Here, we list public research seminars at the MPI-CBG and events targeted at the general public and the scientific community.
Information on internal seminars is available via the MPI-CBG Intranet. You can find further information on upcoming research seminars and scientific events happening at all Dresden research institutions via the Dresden Science Calendar.
Feb 3 - Feb 6, 2026
Prospective candidates for the IMPRS-CellDevoSys program visit Dresden for interviews, tours, and events
Various locations in Dresden
Mar 26 - Mar 27, 2026
Graduate Research Opportunities for Women is a two-day conference for underrepresented gender identities in mathematics interested in exploring graduate programmes and research opportunities within and beyond academia.
Technische Universität Dresden & MPI-CBG
Mar 26 - Mar 29, 2026
Learn about the CRISPR/Cas method, talk to experts face to face, and discover science in a fun way.
Various locations in Dresden
Apr 14, 2026 14:30 - 16:00
Paulo von Petersenn: Computern das Denken beibringen - warum große Sprachmodelle so gut funktionieren
MPI-CBG - Auditorium
Apr 28, 2026 14:30 - 16:00
Dr. Maximilian Wiesmann: Die Geburt künstlichen Lebens
MPI-CBG - Auditorium
May 12, 2026 09:00 - 12:00
Prospective candidates for the ELBE Postdoctoral Fellows Program visit Dresden to interview and present their science publicly.
MPI-CBG - CSBD SR Top Floor
May 19, 2026 14:30 - 16:00
Dr. Tamina Lebek: Zellen im Gespräch
MPI-CBG - Auditorium
Jun 9, 2026 14:30 - 16:00
Dr. Meline Macher: Ungleiche Nachbarn in der Zelle
MPI-CBG - Auditorium
Jun 22 - Jun 25, 2026 09:00 - 16:00
A workshop bringing researchers together to present and discuss recent advances in the theory and use of discrete Laplacians
MPI-CBG
Aug 10 - Sep 18, 2026
A 6 Week Intensive on Combinatorics in Algebraic Statistics and Game Theory
MPI-CBG
Feb 4, 2026 10:00 - 12:00
Gerhard Holst
Excelitas PCO, GmbH
CBG Galleria
Host: BCF & LMF
Gerhard Holst, Senior Imaging Product & Application Scientist at Excelitas PCO GmbH, will explore the current performance landscape and key challenges of modern scientific cameras. His presentation will highlight recent technological advances, including the integration of short-wave infrared (SWIR) imaging as an extension of near‑infrared (NIR) capabilities in microscopy. He will also demonstrate emerging opportunities enabled by hyperspectral imaging and the acquisition of multidimensional image data. The session will conclude with a forward-looking perspective on potential innovations and future developments in scientific camera technology.
Mar 5, 2026 11:00 - 12:30
Rachel Kolodny
University of Haifa, Israel
CBG Large Auditorium
Host: Agnes Toth-Petroczy
We develop AI models to better understand proteins and the information they encode. The first model, Contrastive Learning Sequence–Structure (CLSS), aims to map the protein universe by characterizing relationships between amino acid sequences and structures. CLSS is a self-supervised contrastive learning model trained on large and diverse sets of protein domains to co-embed sequence and structure into a shared high-dimensional space, where distance reflects sequence–structure similarity. This representation naturally captures both evolutionary relationships and structural variation. We find that CLSS refines expert knowledge of the global organization of protein space, highlights transitional forms that resist hierarchical classification, and reveals linkages between domains from seemingly separate lineages, thereby improving our understanding of evolutionary design. The second model focuses on codon selection. Codon usage is shaped by selective pressures that optimize multiple, overlapping signals that remain only partially understood. We trained AI models to predict gene codons from amino acid sequences in four organisms (S. cerevisiae, S. pombe, E. coli, and B. subtilis). The AI models significantly outperformed frequency-based baselines, indicating that dependencies between codons within genes can be learned. Performance gains were greater for highly expressed genes and in bacteria compared to eukaryotes, consistent with stronger selective pressure under larger effective population sizes. In S. cerevisiae and bacteria, accuracy also increased with protein length, suggesting that the models captured signals related to co-translational folding. Incorporating information from homologous proteins provided only minor additional benefit, potentially reflecting complex codon-usage patterns in rapidly evolving genes. Together, these studies provide practical tools and demonstrate how AI can be used to study how evolution has shaped the protein universe and its encodings.
Mar 19, 2026 11:00 - 12:00
Myfanwy Evans
University of Potsdam, Germany
CBG Large Auditorium
Host: Heather Harrington
Using periodic surfaces as a scaffold is a convenient route to making periodic entanglements, which are interesting in the context of physics, biomaterials and chemical frameworks. I will present a systematic way of enumerating and characterising new tangled periodic structures, using low-dimensional topology and combinatorics. As a second part, the morphometric approach to solvation free energy is a geometry-based theory that incorporates a weighted combination of geometric measures over the solvent accessible surface for solute configurations in a solvent. I will demonstrate that employing this geometric technique in simulating the self assembly of sphere clusters, viruses and short flexible tubes results in an assortment of interesting geometric structures. This gives insight into the role of shape in the physical process of self assembly.
Apr 16, 2026 11:00 - 12:00
Jeremy Gunawardena
Pompeu Fabra University, Spain
CBG Large Auditorium
Host: Aida Maraj
Apr 30, 2026 11:00 - 12:00
Reinhard Laubenbacher
University of Florida, USA
CBG Large Auditorium
Host: Heather Harrington
May 7, 2026 11:00 - 12:00
Daniel Fletcher
University of Berkeley
CBG Large Auditorium
Host: Stephan Grill
May 28, 2026 11:00 - 12:00
Ray Goldstein
University of Cambridge, UK
CBG Large Auditorium
Host: Pierre Haas
Sep 17, 2026 11:00 - 12:00
Takashi Hiiragui
Hubrecht Institute/Kyoto University
CBG Large Auditorium
Host: Postdocs
Sep 24, 2026 11:00 - 12:00
Maria Elena Torres-Padilla
Helmholtz Zentrum München, Germany
CBG Large Auditorium
Host: Merixtell Huch
Oct 29, 2026 11:00 - 12:00
Ina Sonnen
Hubrecht Institute
CBG Large Auditorium
Host: Rita Mateus
Nov 12, 2026 11:00 - 12:00
Madeline Lancaster
University of Cambridge
CBG Large Auditorium
Host: Claudia Gerri
Dec 3, 2026 11:00 - 12:30
Martin Beck
MPI of Biophysics, Germany
CBG Large Auditorium
Host: Alexander von Appen
Dec 10, 2026 11:00 - 12:00
David Pellman
Harvard Medical School
CBG Large Auditorium
Host: Alexander von Appen