Nature Network’s Berlin group, run by Philipp Selenko, is organizing a series of dinners during the Twentieth International Genetics Conference (to be held in Berlin from 12 to 17 July). The dinners are free to attend and are intended to provide the opportunity to meet some of the distinguished scientists who are speaking at the conference in a relaxed atmosphere.

Friday 11 July: Oliver Smithies & Mario Capecchi, winners of the 2007 Nobel prize in Medicine ’for their discoveries of principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells.’

Monday 14 July: Elisa Izaurralde & Frank Uhlmann, respectively Max Planck Director at the MPI for Developmental Biology in Tuebingen and group leader at the Cancer Research UK Institute in London. Elisa works on various aspects of RNA biology whereas Frank is interested in the functional properties of eukaryotic cell division.

Tuesday 15 July: Eric Lander, Peer Bork & Dinshaw Patel.Eric is the Founding Director of the Broad Institute of the MIT; Peer is the Scientific Coordinator of the EMBL Stuctural Biology and Bioinformatics Program. The two are internationally known for their pioneering work in deciphering the DNA/RNA sequence space. Dinshaw runs a structural biology laboratory at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Institute in NYC where he has unraveled some key features of RNA and DNA molecules, most recently those of siRNAs.

Wednesday 16th July: Rudi Jaenisch & Barry Dickson discuss issues about model organisms in science. Rudi is at the Whitehead Institute in Boston and a distinguished expert in mouse genetics and embryonic stem-cell biology. Barry is the Scientific Director of the Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna, and known for his work in on axon guidance in Drosophila . He has recently embarked on a journey to unravel the molecular principles of complex animal behaviour.

All dinners will start at 7 p.m. and take place at the Meierei, Kollwitzstrasse 42, Prenzlauer Berg.

Philipp writes “We hope that you are as excited as we are about the program and that many of you will show up for those special events!” For further information (including travel directions), please see the Nature Network Berlin forum; if you have any additional questions, you can contact Philipp via email.

Nature Network Berlin has set up a shared Google calendar for these and other Berlin-related events.