EVENT SUMMARY - Workshop "Dynamics of membranes and their constituents"

Recent years have seen strong research efforts on the lipid component of biological membranes. While many studies have been focused on membrane structure including curvature, the dynamics aspects are crucial for the function of the membrane including those of membrane bound proteins. The relevant time scales extend from seconds to nanoseconds, and therefore a combination of techniques and modelling tools are required. These issues were discussed at Dynamics of membranes and their constituents LINXS workshop on 12-14 of September 2018 at Lund University. The close to 80 scientist gathered concluded that these types of studies will benefit greatly from the new powerful neutron and synchrotron facilities, ESS and Max IV, respectively, that are currently being constructed in Lund. The concluding panel discussion emphasised the need for instrumentation, in particular Spin Echo instruments at ESS, modelling and co-refinement of data analysis of results from dynamic measurements using several techniques simultaneously. In addition the need for promoting integration between biophysics and medical and clinical sciences was highlighted. We were happy to welcome 13 invited speakers in the field of membrane dynamics, with a particular focus on neutrons and X-rays, but also complementary techniques including NMR, single molecule spectroscopy and computer modeling:

Prof. Erik Lindahl, Stockholm University, Sweden

Prof. Dr. Claudia Steinem, University of Goettingen, Germany

Ass. Prof. Marta Bally, Umeå University, Sweden

Prof. Dr. Motumu Tanaka, Heidelberg University, Germany and Kyoto University, Japan

Dr. John Katsaras (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, TN, USA

Prof. Tim Salditt, University of Göttingen, Germany

Dr. Olaf Holderer, Julich Center for Neutron Scattering at MLZ, Garching, Germany

Prof. Mei Hong, MIT, Boston, MA, USA

Prof. John Seddon, Imperial College, London, UK

Dr. Michihiro Nagao, NIST Center for neutron research, Gaithersburg MD, USA

Dr. Victoria Garcia Sakai, ISIS, STFC, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Harwell, Oxfordshire, UK

Dr. Lukasz Cwiklik, Heyrovsky Institute of Physical Chemistry, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic