Program highlights
- Poster presentation throughout the event to get feedback
- Ten lectures from world-renowned chronobiologists
- Two experiment courses in chronobiology of your choice
- Networking opportunities with other trainees
Schedule
August 5 (Monday)
13:00 – 14:00
Arrival and Registration
14:00 – 15:30
Orientation + Data Blitz + Poster presentation
15:30 – 17:00
Lecture #1
Bill Schwartz (UT Austin, US)
Welcome to Chronobiology! Let’s Begin with a Brief Review of Some Fundamentals Along with Personal Reflections
17:15 – 18:45
Lecture #2
Ken-ichi Honma (Hokkaido University, Japan)
Human Chronobiology
18:45
Welcome reception (location TBD)
August 6 (Tuesday)
9:00 – 10:30
Lecture #3
Xiaodong Xu (Henan University, China)
Plant Circadian Clock: Entrainment, Core Oscillators, and Environmental Fitness
10:45 – 12:15
Lecture #4
Hang Wang (Soochow University, China)
Zebrafish Circadian Clocks—What We Have Known So Far
12:15 – 13:00
Lunch
13:00 – 14:30
Lecture #5
David Virshup (Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore)
Regulation of Circadian Rhythms by Protein Phosphorylation
15:00 – 18:00
Experimental Course #1 (see course details below)
18:00
Dinner on your own
August 7 (Wednesday)
9:00 – 10:30
Lecture #6
Shuji Akiyama (National Institute of Molecular Science, Japan)
Cross-Scale Causality in the Cyanobacterial Circadian Clock System
10:45 – 12:15
Lecture #7
Roelof Hut (University of Groningen, Netherland)
The Flexible Clock system: adaptive in nature, but maladaptive in modern society?
12:15 – 13:00
Lunch
13:15 – 14:30
Lecture #8
Jennifer Evans (Marquette University, US)
The SCN after 50 years: Time Flies When You’re Having Fun
15:00 – 18:00
Experimental Course #2 (see course details below)
18:00
Dinner on your own
August 8 (Thursday)
9:00 – 10:30
Lecture #9
Sato Honma (Sapporo Hanazono Hospital, Japan)
Sleep and Sleep Disorders
10:45 – 12:15
Lecture #10
Joseph Takahashi (UT Southwestern Medical Center)
Mechanism of the Circadian Clock in Mammals: From CentiMorgans to Angstroms and From Days to Lifespans
12:15 – 13:00
Lunch
13:00
Departure
Experimental course options:
- In vitro Reconstitution of the Cyanobacteria Circadian Clock (Ito-Miwa, Nishiwaki-Ohkawa)
- Participants will learn how to reconstitute the cyanobacterial circadian clock from purified KaiABC proteins.
- Interaction assay by Bimolecular-Fluorescence Complementation (BiFC) Analysis for Clock-Related Proteins in the Moss Physcomitrium patens (Aoki)
- Participants will learn: 1) how to introduce exogenous DNA molecules into protonema cells of the moss Physcomitrium patens by the particle bombardment method, and 2) how to observe intracellular localization and interaction of clock-related proteins in the cells by the BiFC analysis.
- Experimental Determination of the Critical Day-Length of a Short-Day Flowering Duckweed (Muranaka)
- Participants will learn how to analyze the natural variation of the photoperiodic response of plants.
- Arabidopsis course (Nakamichi, Yamashino)
- Brief introduction of circadian clock and output pathways in plants
- Analyses of circadian rhythm and clock-output organ elongation in Arabidopsis
- Drosophila course (Tomita)
- Brief introduction of Drosophila genetics
- Basic handling of Drosophila
- Circadian rhythm and sleep study using Drosophila
- Analysis of Circadian Locomotor Activity Rhythms in Zebrafish Larvae (Nakayama)
- Participants will learn how to record circadian rhythms in zebrafish larvae.
- Analysis of Mammalian Circadian Rhythms Using U2OS Cells (Hirota, Kon)
- Participants will learn how to record the circadian rhythms of human U2OS cells in 384- well plates and analyze the effect of chemical compounds.
- Slice Preparation of the Mouse Brain (Ono)
- Participants will learn how to prepare mouse brain slices and dissect out the SCN and other nuclei.
