Its a wrap for #GCSB2026🎉
We want to thank everyone involved in making GCSB possible🫶.
Thanks to the staff, all of our attendees for beeing the heart and soul of this event, and lots and lots of thanks to our partners at DECHEMA and the GFGSB for making GCSB an amazing collaborative experience🫶
Congratulations to the winners of the poster prize, sponsored by Plasmidsaurus🎉🦕!
1️⃣Clemens Felix Hausmann
2️⃣Saskia Frank
3️⃣Kristyna Lipovská / Daniela Mácalová
The winners receive 100€ each, and on top, 100€, 250€ and 500€ worth of plasmid sequencing respectively!
Last but not least, we enjoyed a great keynote by Seraphine Wegner, from the Universität Münster.
We best understand things that we can build ourselves. So lets build a living cell🦠! We heard of exciting approaches for the control of communication between cell mimics using light💡.
Christina Peternell, from Technische Universität München, showed us an exciting approach to control cellular expression of genes by using a regulatory RNA thermometer🌡️!
Next we listened to Janis Hötzel from the Technische Universität Darmstadt. He wondefully guided us through the world of riboswitches, highlighting applications, mechanisms and engineering approaches⚙️.
The final session of #GCSB2026 on Synthetic Genomics and Gene Circuits is kicked-off by Dominic Schirmer from the Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf.
He shared his approach on engineering enhancer sequencences, allowing for precise tuning of gene expression in plants🌱!
Finally, we listend to Wilfried Weber from the INM-Leibniz Institute for New Materials. He highlighted exciting approaches for biomaterials as tools for medicine⚕️ and construction🔨.
Jorin Riexinger, from Imperial College London, combines 3D-printing of tissues together with functionalized bacteria🦠.
This allowed for the construction of a material that can drive gene expression of incorporated bacteria in a specific pattern🧩.
Back after the break, we start with the session on Biomedical Applications, introduced by Dagmar Wirth from Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research. She shared her work on engineered cells that can sense early infection bio-markers, resulting in a designed response♻️.
We next listen to Moritz Burghardt from Tel Aviv University. We heard of computational tools for the engineering of synthetic promoters📈!
The final day of #GCSB2026 is kicked-off by Diego Orzaez from CSIC! He highlighted how genetic circuits can be used to augment plants with beneficiary traits🌱!
We heard of approaches for targeted, high level production of proteins and plant biosensing.
As a final talk of the day, we listen to Miguel Baños from INM-Leibniz Institute for New Materials. Many may not know, that there are promoters that are responsive to mechanical stress🔨. Here, Miguel shared his work on establishing a genetic circuit for improving mechanosensitive promoters.
We continue with Jacob Mejlsted, from Technische Universität Darmstadt, sharing the "Coli Toolbox", a collection of compatible DNA blocks🧱 and more handy tools for the construction of genetic circuits⚙️!
Lena Hochrein, from the university of Potsdam, opens todays final session on Synthetic Genomics and Gene Circuits ⚙️🧬. We heard of exciting approaches for promoter engineering, allowing for gradual tuning of expression strength📈.
We are closing this session with Jakob Franke from Leibniz Universität Hannover, highlighting his efforts to make plant metabolites more accessible. This is laying the groundwork for illucidating the role of these metabolites in medicine and co. 🌱!
Thank you Cláudio Frazão from TU Darmstadt for this great talk on the establishment of a synthetic pathway, yielding threonine from the hub metabolite glycoaldehyde⚙️.
Growth coupled bioproduction ⚙️🦠 presented by Steffen Lindner from Charité Berlin! He highlights how we can use microbes to not only fix CO2, but also make useful chemicals along the way!
Mattheos Koffas, from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, presented a great keynote on synthetically generating natural products, introducing us to todays second session.
He highlighted the engineering of microbes, producing pharmaceutical polysaccharides as an alternative to animal derived sources. 🦈
Closing this session, we listen to Nicolas Krink highlighting the role of innovation in SynBio as a representative from SPRIND (@sprind-de.bsky.social) 📈.
SPRIND is pushing and supporting scientists to create true innovation that make a difference in the real world🌍.
Thank you David Lubkowicz for highlighting the work of Novonesis and sharing how protein and oligosaccharides for food can be produced sustainably🍽️!
After our break, we continue with Jan Lukas Krüsemann from Charité Berlin, introducing us to the session on Solutions for Sustainability. Despite interruptions by the German "alarm testing day" 🚨, he shared his fascinating work on creating an ATP auxotrophic cell🦠!
Thank you Larissa Sames (Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel) for closing todays first session🗣️. In her talk, she guided us through the engineering of liposomes for the bottom-up construction of "smell"👃.
From Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, we next listen to Michael Levy, highlighting the complex production of ribosomal proteins in a cell-free system🧪
Our first session of today is Cell-free and Bottom-up Systems⏫, wonderfully introduced by Kerstin Göpfrich (@kgoepfrich.bsky.social) from the University of Heidelberg!
Here we heard how RNA based sturctures can be designed and produced to create synthetic cells🦠!
⚡Flash talks⚡
Thanks to all presenters for highlighting your posters in rapid fire! We already had some great discussions with you and we are looking forward to chat with you at your posters📈!
The first session of #GCSB2026 closes with Konrad Herbst from the Universität Heidelberg. Thank you for sharing how DNA assembly is done at the frontier of SynBio🧬. By using split markers, complex assemblies can be scaled up and are made more accessible🤝
Leon Kraus, from Technische Universität Darmstadt, next highlights how aptameres can be engineered to bind novel molecules. He showed the exiting example of generating a caffeine specific aptamere! ☕
High throughput data are more important than ever💻. On this note, Markus Jeschek from EPFL, shows us how translation initiation can be engineered, utilizing mRNA folding or tRNA interactions to tune protein production📈!
Thanks Yolanda Schaerli for the fantastic kick-off talk, not only for the session on Synthetic Genomics and Gene Circuits, but for all of #GCSB2026!🧬
We heard of exciting approaches to build biological computers using CRISPR interference and phages.⚙️
Lena Maria Hümmler officially opened #GCSB2026🎉
Welcome everyone and enjoy Germany's prime SynBio conference! 🧬
