Flagship Initiative Engineering Molecular Systems Life-Inspired Engineering Molecular Systems Conference 2026
29.09.2026 - 01.10.2026 at Audimax, Heidelberg University
The program and registration are available on the conference website!
Engineering molecular systems is a relatively new field of research that has the potential to make groundbreaking innovations that can broadly benefit society. A special feature of this area of research is that interdisciplinarity is key, involving methodologies and expertise in synthetic biology and medicine, materials science, physics, chemistry, and new environmental technologies.
Combining living materials with synthetic molecular systems is one of the main keys to life-inspired molecular systems. The resulting hybrid systems will have new functionalities with a high transfer and translational potential. However, the engineering of mechanisms found in nature with synthetic components will lead to new molecular systems promising solutions for social challenges. The applications of such life-inspired hybrid or fully synthetic systems cover a broad range of applications such as cancer therapy, nanorobots, multi-organoid-systems or even “living” computers.
The Life-inspired Molecular Systems Conference at Heidelberg University will highlight recent advances in synthetic immunology, research on organoids, and molecular systems engineering, and encompasses invited talks, contributed talks, and posters.
Topics
- Synthetic Immunology
- Organoids
- Engineering Molecular Systems
Speakers
Aránzazu del Campo
Leibniz Institute for New Materials, Germany
https://www.leibniz-inm.de/en/research/scientific-units/dynamic-biomaterials/
Iain Dunlop
Imperial College London, UK
https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/i.dunlop
Kurt Gothelf
Aarhus University, Denmark
https://inano.au.dk/about/research-groups/gothelf-lab/
Henry Hess
Columbia University, USA
https://www.bme.columbia.edu/faculty-staff/directory/henry-hess
Charlotta Lorenz
Leibniz Institute for Interactive Materials, Germany
https://www.dwi.rwth-aachen.de/en/working-group/rg-lorenz
Peter Loskill
University of Tübingen, Germany
https://www.organ-on-chip.uni-tuebingen.de/unser-team/peter-loskill/
Jeantine Lunshof
Harvard University, USA
Simone Mayer
KIT, Germany
https://sznbio.zoo.kit.edu/21_62.php
Adrian Ranga
KU Leuven, Belgium
https://www.kuleuven.be/wieiswie/en/person/00102955
Sai Reddy
Botnar Institute of Immune Engineering, Basel, Switzerland
https://immune.engineering/about/team/sai-reddy
Taher Saif
University of Illinois, USA
https://bioengineering.illinois.edu/people/saif
Brigitte Städler
Aarhus University, Denmark
https://inano.au.dk/research/senior-scientists/o-z/stadler-brigitte
Menachem Stern
AMOLF, The Netherlands
https://amolf.nl/research-groups/learning-machines
Nicolas Voelcker
Monash University, Australia
https://www.monash.edu/pharm/research/themes/drug-delivery-disposition-and-dynamics/research-groups/voelcker-group/team
Marcy Zenobi-Wong
ETH Zürich, Switzerland
https://hest.ethz.ch/en/research/professorships/person-detail.zenobi-wong.html
Kenneth Witwer
Johns Hopkins University, USA
https://www.witwerlab.com/kenneth-witwer-phd
Tsing-Young Dora Tang
Universität des Saarlandes, Germany
https://www.uni-saarland.de/lehrstuhl/tang.html
Roman Zantl
IBIDI, Germany
Scientific Committee
