keynote

Itai Yanai (NYU Grossman School of Medicine, US) TBA

Session 4 | Proteomics within and across cells

10:15 - 10:45

Fabian Coscia (Max Delbrück Center for Molacular Medicine, Germany) Spatial tissue proteomics across scales and diseases

10:45 - 11:00

Andrea Willemin (MDC) “Ab-GAM: A Single-Cell Multimodal Approach to Explore the Contribution of Proteins or PTMs to 3D Genome Folding and Gene Regulation”

11:00 - 11:10

sponsor talk: Bruker Spatial Biology "TBA"

11:15 - 11:45

coffee break

Session 5 | Epigenomics

11:45 - 12:15

Maria Colomé-Tatché (Helmholtz Munich, Germany) TBA

12:15 - 12:30

Michael Robson (MDC) “Reconfiguring lamina-heterochromatin interactions and the opening of multipotent cell-fates”lk

12:30 - 12:45

Katherine Kelly (DKFZ) “EpiCHAOS: a metric to quantify epigenomic heterogeneity in single-cell data”

12:45 - 13:30

Lunch and Poster viewing

Session 6 | Medical applications

13:30 - 14:00

Teresa Krieger (Charité University medicine Berlin, Germany) Using spatial single-cell data for clinical translation in oncology

14:00 - 14:15

Maximilian Holz (Charité) “Deciphering ASXL1-mutant Genetic Networks in AML using Parallel Transposon and Transcriptome Sequencing in Single Cells”

14:15 - 14:30

Nils Blüthgen (Charité) “Pooled screening with single cell transcriptome readout in colorectal cancer identifies transcriptional modules of clinical relevance unlocked by oncogenes”

14:30 - 14:40

sponsor talk: Illumina "TBA"

14:40 - 15:00

coffee break

session 7 | Computational Genomics

15:00 - 15:30

Mohammad Lotfollahi (Sanger Institute Cambridge, UK) Generative machine learning to model cellular perturbations

15:30 - 15:45

Jana Braunger (COS, Heidelberg) “Modelling perturbation states in single-cell CRISPR screens”

15:45 - 16:00

Ugo Szachnowski (Inst. Curie) “Reference-free analysis of scRNA-seq as a way to reveal new cell identities in tumors”

16:00 - 16:45 Keynote