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Registration

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Important deadlines

28 October 23.59 - registration deadline for the KBC DAYS 2025. 

22 October - deadline for PhD students to express their interest in presenting their projects.

31 October - abstract submission deadline for PhD students' presentations.

Overview

When: Tuesday, 11 November - Wednesday, 12 November 2025

Where: Carl Kempe salen (KB.E3.03) () and other locations at KBC

We invite you to participate in KBC DAYS, an annual interdisciplinary conference. This conference aims to foster collaborations between different departments and research centres affiliated with the Chemical Biological Centre, KBC, including departments from two faculties of Umeå University and the Faculty of Forest Sciences, SLU.

The scientific theme this year will be "Bridging Scales: from Quantum to Cosmos", providing a framework for discussions on different scales of scientific research and interpreting and using research results across scales and dimensions. We also wanted to highlight that this year is the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (). We welcome you to listen to the keynote lectures and other presentations focused on the scientific theme of this year's KBC DAYS! We also hope that the local speakers can relate to this theme and start their talks by identifying the temporal and spatial scales at which their research operates. 

We welcome newcomers, longer-term KBC residents and other curious researchers to learn or update themselves about the research infrastructures available at KBC and Campus Umeå, get to know more about their services and join the guided tours to their facilities or drop in to their "stations" to discuss potential projects!

You will also gain insights into what happened at KBC during the previous year by listening to exciting scientific talks from new faculty members of the KBC environment, awardees and researchers who received large grants in the past year, presentations by PhD students and activities organised by the Umeå Postdoc Society (UPS)!

As usual, the KBC DAYS will bring researchers from different departments and scientific disciplines together, offering numerous opportunities to network, participate in engaging discussions, and generate new ideas and collaborations!

Keynote speakers

Clarice D. Aiello, Founder of the Quantum Biology Ecosystem, CSO of the Quantum Biology Institute, USA

Clarice is a quantum engineer interested in how quantum physics informs biology at the nanoscale. Born and raised in Brazil, Clarice obtained a Diplome d'Ingenieur in Physics from the Ecole Polytechnique in France and an M.Phil. in Physics from the University of Cambridge, Trinity College, in England; she received her Ph.D. from MIT in Electrical Engineering. She further held postdoctoral appointments in Bioengineering at Stanford, and in Chemistry at Berkeley.

Webpage:

Sven Adler, Associate Professor, Department of Forest Resource Management; Division of Landscape Analysis, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Umeå, Sweden

Sven Adler – Associate Professor of Biology – studied mathematics and biology at the University of Rostock and then completed his PhD on the use of diatoms as bioindicators in paleoecology. After earning his doctorate, he joined the University of Kiel, where he supported PhD students in designing their studies and analysing their data, with a focus on marine birds and mammals in the North and Baltic Seas.
In the autumn of 2011, Adler began working at SLU in Umeå on the EU LIFE project MOTH – Monitoring of Terrestrial Habitats – working on a two-stage monitoring design to locate rare habitat types using remote-sensing data. In subsequent projects, he increasingly combined national monitoring datasets with remote-sensing products, applying different ecosystem-service frameworks and machine-learning methods. In collaboration with the Sámi Parliament and the Swedish Forest Agency, he produced in 2019 the first reindeer-lichen map for northern Sweden. Since 2021, Adler has led the National Alpine Vegetation Monitoring Project (NILSfjäll), where he is testing the integration of diverse remote-sensing platforms, novel field-work techniques (drones) and machine-learning methods to optimize filed data collection in the Swedish alpine environments.

Webpage:

Stephanie Werner, Professor, Department of Geosciences, Centre for Planetary Habitability, University of Oslo, Norway

Stephanie C. Werner is a planetary scientist and geophysicist with a PhD from Freie Universität Berlin (Germany). Her research interests is Comparative Planetology, and combines planetary dynamics, formation and evolution of (exo-)planetary systems, cratering chronology, cratering processes, remote sensing of earth and other planets and potential field data analyses. She is member of several mission consortia studying Mars, Venus and exoplanets. Currently Dr. Werner leads the Centre for Planetary Habitability, a centre of excellence at the University of Oslo, that is to investigate how have Earth’s physical and chemical attributes, and thus our planet’s proclivity for life, evolved, and how can we recognize distant worlds around other stars that have been or could be habitable?

Webpage:

PROGRAMME

Time in the programme is Central European Time (CET), e.g. Stockholm, Umeå

Note! The programme is under construction, preliminary and subject to change

DAY 1, Tuesday 11 November

8.30 Registration and poster mounting

and coffee

SESSION 1. OPENING and KEYNOTE LECTURE I

Chairperson: Lars-Andres Carlson

9.00 Welcome
Stefan Björklund
Scientific Coordinator of KBC

9.05 Opening KBC DAYS 2025
Thomas Olofsson
Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research, Umeå University

9.15 Shaping the next generation of researchers in infection biology: NDPIA and NDP-VIP
Annasara Lenman
National coordinator NDPIA and NDP-VIP, Department of Clinical Microbiology, Umeå University

9.25 KEYNOTE LECTURE I: “Quantum Biology”: How nature might be optimized to harness quantum mechanics
Clarice D. Aiello
Founder of the Quantum Biology Ecosystem, CSO of the Quantum Biology Institute

10.10 Coffee break

SESSION 2: NEW FACULTY MEMBERS, AWARD and GRANT RECIPIENTS from KBC

Chairperson: Ryo Morimoto

10.40 Positive strand RNA virus replication – why the most interesting questions are still unanswered
Lars-Anders Carlson
Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics and Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden (MIMS), Umeå University

10.55 Resolving microbial genomes in complex communities at the single-cell level
Laura Carroll
Department of Clinical Microbiology and Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden (MIMS), Umeå University

11.10 Integrated Multi-Trophic Farming: circularity and challenges
Olivier Keech
Department of Plant Physiology, Umeå Plant Science Centre, Umeå University

11.25 Development and prospect of hollow-core optical fiber
Max Yan
Department of Applied Physics and Electronics, Umeå University

11.40 Cuticle and apical hook development in Arabidopsis
Stephanie Robert
Department of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology, Umeå Plant Science Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU)

12.00 Lunch break

SESSION 3. KEYNOTE LECTURE II and PhD STUDENT PRESENTATIONS

Chairperson: Benedicte Albrectsen

13.00 Elevator talk presentations by PhD students (2 min each), Part 1

1. Burning Question: Where Does Chromium Hide in Bottom Ash?
Jeenu Jegy, Department of Applied Physics and Electronics, Umeå University

2. ELEVATE – Implementing new technologies into alpine vegetation monitoring programs
Arvid Sjöberg, Department of Forest Resource Management, SLU Umeå

3. Light-dependent modulation of sustained quenching during overwintering in Pinus koraiensis seedlings
Mingyu Liu, Department of Plant Physiology, Umeå Plant Science Centre (UPSC), Umeå University

4. Longitudinal Assessment of Tubular and Glomerular Kidney Function After COVID-19 – a prospective cohort study
Hanna Jerndal, Department of Clinical Microbiology, Umeå University

13.10 KEYNOTE LECTURE II: Integrating Environmental Ground Monitoring and Remote Sensing Using Machine Learning: Promising Advances and Key Challenges
Sven Adler
Department of Forest Resource Management, Division of Landscape Analysis, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU)

13.55 Elevator talk presentations by PhD students (2 min each), Part 2

5. Landscape Breeding: A new paradigm in forest tree management using remote sensing and AI
Annica Nordström, Department of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology, Umeå Plant Science Centre (UPSC), Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU)

6. Characterizing the Genetic Landscape of Puumala virus in Sweden
Rebecca Lantto Reinman, Department of Clinical Microbiology, Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden (MIMS), Umeå Centre for Microbial Research (UCMR)

7. Genome-wide Characterization of Microbial Gene Functions
Florian Albrecht, Department of Molecular Biology, Umeå Centre for Microbial Research (UCMR), Integrated Science Lab (IceLab), Umeå University

INTERACTION / POSTER SESSION

14.05 Poster presentations by PhD students and research infrastructures

and Coffee

SESSION 4. NEW FACULTY MEMBERS, AWARD and GRANT RECIPIENTS from KBC

Chairperson: Anna Strandberg 

15.00 Using crystals to track the Earth's past climate extremes
Morgan Jones
Department of Ecology, Environment and Geoscience, Umeå University

15.15 Nanostructured carbon materials for removal of actinides from industrial waste solutions
Alexandr Talyzin
Department of Physics, Umeå University

15.30 Methane emissions from northern rivers: from microbial to planetary scales
Gerard Rocher Ros
Department of Ecology, Environment and Geoscience, Umeå University

15.45 Optical bio-manipulation of cells, vesicles and single molecules
Pól Martin Bendix
Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

16.15 Gut microbial modulation of intestinal mucus function
Björn Schröder
Department of Molecular Biology and Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden (MIMS), Umeå University

16.30 Poster viewing and mingling before the dinner starts

16.45 KBC Ping-Pong Tournament Semi-Finals and the Final

- Award ceremony for the KBC Ping-Pong Tournament winner

18.00 Dinner
- Announcement of the PhD student presentation prize winners
- Announcement of the KBC Employee of the Year

DAY 2, Wednesday 12 November

8.30 Coffee

SESSION 5. UMEÅ POSTDOC SOCIETY (UPS)

Chairperson: Madhusree Mitra

9.00 From research to benefit for society
Johan Nordlund
IP- and innovation lawyer, The Innovation Office, Umeå University

Programme organised by UPS

9.15 The forest value chain – from seeds to trees where STEM sees
Christian Kugge
Research specialist, Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget (SCA) R&D

9.35 Panel discussion: "From Postdoc to PI: Winning Grants and Finding Your Path"

Moderator: Madhusree Mitra, Umeå Postdoc Society (UPS)
Panel members:
Eric Capo, Department of Ecology, Environment and Geoscience
Laura Bacete, Department of Plant Physiology, Umeå Plant Science Centre (UPSC), Umeå University
Max Renner, Department of Chemistry, Umeå Centre for Microbial Research (UCMR)
Paulina Wanrooji, Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics
Ryo Morimoto, Department of Molecular Biology, Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden (MIMS)
Verena Kohler, Department of Molecular Biology

10.35 Coffee break

SESSION 6. RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURE INFORMATION - Attend the live “Guinness World Records” attempt in “bridging scales” from Å to our solar system

Chairperson: Linda Sandblad

10.55 Start of a live experiment by electron microscopy – “Bridging scales”

11.05 Overview and news from KBC research infrastructures – Local and National facilities in one building
Linda Sandblad
Director of Umeå Centre for Electron Microscopy and SciLifeLab Site Umeå, Umeå University

11.15 Infrastructure at the Translational Research Centre
Ola Billing
Department of Diagnostics and Intervention, Umeå University

11.25 SITES – a national open resource for ecosystem science
Marcus Wallin
Director of the national infrastructure SITES (The Swedish Infrastructure for Ecosystem Science)

11.35 Combining lab-sources and synchrotron X-rays: Need, strategies and future
Mahesh Ramakrishnan
TEC Lab, Department of Applied Physics and Electronics, Umeå University and Guest Researcher – MAX IV

11.45 National unique research infrastructure to elevate your research
Linda Sandblad
Director of Umeå Centre for Electron Microscopy and SciLifeLab Site Umeå, Umeå University

12.00 Posters by Research Infrastructures
and
standing lunch

13.00 Posters by Research Infrastructures (continued) and
Guided tours to infrastructure facilities /drop-in discussions with infrastructure representatives

SESSION 7. KEYNOTE LECTURE III and NEW FACULTY MEMBERS, AWARD and GRANT RECIPIENTS from KBC

Chairperson: Morgan Jones

13.30 KEYNOTE LECTURE III: Exoplanets, near and far, small and rare, large and plenty?
Stephanie Werner
Centre for Planetary Habitability, University of Oslo

14.15 Precision spectroscopy using optical frequency combs
Aleksandra Foltynowicz Matyba
Department of Physics, Umeå University

14.30 Coffee break

SESSION 8. NEW FACULTY MEMBERS, AWARD and GRANT RECIPIENTS from KBC 

Chairperson: Stefan Björklund

14.45 Why the Arctic Matters – Communicating Science to Make an Impact
Keith Larsson
Director of the Arctic Centre at Umeå University and Coordinator of the Climate Impacts Research Centre, Department of Ecology, Environment and Geoscience, Umeå University

15.00 Disarming Fusobacterium nucleatum: Development of FadA Inhibitors to Enhance Immunotherapy and Reduce Tumor Burden in Colorectal Cancer
Fredrik Almqvist
Director of the Umeå Center for Microbial Research, UCMR, Department of Chemistry, Umeå University

15.15 Efficient genome editing in worms
Changchun Chen
Department of Molecular Biology, Umeå University

15.30 Concluding remarks
Stefan Björklund
Scientific Coordinator of KBC

- Announcement of photo contest winner

Activities organised in the frame of the KBC DAYS 2025

Information about and pre-registration for the various activities organised in the frame of this year's KBC DAYS will be available on this webpage soon. Stay tuned for the email and digital screen announcements!

Organisers

Scientific Organisers

Stefan Björklund, Professor, Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics, Scientific Coordinator of KBC, Umeå University

Anna Strandberg, Associate Professor, Department of Applied Physics and Electronics, Umeå University

Benedicte Albrectsen, Associate Professor, Department of Plant Physiology, Umeå Plant Science Centre, Umeå University

Lars-Anders Carlson, Associate Professor, Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics, and Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden (MIMS), Umeå University

Madhusree Mitra, Postdoctoral researcher, Department of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology, SLU, and Umeå Postdoc Society (UPS)

Morgan Jones, Associate Professor, Department of Ecology, Environment and Geoscience, Umeå University

Nicolò Maccaferri, Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, Umeå University

Ryo Morimoto, Research Fellow, Department of Molecular Biology and Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden (MIMS), Umeå University

Conference Organisers

Stefan Björklund, Professor, Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics, Scientific coordinator of KBC, Umeå University

Anna Shevtsova, Communications Officer, KBC, Umeå University

Ingrid Söderbergh, Research coordinator, Umeå Centre for Microbial Research (UCMR), Umeå University

Irina Iakovleva, Research coordinator, Bio4Energy and Department of Chemistry, Umeå University

Ainhoa Querejeta, Coordinator, SciLifeLab Site Umeå