Past Summer Schools
5th NCCR RNA & Disease Summer School RNA: Heterogeneity in Chemistry, Space, and Time
The 5th NCCR RNA & Disease Summer School ‘RNA: Heterogeneity in Chemistry, Space, and Time’ took place in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, from 26 - 30 August 2024.
Under the guidance of 12 experts in different fields of RNA biology, the participants learned in a creative and interactive way about RNA heterogeneity in RNA processing, compartmentalization, translation, development, RNA localization and RNA modifications. Towards the end of the week, the participating students and postdocs developed and presented their own innovative research projects in the field of RNA biology – the ‘mountain projects’.
The program was further enriched by ice-breaker activities, short flash talks about the participants' research, lively discussions during meals and a free afternoon to enjoy the breathtaking mountain scenery of Saas-Fee.
We would like to thank all the organisers, speakers and sponsors - including the Swiss National Science Foundation, the University of Bern and ETH Zurich - who contributed to the success of this summer school.
Teachers:
- Helge Grosshans – Friedrich Miescher Institute, Basel, CH
- Valérie Hilgers – Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics, DE
- Maria Hondele (organisor) – Biozentrum, University of Basel, CH
- Isabella Moll - University of Vienna, Vienna, AT
- Andreas Moor – D-BSSE, ETH Zurich, Basel, CH
- Oliver Mühlemann (organisor) – University of Bern, Bern, CH
- Roy Parker – University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, US
- Ramesh Pillai - University of Geneva, CH
- Norbert Polacek (organisor) – University of Bern, Bern, CH
- Jernej Ule – Francis Crick Institute, London, UK
- Štepánka Vanácová - Central European Institute of Technology, Brno, CZ
- Franka Voigt (organisor) – University of Zurich, Zurich, CH
The 4th NCCR RNA & Disease summer school "RNA and Entrepreneurship" took place in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, from August 22-26, 2022.
Around 60 students, speakers, and organizers took part in the summer school, where they received lectures on RNA therapies and diagnostics, as well as aspects related to start-up companies. In addition, participants presented their research projects through chalk talks, and later collaborated in teams with speakers and organizers to create a business idea within the field, which was then presented. The feedback from both students and speakers has been overwhelmingly positive. We would like to express our gratitude to all organizers, speakers, and sponsors (the Swiss National Science Foundation, the University of Bern, and ETH Zurich) who contributed to the success of the summer school.
Lecturers and Organizers of the 4th Summer School
- James Broughton - Mammoth Biosciences, California, USA
- Sam Hall - Venture Fund, New York, USA
- Helen Lee - University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
- Gene Liau - Stoke Therapeutics, Massachusetts, USA
- Kathleen McCarthy - Skyhawk Therapeutics, Massachusetts, USA
- Barbara McClung - Caribou Biosciences, California, USA
- Eric Miska - University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
- Christian Moser - Institute of Intellectual Property, Bern, Switzerland
- Florian Müllershausen - Novartis Bioventures, Basel, Switzerland
- Samir Ounzain - Haya Therapeutics, Lausanne, Switzerland
- Steve Pascolo - University of Zürich, Witzerland
- Thomas Tuschl - Rockerfeller University, New York, USA
- Teri Willey - Indiana University, USA
- Frédéric Allain - ETH Zürich, Switzerland (Organizer)
- Jonathan Hall - ETH Zürich, Switzerland (Organizer)
- Rory Johnson - University of Bern, Switzerland (Organizer)
- Martin Jinek - University of Zürich, Switzerland (Organizer)
- Jørgen Kjems - Aarhus University, Denmark (Organizer)
- Adrian Krainer - Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York, USA (Organizer)
- Robert Schneider - New York University, USA (Organizer)
- Markus Stoffel - ETH Zürich, Switzerland (Organizer)
NCCR RNA & Disease / SIB Summer School - Computational RNA Biology
From August 23 – 28, 2020, the Computational RNA Biology Summer School organized by the NCCR RNA & Disease and the Swiss Instiute of Bioinformatics was held in Schwarzenberg, which is close to Lucerne. Over thirty participants, mostly from Switzerland, were taught by nine teachers from France, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland. The program consisted of lectures and hands-on group projects on the topics of long-read RNA sequencing, ribosome-profiling, single cell RNA analysis and CLIP-seq. Participants gave a very positive feedback on the summer school. We would like to thank the teachers and Grégoire Rossier, who took care of most of the organization of the summer school.
The 3rd NCCR RNA & Disease summer school "RNA Regulation in Health and Disease: Genome architecture and gene expression - RNA turnover - Epitranscriptomics - Phase separation" took place in Saas-Fee, Switzerland from August 26th to 30th 2019.
The Summer School provided the opportunity to share ideas and learn from leading scientists in the field. The program consisted of keynote presentations by invited speakers, workshops in small groups, group discussions lead by the invited speakers, flash talks by participating students and postdocs and plenty of opportunities for networking.
We can once more look back on an inspiring summer school in Saas-Fee and would like to thank the organizers, all invited guests, and participants!
Lecturers of the 3rd Summer School
- Matthias Altmeyer - University of Zurich, Switzerland
- Stefan Ameres - Institute of Molecular Biotechnology, Austria
- Claus Azzalin - Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
- Peter Brodersen - University of Copenhagen, Denmark
- Luisa Cochella - Vienna Biocenter Campus (VBC), Austria
- Martine Collart - University of Geneva, Switzerland
- Torben Jensen - Aarhus University, Denmark
- Rory Johnson - University of Bern, Switzerland
- Sebastian Leidel - University of Bern, Switzerland
- Peter Meister - University of Bern, Switzerland
- Donal O'Carroll - University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
- Uwe Ohler - Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medeicine, Germany
- Magdalini Polymenidou - University of Zurich, Switzerland
- Juan M. Vaquerizas - Max-Plack-Institute for Molecular Biomedicine, Germany
From August 28th to September 1st, 2017, the NCCR RNA & Disease organised its second Summer School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. The five-day Summer School “RNA & RNP architecture: from structure to function to disease” allowed students and postdoctoral researchers to expand their knowledge in the field of RNA structure and its importance in function and disease. A one-day workshop dedicated to RNA techniques provided the unique opportunity for participants to gain deep insights into the state of the art methodologies in the field. The program consisted of keynote presentations from invited speakers, discussion groups and presentations from participating students and postdocs.
Lecturers of the 2nd Summer School
- Frédéric Allain - ETH Zürich, Switzerland
- Nenad Ban - ETH Zürich, Switzerland
- Scott Blanchard - Weill Cornell Medical College, USA
- Jeffrey Chao - Friedrich Miescher Institute, Switzerland
- David Gatfield - University of Lauanne, Switzerland
- Martin Jinek - University of Zürich, Switzerland
- Ronald Micura - University of Innsbruck, Austria
- Gunter Meister - University of Regensburg, Germany
- Oliver Mühlemann - University of Bern, Switzerland
- Norbert Polacek - University of Bern, Switzerland
- Robert Schneider - NYU School of Medicine, USA
- Kevin Weeks - University of North Carolina, USA
- Eric Westhof - IBMC/CNRS, France
- Mihaela Zavolan - University of Basel, Switzerland
The first NCCR RNA & Disease summer school on the topic "RNA as Target and Drug" took place from August 24th-28th, 2015, in beautiful Saas-Fee, Switzerland.