Annual Swiss Meeting Proteomics, Eurotel Montreux 2018

The Proteomics Section of Life Sciences Switzerland (LS2) aims to promote research and education in the science of Proteomics in Switzerland. To this end, the society organized for the fourth time the Annual Proteomics Meeting 2018 (19-20 April 2018, Montreux, Switzerland) bringing together more than 100 proteomic researchers from Switzerland and neighboring countries. The meeting is unique to the sense that encourages and actively promotes the interaction of younger generation researchers (PhD students, post-doctoral fellows) with principle investigators (PIs) and vendors creating a friendly atmosphere where the new trends in proteomics research can be disseminated.

Following the tradition of last meetings, two plenary speakers from abroad participated and provided their perspective in the latest advancements of the field. Professor Jennifer Van Eyk (Cedars Sinai, Los Angeles, CA, USA) presented her vision on how the continuous individual health monitoring may allow early medical intervention resulting in increased quality of life and reduced health costs. More specifically, she described the development of a pipeline that allows the continuous screening of individuals in risk of cardiovascular disease by combining volumetric absorptive microsampling devices for remote blood collection and a fully automated sample preparation workflow. Professor Matthias Selbach (Max-Delbrück-Center for Molecular Medicine, Berlin, Germany) presented a summary of three exciting projects currently in development in his lab. Of interest, the second project focused on how disease causing mutations in the unfolded regions of proteins may affect the interaction with other proteins and provide insights into disease mechanism. Notably, the introduction of leucine in such a region may result to the formation of a motif that disturbs the proper localization of the protein therefore its function. Apart from the plenary speakers, PIs, post-doctoral fellows and PhD students from universities and institutes all around Switzerland presented their latest results and received feedback from the audience.

Dualsystems was represented in the conference by two individuals; senior scientist Dr. Maria Pavlou (prior post-doctoral fellow in the Wollscheid laboratory, ETH Zurich, Switzerland) and scientist Levent Demiray. Moreover, Dualsystems was the proud sponsor of the conference apéro. Given that the organizers consider networking, personal interactions and scientific exchange of high importance, the apéro was the social highlight of the event.

All in all, the Annual Proteomics Meeting 2018 was a great meeting with enthusiastic participants, top-notch talks and extensive networking. Congratulations to the organizing committee and looking forward to next year’s gathering.