The Instruct-ERIC Structural Biology in Slovakia and Beyond conference took place in Bratislava 11 November, bringing together the structural biology community from across Slovakia for a day of talks, networking, and discussions.
Slovakia is one of the founding members of Instruct, part of the consortium when Instruct was founded as an ERIC in 2017. In 2022, Slovakia became one of the first two research sites, alongside Portugal.
The Slovakia research site is based at the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAS), headed by Miloš Hricovini. The site provides a foundation for training workshops, outreach opportunities and networking events, such as this week’s symposium.
The conference kicked off with an introduction from Miloš, followed by an introduction to Instruct from John Dolan, Communication and Project Manager at Instruct. Prof. Harald Schwalve then gave the first scientific talk of the day, outlining the use of NMR for studying proteins and RNA for drug discovery, demonstrating the power of Instruct access for ground-breaking research, with technical input from the Fragment-Screen project.
Instruct-CZ, represented by CEITEC in Brno, then gave the next two talks, from Jiří Novacek and Radovan Fiala, respectively highlighting the use of Cryo-EM and NMR at CEITEC for advanced structural biology research.
Attendees were then lucky enough to hear from several local speakers, based at SAS in various institutions. Zuzana Pakanová of the Institute of Chemistry gave an introduction to their work using mass spectrometry, on glycoproteins as biomarkers.
Jacob Bauer of the Institute of Molecular Biology spoke on their work on identifying the structure and function of calcium binding sites in Ryanodine receptors, before Vladena Bauerova showcased the structure and function of human ryanodine receptor 2.
The final talks of the day came from Vladimír Sládek and Rostislav Škrabana, respectively of the Institute of Chemistry and Institute of Neuroimmunology. Vladimir outlined their research on water-mediated contacts in PPIs, and Rostislav showed the structure of human lactoferrin, and its interaction with binders and receptors.
The conference was a great opportunity to bring together the Slovakia structural biology community, and the hope will be to continue with many more similar events in the years come.
Find out more about the Slovakia Instruct-ERIC Research Site here.