Scientific Sessions Schedule
Below is a list of all scientific sessions at Cell Bio 2026 by day and time. It includes the Keynote, Symposia, Special Interest Subgroups, Workshops, Panels, Sponsored Scientific Sessions, and Microsymposia.
Final session descriptions, organizers, and speakers are subject to change and will be listed in the final online Program and Mobile App in October.
Cell Bio 2026 Keynote Lecturers
Ramanujan Hegde
Programme Leader and Head of the Cell Biology Division, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB)
Liqun Luo
Bill and Ann Swindell Endowed Chair, HHMI Investigator, Stanford University
Elly Tanaka
Adjunct Investigator at the IMP and Scientific Director, Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (IMBA)
Saturday, December 12 | 10:00 am to 12:00 pm
Organizers: Hawa Racine Thiam, Stanford University; Effie Bastounis, University of Tuebingen; and Enrique Roja, NYU
The centuries-old dance between immune cells and bacterial pathogens occurs in milieu with a range of biochemical but also, although less well studied, biophysical properties. The physical properties of immune cells and their microenvironment actively regulate immune cell migration, activation, immunological synapse formation, and killing through cellular cytotoxicity, phagocytosis and NETosis. Conversely, physical forces can influence bacterial infectivity and/or modulate the host cells’ defensive responses. These past years have seen a boom in research seeking to understand how immune cells integrate physics into their biology, how bacterial pathogens sense and exploit mechanical forces to enhance their virulence, and how host cells mount mechanical defenses against infection. The fields of “ImmunoBiophysics” and “Infection Biomechanics” have generated new quantitative approaches, and increased collaboration between cell biologists, physicists, immunologists, microbiologists, and the emerging number of scientists trained in multidisciplinary research.
This subgroup aims to build on its success in 2025 to enhance this rich community and showcase groundbreaking research from scientists of various background and career stages who share the goal of advancing our understanding of the physical cell biology of infection and immunity. The talks presented here will discuss the impact of physical forces on immune cells and bacterial physiology and how those forces shape the outcome of host-pathogen interactions. By showcasing the contributions from these emerging fields, we hope to engage the ASCB and EMBO communities in exploring the mechanisms by which immune cells and bacterial pathogens integrate physics into biology to defend or take over the host.
Organizers: Itay Budin, University of California San Diego; Cunqi Ye, Zhejiang University; and Shirin Bahmanyar, Yale University
Lipids are the fundamental components of cellular architecture, defining the spatial boundaries of metabolism. A central mystery in cellular design is how lipid metabolism is intricately tuned to the morphology and function of cellular membranes and organelles. The metabolic logic that governs lipid biosynthesis and trafficking, as well as the spatial constraints and connectivity that underlie membrane organization, remains to be fully decoded. We are particularly interested in the reciprocal relationship between lipid flux and organelle identity. In this subgroup, we bring together scientists from diverse subfields of cell biology—from membrane biology to metabolic regulation—to explore the fundamental mechanisms through which lipid metabolism and organelle architecture reciprocally reshape one another, ensuring the maintenance of cellular homeostasis.
Organizers: Richard Frock, Stanford University; Chris Richardson, UC Santa Barbara; and Justin Leung, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
Maintenance of genome integrity requires precise coordination of DNA repair pathways within the spatiotemporal architecture of the cell. DNA lesions arise in diverse chromatin environments, during distinct cell-cycle stages, and under varying replication stress states, conditions that fundamentally shape repair pathway choice and outcome. This session will explore how genome stability is dynamically regulated across space and time, integrating chromatin structure, post-translational signaling, protein-protein interaction, replication context, and higher-order genome organization.
DNA repair is executed through tightly regulated molecular circuits that control the recruitment, assembly, and turnover of repair complexes at sites of damage. Post-translational signaling networks gate DNA end processing and influence commitment to homologous recombination or alternative repair pathways. Replication stress imposes additional constraints, reshaping pathway utilization and repair fidelity. Spatial compartmentalization within the nucleus, including chromatin domains and higher-order genome architecture, further modulates repair efficiency and outcome. This session will highlight quantitative, structural, molecular and cellular approaches that resolve the kinetics and architecture of repair complexes and define the principles governing their dynamic regulation.
By bridging biochemistry, cell biology, and genome engineering, this session will define new principles underlying the spatiotemporal control of DNA repair and illuminate how their disruption drives genome instability in disease.
Organizer: Olya (Olga) Yarychkivska, The Rockefeller University; and Piya Ghose, University of Texas at Arlington
Cell death is one of the most dramatic cellular transformations—and a powerful lens for understanding fundamental cell biology. Recent breakthroughs using single-cell genomics, live imaging, and advanced genetic tools are revealing how dying cells execute organelle remodeling, membrane dynamics, and cell-cell communication. These discoveries illuminate regulatory principles relevant far beyond cell death itself.
This session showcases cutting-edge research on diverse death modalities—from apoptosis to non-apoptotic pathways. Presentations will explore: how cells integrate death fate decisions during migration; organellar transformations that drive or regulate dying; membrane dynamics governing corpse clearance; and how dysregulated death programs contribute to neurodegeneration, cancer, and developmental disorders.
By dissecting how cells are fated to die, execute their demise, and interact with their environment, we reveal mechanisms with broad implications across cell biology. Join us to discover how studying the cell's last act illuminates the principles governing cellular life.
Organizer: Douglas Robinson, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine; Julie Canman, PhD, Columbia University; Ulrike S. Eggert, PhD, King’s College London; Amy Shaub Maddox, PhD, UNC Chapel Hill; Dimitrios Vavylonis, PhD, Lehigh University; and Jian-Qiu Wu, PhD, The Ohio State University
Cytokinesis is a spectacular cellular shape change, which requires coordination of complex cellular machinery over many scales of space and time. In animal cells, this includes signaling pathways that guide the rearrangement of spindle microtubules to position the division plane, assembly of a contractile actomyosin network at the division site, force production to drive a dramatic cell shape change, timely remodeling of the plasma membrane, and finally abscission into two daughter cells. In a multicellular setting, cytokinesis further requires cell-cell and cell-environment communication. This geometrically simplified cell shape change serves as a paradigm for numerous other cell shape change events including those that take place during migration and tissue morphogenesis. In this 9th Biannual Special Interest Subgroup Meeting, we propose to bring together a group of investigators using systematic genetic and chemical methods, biophysical techniques for measuring contractility, high resolution imaging, diverse model organisms and cell types, and mathematical modeling. To ensure that our Subgroup meeting is exceptionally valuable to attendees, we will encourage our speakers to present newly-emerging results.
Saturday, December 12 | 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm
Organizers: Anna Akhmanova, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Netherlands; Kristen Verhey, Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI; Gary Brouhard, McGill University, Montréal, Canada; and Zdenek Lansky, Institute of Biotechnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences (BIOCEV), Vestec, Czech Republic
Microtubules are polymers built from α/β-tubulin dimers that serve as essential structural and functional components of the eukaryotic cytoskeleton. They act as tracks for intracellular transport, drive chromosome segregation during cell division, and contribute to cell shape and polarity. While it has long been recognized that tubulin polymers can adopt multiple conformations in vitro, recent advances in structural biology, biochemistry, and cell biology have demonstrated that microtubules in cells also exist in distinct lattice conformations.
Microtubule lattice conformation is now emerging as an important yet understudied component of the “tubulin code,” which encompasses the structural, biochemical, and functional diversification of microtubule populations within the same cell. This conformational diversity includes variations in protofilament number, longitudinal lattice compaction or expansion, and lattice skew, each of which can profoundly influence microtubule-associated protein binding, motor protein activity, and cellular function. In addition, microtubule-targeting agents used in the treatment of cancer and other diseases can strongly alter microtubule lattice conformation, with significant implications for their mechanisms of action and side effects. Recently, it was also demonstrated that alterations in microtubule lattice conformation can trigger changes in actin organization by regulating the activity of Rho family GTPases.
The goal of this ASCB Special Subgroup Session is to bring together researchers working in this rapidly developing field and to highlight recent conceptual and technical advances. Topics will include the detection of microtubule conformational changes in vitro and in cells using fluorescence and electron microscopy; experimental manipulation of microtubule lattice states using pharmacological and biochemical approaches; the interplay between lattice conformation and other dimensions of the tubulin code, such as post-translational modifications and tubulin isotypes; and the functional consequences of microtubule conformational diversity for intracellular transport, cell signaling, cellular organization, and therapeutic responses to microtubule-targeting agents.
This session will provide a focused forum for cross-disciplinary discussion and help define future directions for understanding how microtubule structure can control cellular function.
Organizers: Vasilisa Aksenova, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; and Yi Ren, Vanderbilt School of Medicine
When eukaryotic mRNAs are transcribed, they sequentially associate with RNA-binding proteins, splicing and processing factors, and are packaged into messenger ribonucleoprotein (mRNP) complexes. During this process, RNA-binding proteins are constantly exchanged, and mRNPs are remodeled through a series of complex steps to ensure that all quality control checkpoints are met before the RNAs can be exported to the cytosol. The process of cellular RNA biogenesis for any given mRNA may involve dozens of distinct protein components that bind to and release the mRNA as it moves through different nuclear subcompartments toward the nuclear envelope. A great deal of historical findings suggests that these processes are highly organized within nuclear subcompartments, including the transcription hubs, nucleolus, nuclear speckles, Cajal bodies, and paraspeckles. Recent exciting research is elucidating how mRNP remodeling is coupled to movement among these structures and how they play a fundamental role in gene expression. A major question that remains is how these dynamic membraneless subcompartments within the nucleus help distinct classes of RNA utilize specific intracellular routes for trafficking.
This Special Interest Group will highlight interdisciplinary research on the pathways of ribonucleoprotein (RNP) complexes within the nucleus, including the export of RNA, areas that are still not fully understood. The talks will cover topics such as RNA processing, intranuclear RNA migration between subcompartments, RNA trafficking machinery, and RNA export at the nuclear pore.
Organizers: Elisa Gomez Gil, King's College London & The Francis Crick Institute; Audrey Williams, Duke University; Alison Wirshing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Mohan Balasubramanian, University of Warwick
Fungi are ubiquitous and influence our daily lives. They thrive in diverse and rapidly changing environments, including host tissues, agricultural systems, and ecosystems increasingly affected by climate change. The vast majority of these fungi are harmless or beneficial - serving as primary decomposers of plant material and playing a key role in the global carbon cycle, acting as plant symbionts supporting the growth of nearly 90% of plants, or constituting a natural part of our own microbiome. It is therefore fortuitous that most fungi are nonpathogenic, as humans inhale thousands of fungal spores daily. However, as global temperatures increase and ecosystems change, the incidence of fungal infections threatening both human health and crop productivity has dramatically increased. Understanding how global climate change drives fungal adaptation and evolution and alters fungal composition in the environment is therefore essential for predicting and preparing for future risks to human health, agriculture and ecosystems. This special Interest Subgroup will bring together experts in fungal adaptation, evolution, ecology, and pathogenesis. By integrating perspectives on cellular stress responses, genome plasticity, evolutionary innovation, and host and environmental interactions, this session aims to explore the common principles that help fungi adapt and persist in a rapidly changing world.
Sponsored by the Journal of Cell Biology
Organizers: Martina Bazzaro, Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota
The advent of artificial intelligence is transforming the way we study cells and uncover biomarkers of human disease. This session will highlight cutting-edge approaches that integrate AI, computational imaging, and systems biology to move from high-resolution cellular images to actionable biological insights. Attendees will hear from leading experts in AI-driven pathology, cell biology, and computational modeling, exploring how these technologies are enabling the identification of cellular and molecular biomarkers with unprecedented accuracy and scale.
This session is designed for scientists interested in the intersection of AI, cell biology, and translational research, providing a platform for discussion, collaboration, and the exploration of emerging technologies that bridge pixels to pathways in human disease research.
Organizers: Junjie Hu, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Mike Henne, UTSW Medical Center
Biological membranes are not passive barriers but active, self-organizing platforms whose biophysical properties—lipid composition, curvature, tension, phase behavior, and protein crowding—govern metabolic flux and cellular longevity. Emerging evidence indicates that age-associated remodeling of membrane lipidomes and proteomes fundamentally reshapes organelle function, inter-organelle communication, and ultimately systemic metabolic homeostasis.
This sub-session will explore how fundamental membrane biophysics integrates cell biological mechanisms with organismal physiology in the contexts of metabolism and ageing. Understanding how membrane biophysical parameters are sensed, transduced, and restored under metabolic stress or during ageing remains a fundamental challenge bridging cell biology and physiology.
This sub-session will integrate the recent advances in technologies and bring together investigators employing quantitative biophysics, lipidomics, advanced imaging, structural biology, and in vivo metabolic phenotyping. By integrating mechanistic cell biology with physiological and translational perspectives, this session aims to redefine membranes as dynamic regulators of metabolic homeostasis and ageing, highlighting membrane biophysics as a unifying framework for understanding age-related metabolic disease and exploring new therapeutic strategies.
Sunday, December 13 | 8:45 am to 9:45 am
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Binyam Mogessie
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Karsten Weis
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Shirin Bahmanyar
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Shirin Bahmanyar, Yale University
Sunday, December 13 | 10:00 am to 12:00 am
Organizers: Arthur Charles-Orszag, University of California Davis; Lisa Racki, The Scripps Research Institute; and Arash Komeili, University of California Berkeley
Over the past 25 years, it has become increasingly clear that bacteria and archaea are far from being simple “bags of enzymes.” Advances in fluorescence and electron microscopy approaches have revealed that these organisms exhibit striking spatial and temporal organization. They encode a growing number of dynamic cytoskeletal polymers that conduct numerous long-range tasks (DNA segregation, cargo transport, cell shape determination, and cytokinesis), membrane-bound compartments, but also protein- and nucleic acid-based microcompartments that sequester metabolic enzymes and organize key biochemical pathways. Similar to findings in eukaryotic organisms, biomolecular condensates have also been observed in bacteria and archaea, where they modulate transcription, RNA processing, and signaling. Lastly, the recent discovery of the closest archaeal ancestor of eukaryotes, Asgard archaea, suggests that key elements of the complex cell biology of eukaryotes first emerged in archaea.
This Minisymposium will highlight recent discoveries in self-organizing and signaling systems of bacteria and archaea, describing the molecular mechanisms underlying their complex architecture and regulation. We also welcome presentations on emerging technologies and methodological innovations that enable high-resolution dissection of microbial cell organization.
The target audience for this session includes not only bacterial and archaeal cell biologists, but also eukaryotic cell biologists, biophysicists, and computational biologists interested in how the very different self-organizing systems found in archaea and bacteria accomplish spatial tasks similar to those found in eukaryotic cells, often with a far smaller number of components.
After attending this session, participants should be able to:
- Describe a diversity of mechanisms microbes use to establish cellular and temporal organization.
- Appraise new approaches to image and dissect cellular processes within microorganisms.
- Compare and contrast mechanisms used by bacteria and archaea to conduct long-range tasks.
Organizers: Dan feng Cai, Johns Hopkins University; and Steven Boeynaems, Baylor College of Medicine
Biomolecular condensates are fundamental to our understanding of how macromolecules concentrate locally without the aid of lipid membranes. While traditionally recognized for their ability to accelerate biochemical reactions, condensates also play critical roles in buffering reactions and serving as structural components across diverse contexts. Functional condensates exist across the tree of life, extending far beyond mammalian systems. This special interest group highlights recently discovered, emerging functions of biomolecular condensates and explores how evolution has harnessed these assemblies to regulate complex cellular processes.
Organizers: Jenna Christensen, Northwestern University; and Agnieszka Kendrick, Salk Institute for Biological Studies
The interior of a cell is a complex and fluctuating environment. At any given time, a cell must transport a diverse array of cargos, including membrane-bound organelles, ribonucleoprotein complexes, and chromosomes, with spatial and temporal precision. Much of this transport occurs via the motor proteins dynein, kinesin, and myosin on the microtubule or actin cytoskeleton. Intracellular transport is tightly regulated by a combination of factors – the biophysical properties of the motors, the organization of the cytoskeleton, and a wide variety of external and internal cues. Misregulation of intracellular transport can result in diseases ranging from cancer to neurodegeneration. The session will explore cutting-edge research on the regulation of intracellular transport at the evolutionary, organismal, cellular, molecular, and structural levels. Finally, this session will emphasize cellular ‘decision-making’ cues that drive transport directionality or motor selection
Organizers: Colin Comerci, UCSD; and Leticia Galera-Laporta, UCSD
From bacterial biofilms to fungi, to plants and animals, cells require extracellular signaling to coordinate collective behaviors, including differentiation, migration, adhesion, and spatial organization. Despite the diversity of these systems, shared principles are emerging. Cells across kingdoms use extracellular cues to sense neighbors, remodel their microenvironment, and make decisions that shape community-level organization.
This session will explore how various secreted signals, as well as the extracellular matrix, facilitate cellular interactions and communities. We are interested in diverse viewpoints from fundamental biology, focusing on cell communication to model systems that examine tissue and organism development. Topics will span diffusible signaling molecules (morphogens, quorum-sensing, cytokines), contact-dependent communication, and the mechanical and biomechanical roles of the extracellular matrix in directing collective cell behavior. Understanding how extracellular cues organize multicellular systems has direct implications for infection and developmental biology, tissue engineering, cancer progression, and synthetic biology.
Organizers: Matthew Good, University of Pennsylvania; Jan Skotheim, Stanford University; and Hui Chen, University of South Carolina
A fundamental feature of proliferating eukaryotic cells is coordination of growth, cell division, and cell differentiation processes. Biological size control is observed in a broad variety of cell types, from fungi to human, utilize a cell size checkpoint that ensures that reach threshold size prior to committing to a subsequent cell division or fate determining event. Recent discoveries have uncovered the molecular basis of cell and tissue growth regulation both in cultured cells ex vivo and in stem cells in situ. Underlying the importance of regulatory processes, alterations to cell growth, cytoplasmic density and cell size impact molecular partition, cellular physiology and mechanics and gene expression. Additionally, in developing tissues, alteration to cell size and nucleocytoplasmic ratio contribute to decision-making events essential for early cell fate specification.
This session highlights cutting-edge research on how cells and tissues sense and regulate their dimensions from the macromolecular to microscale. Speakers will present their latest insights on the mechanistic basis of cell size and growth control, dysregulation of cell growth in disease, and how macromolecule concentrations and organelle dimensions scale with and contribute to the size of a cell.
Sunday, December 13 | 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm
Organizers: Karen Oegema, University of California, San Diego; Jessica Feldman, Stanford University; and Kyung Lee, National Cancer Institute/ National Institutes of Health
Centrioles and centrosomes, along with diverse acentriolar and non-centrosomal microtubule-organizing centers (MTOCs), serve as hubs for the nucleation and spatial arrangement of microtubules across cell types and developmental contexts. From the nano- to microscale architecture of centrioles and spindle pole bodies to the dynamic material properties of the pericentriolar material (PCM), recent advances have transformed our understanding of how these structures assemble, mature, and function. Beyond their canonical roles in mitotic spindle formation and ciliogenesis, centrosomes and other non-centrosomal MTOCs are now recognized as key regulators of cell proliferation, polarity, differentiation, and tissue organization. This session will highlight emerging insights into the assembly, architecture, and regulation of centrioles, centrosomes, and diverse MTOCs, as well as their roles in development and disease.
Organizers: Kashish Jain, University of California-San Francisco
The cell membrane is not only a passive boundary separating the intracellular and extracellular environments, but also it is a dynamic, excitable, and spatially organized signaling platform that governs how cells perceive and respond to their surroundings. From growth factor receptors and transmembrane receptors to ion channels and G protein–coupled receptors, signal initiation at the membrane determines various cell fate decisions. This session will highlight recent advances have fundamentally reshaped our understanding of membrane signaling. The session will also span different scales, different receptors, and include various factors affecting signaling receptors, including biophysical and biochemical. Participants can expect rigorous discussion, critical engagement, and a forward-looking perspective on the field.
Organizers: Nicholas Vierra, University of Utah; and Eamonn Dickson, UC Davis
Neurons are among the most morphologically and functionally complex cells, yet much of what is known about intracellular organization derives from non-neuronal systems. Neuronal operation requires coordinated signaling, trafficking, and organelle dynamics across the soma, dendrites, and axon. This session will highlight emerging work showing how intracellular organization outside the synapse contributes to neuronal function, plasticity, and long-term stability.
Organizers: Ya-Cheng Liao, Columbia University; Heejun Choi, HHMI Janelia Research Campus; Jessica Sheu-Gruttadauria, Sloan Kettering Institute; and Devon Mason, NIH/NCI
RNAs orchestrate gene expression, protein production, and compartment formation across biological length scales. Recent technological advances in visualizing and manipulating RNAs in their native context have revealed how RNA sequence, structure, and localization converge on cell physiology. These discoveries have led to ambitious projects like mapping translation in situ and engineering organelles from the molecular level. This Minisymposia will showcase the emerging application of RNA-based tools and novel regulatory paradigms within living cells and tissues. This emphasis on technology-to-function will be of broad interest to the cell biology community and foster collaboration with the network of RNA specialists at ASCB.
Organizers: Adam Soh, Duke University; and Brenton Hoffman, Duke University
The extracellular matrix (ECM) and cytoskeleton are two integrated networks that define shape and function from the cellular to organismal scale. Though each has been studied extensively, the bidirectional crosstalk between the ECM and the cortical cytoskeleton, linked by cell adhesion complexes, remains a major gap in our understanding of how tissue integrity is defined and sustained. The basement membrane, a thin elastic ECM that envelops tissues, and the cortical cytoskeleton share striking conceptual parallels: both networks bear and resist mechanical load and are adaptively remodeled to tune their mechanical properties, enabling tissues to maintain their architecture in the face of mechanical stress. Disruption of these adaptive programs at the matrix–cell cortex interface compromises tissue architecture and is increasingly implicated in aging and disease. This minisymposium will bring together researchers who directly interrogate the interplay between basement membrane, adhesion systems, and cortical cytoskeletal organization and function. By integrating cell and developmental biology, live and super-resolution microscopy, and biophysics, this session will highlight how shared principles—crosslinking, turnover, and repair—operate across the matrix-cell cortex interface. A key theme will be the use of diverse experimental models alongside engineered patient-derived mutations and age-associated changes in ECM, cell adhesion components, and cytoskeletal proteins as perturbations to probe matrix–cell cortex coupling. Together, these perspectives will open new avenues for uncovering general rules of matrix–cell cortex coordination and provide a unifying framework for understanding how tissues maintain form and function across the lifespan.
Monday, December 14 | 8:45 am to 9:45 am
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Karen Oegema
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Sue Biggins
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Elçin Ünal
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Melina Schuh
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Monday, December 14 | 10:00 am to 12:00 pm
Organizers: Silvia Jansen, WashU Medicine; Jessica Henty-Ridilla, SUNY Upstate Medical University; and Cristian Suarez, University of Chicago
Cellular architecture and function emerges from dynamic crosstalk between actin filaments, microtubules, septins, and intermediate filaments. From bacteria to animals, these intricate systems help cells to change shape, move, divide, generate force and readily respond to extracellular signals and stress. Yet, despite decades of progress, these networks are often studied in isolation, obscuring the mechanistic principles that emerge from their dynamic interactions and crosstalk. Fundamental questions thus remain: How do distinct polymers coordinate assembly and mechanics? What molecular rules govern their cooperation, competition, and dynamic higher-order organization? How do failures in cytoskeletal integration drive disease? Recent advances in purified reconstitution, quantitative imaging, structural biology, and mechanobiology have made it possible to connect molecular mechanisms to cellular-scale behavior. However, a critical gap persists as reconstitution biochemistry and in vivo cell biology are still too rarely brought into true dialogue. This minisymposium aims to bridge that divide by integrating minimal biochemical systems with live-cell and organismal studies, highlighting emerging principles of cytoskeletal coordination across scales. The session will combine conceptual anchor talks with short presentations from rising investigators advancing bold, interdisciplinary approaches. The next frontier in cell biology is not just in actin, microtubules, septins, or intermediate filaments individually, but in understanding the rules that govern their integration. This minisymposium will define that frontier, exploring how coordinated cytoskeletal dynamics support cellular homeostasis and drive disease progression.
Organizers: Chenshu Liu, Lehigh University; Needh iBhalla, University of California, Santa Cruz; Soni Lacefield, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth; and Sadie Wignall, Northwestern University
Successful reproduction depends on the precise coordination of cellular processes across developmental stages and cell types. This session will examine the cell biological foundations of germ cell development and gametogenesis, highlighting the mechanisms that preserve genome integrity and ensure faithful transmission of genetic information to the next generation.
A central theme will be meiosis—the specialized cell division program that reduces chromosome number to produce haploid gametes. Meiotic progression is governed by highly coordinated events, including programmed DNA double-strand break formation and repair, homolog recognition and segregation, dynamic gene regulation, post-translational control of key factors, spindle assembly, cytoskeletal reorganization, and force-generating and mechanosensitive pathways. Together, these processes provide powerful entry points for understanding how chromosomes, cytoplasm, and cellular architecture are integrated during sex cell differentiation.
By featuring discoveries across diverse experimental systems, this session will illuminate conserved and organism-specific strategies that shape meiotic chromosome behavior and gamete formation. The work presented will not only advance our understanding of fundamental cell biological mechanisms, but also provide insight into infertility, genome instability, and human reproductive health.
Through cross-disciplinary perspectives and diverse model organisms, #Meiosis4Eva continues to strengthen the connection between reproductive biology and the broader cell biology community, fostering discussion and collaboration across experimental and conceptual boundaries.
Organizers: Michael Rout, Rockefeller University; Coral Zhou, University of Kansas; Mary Dasso, National Institutes of Health; John Aitchison, Seattle Children's and University of Washington; Samson Obado, Seattle Children's and University of Washington; and Maya Capelson, San Diego State University
The nuclear pore complex (NPC), embedded in the nuclear envelope (NE), regulates the selective transport of macromolecules between the nucleus and cytoplasm. The NPC and the surrounding NE also serve as a structural and regulatory scaffold for factors involved in gene expression, RNA processing and export, protein modification, genome integrity, and chromatin organization, positioning this interface as fundamental to genome regulation and cellular homeostasis. Recent advances in imaging, genomics, and structural biology have expanded our understanding of the NPC and NE as both drivers and sensors of nuclear function and physiological state. Their structures, composition, and functions are influenced by their cellular environment, developmental stage, and disease state, while at the same time, they exert control over diverse processes including gene expression, genome stability, cell signaling, force transduction, and nuclear organization. This Minisymposium will showcase interdisciplinary research on the structure, function and dynamics of the NPC and the NE, and their evolutionary origins and diversity across different eukaryotes, cell and tissue types. This will include the interplay between the NPC and cellular physiology, transcription and export, how nuclear trafficking and NPC control systems are influenced by disease altered states, such as virus-infected or cancerous cells. Talks will span structural cell biology, gene regulation, nuclear organization, and disease mechanisms—illuminating how this dynamic gateway integrates and governs key aspects of cell function.
Organizers: Junior West, University of Michigan; and Miranda Hunter, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Cancer progression involves many cellular interactions within the tumor microenvironment that antagonize and promote tumor growth, invasion, and metastasis. Cancer cells interact with each other and with other cellular components of the tumor microenvironment. Recent advancements in imaging technologies have revolutionized our ability to capture these dynamic cellular interactions in living animals and reconstructed tissues. These innovations are catalyzing our understanding of complex cellular crosstalk that often cannot be adequately modeled using traditional experimental systems. This session will highlight how traditional cell biology explorations coupled with new approaches for imaging cancer cell behavior can teach us about how multicellular interactions shape the tumor microenvironment, contribute to tumor progression, and drive metastasis.
Organizers: Ralf-Peter Czekay, Albany Medical College; Kristen Johnson, University of New Hampshire; and Padmamalini Thulasiraman, University of South Alabama
The use of freely available generative artificial intelligence (AI) has become widely influential and a major tool in academic practice. The advancing integration of generative AI into higher education is rapidly transforming our current teaching, learning, and assessment strategies. The integration of AI in education has shown mixed results. AI can significantly enhance learning experiences and student success outcomes by providing personalized learning experiences, instant feedback, and 24/7 access to resources for the student. However, it is also apparent that AI presents certain challenges including advanced faculty training, development of transparent policies on AI use, assessment redesign aligned with higher-order learning outcomes, and ongoing concerns regarding bias, privacy, and data security risks that need to be addressed. Furthermore, current assessment strategies are significantly disrupted by AI, particularly through challenges to academic integrity in unsupervised settings including take-home assignments and exams forcing institutions to redesign assessments toward in-class, oral, or project-based formats. This mini symposium aims to discuss evidence on AI’s systemic effects and to evaluate its advantages and risks across higher education with a special focus on student learning and assessment.
Organizers: Pallavi Deolal
Imaging-based approaches have revolutionized our understanding of biology by revealing the dynamic spatial organization and rare nanoscale events that drive fundamental cellular processes and underlie tissue-level function. The tools that drive such innovation are increasingly developed at the interface of engineering, chemistry, physics, mathematics and computational biology. It is therefore timely to bring these communities together in a dedicated session that highlights recent advances in imaging methods which have directly led to new mechanistic understanding of cellular processes. By featuring studies where methodological innovation and biological discovery go hand in hand, this session will demonstrate how interdisciplinary collaborations can transform our view of how cells function in
Monday, December 14 | 1:45 pm to 3:00 pm
Organizers: Simona Giunta, University of Rome La Sapienza; and Teresa Davoli, New York University
Telomere to Telomere References and Long-Read Technologies open a New Era of Functional Genomics for Cell Biology. Reference genomes are the scaffolds on which aspects of modern cell and molecular biology are built. Yet for decades, a single human reference genome has been available that has remained incomplete, composite, and far removed from the laboratory model systems under sudy. This session will new telomere-to-telomere assemblies and their use to advance our understanding of genomic, epigenetic, transcriptomic and other multi-omics datasets. Recent work on human RPE1 cells, the first laboratory cell line with a dedicated reference genome assembled using high-fidelity long reads, ultra-long nanopore data, and conformation–based haplotype phasing, highlights the value of matched reference genomes for accurate genome-wide analyses. The assembly resolved centromeres and structural variants at single-base resolution, enabling accurate mapping of regulatory and structural elements that were previously inaccessible. The series of short talks in this session will present how isogenomic reference frameworks transform our ability to connect genome structure with transcriptional and epigenomic states, enabling high-precision genome engineering and multi-omics analyses. The talks will include cell line–specific rearrangements, epigenetic landscapes, and structural variation with functional consequences for chromosome segregation, and higher-order modes gene regulation along chromosome arms. Together with novel discoveries of the genome biology, including describing the centeny map of the human genome, the minisymposia will showcase innovative computational tools and resources to study DNA repeats, chromosome-specific genome architecture and conservation or divergence across individuals, populations and species. Altogether, this session at ASCB offers a roadmap toward isogenomic reference sets for key model systems, and provides proof-of-concept on how their application is set to unlock the next wave of functional genomics. Cell-type-specific telomere-to-telomere references, anchored in real experimental systems, can redefine precision, reproducibility, interpretability, and discovery in the omics era.
Monday, December 14 | 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm
Organizers: Sining Wang, University of California, Los Angeles; Danielle Schmitt, University of California, Los Angeles; and TaraTeSlaa, University of California, Los Angeles
Metabolism is a central function for each cell, requiring precise coordination and regulation for survival, growth, and proliferation. While the metabolic pathways themselves are well-studied, how metabolism is regulated and implicated in disease development and progression is less understood. A key challenge in studying metabolism is the dearth of tools able to measure metabolism at the single cell and subcellular scale. This session will cover recent advances in approaches and technologies for studying metabolism with high spatial and temporal resolution. In addition to methods to measure metabolism, there has been recent development of “scalpel-like” tools to manipulate metabolic pathways to mechanistically dissect metabolic regulation and the role of metabolism in distinct cellular functions. In this subgroup, early-career researchers will share new and exciting advances in both measuring and manipulating metabolism across scales, including genetically encodable molecular tools, live cell and tissue imaging, and mass spectrometry-based approaches. Attendees will learn of the newest advances in studying metabolism across scales, and connect with emerging leaders in the field.
Organizers: John Aitchison, Seattle Children's and University of Washington; and Assaf Zaritsky, Ben-Gurion, University of the Negev
Molecular Biology of the Cell (MBoC), the flagship journal of the ASCB, has served the cell biology community for more than 30 years, providing researchers with constructive feedback and a platform to showcase their work to a global audience of cell scientists. In this interesting and thought-provoking session, MBoC is inviting emerging scientists and leading experts to showcase research that represents the future of cell biology. We welcome speakers to showcase novel technologies or experimental approaches in cell biology research.
Organizer: Jennifer Young, National University of Singapore; Natalie Dye, National University of Singapore; Alphee Michelot, National University of Singapore; Andrew Holle, National University of Singapore; Alexander Bershadsky, National University of Singapore; and Rong Li, National University of Singapore
Mechanical forces shape cell behavior across molecular, cellular, and tissue scales. This session will highlight emerging insights into how mechanical cues are generated, sensed, and integrated across space and time to regulate fundamental biological processes.
The field of Mechanobiology has enabled precise interrogation of how mechanical signals in biological systems are organized in space and evolve over time. This session will bring together investigators who are uncovering how force generation, cytoskeletal dynamics, nuclear mechanics, cell–matrix interactions, extracellular matrix, and tissue architecture are coordinated across both length- and timescales. By focusing on spatial and temporal regulation rather than a specific organ system or disease, the session emphasizes fundamental mechanisms that regulate development, homeostasis, and disease.
Organizer: Courtney Schroeder, UT Southwestern Medical Center; Holly Goodson, University of Notre Dame; Masayuki Onishi, Duke University; Edgar Medina, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; María Angélica Bravo Núñez; Cornell University, and Michelle Momany, University of Georgia
Evolutionary cell biology (ECB) has two tightly intertwined facets: An organismal perspective and a diversity perspective. An organismal perspective centers on reconstructing the evolutionary history and identifying the constraints of a cellular process to understand why a particular cell, organism, or lineage works the way it does. A diversity perspective centers on how different species tackle these cellular processes, allowing us to identify whether evolution arrived at similar or different solutions and why. These different perspectives are united by the fact that cells are the fundamental unit of life, and the study of ECB will illuminate the diversity of life at (sub)cellular scales and help uncover the basic principles of living systems. The speakers in this session employ the principles of ECB from multiple disciplines, levels of biological organization, and across traditional and non-traditional model systems to tackle the emergence and evolution of phenotypes across all levels of biological organization—genes, proteins, complexes, polymers, development, collectives, lineages, and others. Speakers will include those who study fungal biology and broader eukaryotes, including animals, protists, and algae.
Organizer: Qiangjun Zhou, Vanderbilt University; John Jimah, Princeton University; and Sophie Travis, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Recent advances in cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) and cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) have transformed our ability to visualize macromolecular assemblies, organelles, and cellular architecture in near-native and native states. The three-dimensional reconstructions achieved by these approaches, often inaccessible by other methods, have enabled the direct interrogation of cellular organization and dynamics and resolution of long-standing questions in cell biology.
Increasingly, cryo-EM and cryo-ET are being applied not only as structural tools but as discovery platforms that connect molecular structure to cellular function. When integrated with biochemical, biophysical, genetic, and fluorescence microscopy–based approaches, these methods provide unprecedented insight into how macromolecular assemblies operate within complex cellular environments across diverse biological systems.
This session will highlight recent biological discoveries enabled by cryo-EM and cryo-ET, emphasizing how these technologies are bridging structural and cell biology to reveal new functional principles governing cellular organization, dynamics, and regulation. The session will showcase examples in which cryo-EM/ET of heterogeneous, endogenous, or in situ/cellular samples have advanced our understanding of fundamental cell biological processes.
This session will be of broad interest to cell biologists, structural biologists, and researchers applying advanced imaging approaches. It will appeal both to investigators seeking to leverage cryo-EM/ET to address fundamental biological questions and to those interested in integrative, interdisciplinary strategies that combine structural, functional, and computational analyses.
Objectives:
- Highlight recent biological discoveries enabled by cryo-EM and cryo-ET in the study of macromolecular assemblies, organelles, and cellular architecture.
- Demonstrate how cryo-EM/ET bridges structural and cell biology, linking molecular structure to cellular function and physiological context.
- Promote integrative approaches that combine cryo-EM/ET with complementary techniques, including fluorescence microscopy, biochemical and MS-based analyses, and AI-driven image processing, to address fundamental questions in cell biology.
Organizer: Xuebiao Yao, CSCB
Multicellularity is a fundamental building block of tissues and organs of metazoan underlying the development and physiology. The formation and robustness of multicellularity are the outstanding questions for biological sciences as the perturbation of multicellularity is detrimental to animal development and health. However, consolidation of cell-based phenotypes to the emergent properties of tissues and organs remains a great challenge. This mini-symposium aims to discuss the progresses toward understanding of the principles underlying multicellularity and emergent properties from cross-disciplinary approaches such as biomechanics, chemical genomics, quantitative and mesoscale imaging.
Tuesday, December 15 | 8:45 am to 9:45 am
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Aaron Diantonio
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Tuesday, December 15 | 10:00 am to 12:00 pm
Organizers: Jonathon Nixon-Abell, University of Cambridge; Edward Avezov, UK Dementia Research Institute; and Aubrey Weigel, Janelia Research Campus
Organelle biology has traditionally been defined by experiments in isolated cells, where morphology, dynamics, and molecular interactions can be resolved with exquisite detail. Yet in vivo, organelles operate within highly structured, mechanically constrained, and functionally heterogeneous tissue environments. Cell–cell contacts, extracellular matrix architecture, metabolic gradients, electrical activity, and developmental patterning all impose spatial and temporal constraints that are limited in simplified systems. Understanding how subcellular organization scales into tissues is therefore one of the major challenges in modern cell biology. Recent advances in tissue-scale imaging, spatially resolved omics, and quantitative modeling now make it possible to interrogate organelle architecture directly within intact multicellular systems. At the same time, growing recognition that many diseases reflect failures of cellular coordination rather than isolated molecular defects has sharpened the need to understand organelles in their native tissue context.
This session will explore how organelle morphology, positioning, and dynamics are shaped by tissue architecture and, in turn, how organelle networks contribute to emergent tissue-level physiology. Speakers will highlight advances in volumetric and intravital imaging, quantitative mapping of organelle organization across multicellular assemblies, and computational approaches that link subcellular measurements to tissue function. We will examine how organelle contacts, lipid and calcium signaling, metabolic coupling, and structural remodeling vary across cell types and microenvironments, and how these differences influence development, homeostasis, and disease.
Organizers: Blair Benham-Pyle, Baylor College of Medicine
Stem cells do not act in isolation. Instead, tissue homeostasis, regeneration, and aging emerge from communication between stem cells and their immediate niche as well as more distant cellular and systemic partners. Understanding the molecular basis of these interactions is essential for explaining how tissues maintain function, respond to injury, and change across the lifespan.
This session will highlight mechanistic studies dissecting how stem cells communicate with support cells, immune cells, differentiated progeny, and long-range or systemic signals to regulate renewal. We aim to showcase work uncovering the molecular pathways and physical mechanisms that mediate these interactions, including secreted ligands, receptor–ligand signaling, metabolic exchange, extracellular matrix cues, direct cell–cell contact, and systemic signals that couple tissue states across organs. We will also highlight modern experimental approaches, including spatial profiling, quantitative live imaging, and lineage-resolved or optogenetic perturbations.
By bringing together studies across diverse tissues and model systems, this session will reveal conserved mechanisms by which intercellular signaling shapes stem cell behavior and tissue renewal across the lifespan.
Organizers: Bhuminder Singh, Vanderbilt University Medical Center; and Sandra Scharaw, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics
Polarized epithelial cells form layers that virtually line every organ thus forming barriers between the inside and outside of the body. Apical membranes face the luminal side of organs, basal membranes face extracellular matrix and the basal lamina, and lateral membranes contact neighboring cells. This polarized architecture is established during embryonic development and maintained throughout life by active sorting and delivery of plasma membrane proteins to the correct membrane locations from intracellular sorting stations such as the TGN, early endosomes, and recycling endosomes. Understanding the key mechanisms that regulate polarity and polarized trafficking are key to understanding how epithelial cells communicate, may lose polarity and morph into disease. The goal of this special interest subgroup meeting is to highlight recent advances in our understanding of the dynamic subcellular organization of membranes, organelles and trafficking along them in 3D, how this contributes to polarized organization of plasma membrane proteins, and how these processes modulate diseases such as cancer progression.
Organizers: David Sanchez, Western University of Health Sciences, and Wilson Tang, Western University of Health Sciences
Viruses rely on precise manipulation of host cellular machinery to promote their replication, making infected cells a uniquely informative context for studying fundamental cell biology. This session will highlight recent research uncovering how viruses rewire intracellular pathways and modulate signaling networks to promote their replication and counter host defenses. Through diverse experimental approaches, speakers will demonstrate how investigation of the infected host cell reveals key principles governing cellular architecture, dynamics, and regulation.
Organizers: Tapomoy Bhattacharjee, National Centre for Biological Sciences
How do the mechanical complexities of diverse natural environments influence living systems? The native habitats of most lifeforms – such as tissues, mucus, and soil – typically feature both heterogeneous and spatiotemporally varying material properties. Invariably, cells inhabiting such milieus find themselves navigating different degrees of physical confinement, which imposes fundamental constraints on their growth, division, and motion. However, for the most part, we have interrogated biological phenomena through the lens of genetic mutations, biochemical signalling, and behavioral patterns – primarily using simplified and unconstrained 2D flat surfaces or liquid cultures, which do not capture the mechanical complexity inherent to natural environments. Inspired by such outstanding questions, an emerging body of work at the interface of bioengineering, biophysics, and quantitative cell biology has motivated a paradigm shift in our perception of how living matter interacts with and is shaped by its surroundings. In this session, we will coalesce and advance these ideas towards elucidating a physical principles-driven understanding of how mechanical constraints alter the outcomes biological functioning at levels ranging across intracellular signalling, intercellular communication, collective dynamics, multicellular organization, organismal behavior, and host-pathogen interactions. By bringing together interdisciplinary expertise across the communities of cell biologists, physicists, materials scientists, and theorists, these efforts will help advance our understanding of environmental mechanics and physical confinement as critical lynchpins of biological regulation.
Tuesday, December 15 | 1:15 pm to 3:15 pm
Organizers: Philipp S Erdmann, Human Technopole; Lindsey Young, UC San Diego; and Ryan Feathers, Princeton
Cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) and cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) have become powerful approaches for addressing cell biological questions at molecular resolution. However, their broad adoption is still limited by technical challenges in sample preparation, data acquisition, and analysis. Over the past few years, rapid methodological progress has begun to address these limitations. Advances are spanning cryo-focused ion beam (cryo-FIB) milling, correlative light and electron microscopy (cryo-CLEM), automation, and computational - increasingly AI-driven - pipelines for tomogram reconstruction, segmentation, and molecule identification.
This session will highlight new technologies that are lowering technical barriers and enabling higher-throughput data collection, reproducible sample preparation, and quantitative in situ structural analysis across diverse cellular contexts. Speakers will highlight methodological breakthroughs that allow structurally and compositionally complex cellular samples, such as tissues, organoids, and heterogeneous cellular states, to be interrogated at molecular resolution. The emphasis will be on innovations that improve throughput, reproducibility, and interpretability, as well as approaches that integrate cryo-electron microscopy with complementary imaging, biochemical, or biophysical methods.
This session will be of interest both to cell biologists aiming to incorporate cryo-EM/ET into their research, as well as technologists developing new experimental workflows and computational scientists working on image analysis and data integration. By focusing on both practical and conceptual advances, this session seeks to lower adoption barriers and allow the broader integration of cryo-EM/ET into cell biology research.
Tuesday, December 15 | 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm
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Valerie Weaver
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San Diego Convention Center,
San Diego, CA
#cellbio2026