Welcome!

Dear Colleagues,

On behalf of the Organizing Committee, we cordially invite you to participate to the 10th Swiss Virology Meeting that will be held from January 28th to January 29th, 2025 at the Ambassador Hotel in Bern, Switzerland.

The goal of this tenth national meeting in virology is again to bring together in Switzerland a maximum number of research groups working in fundamental virology to promote interaction, exchange of ideas, and collaborations in an informal and collegial atmosphere.

The program will cover all aspects of research in fundamental virology including virus life cycle, virus discovery and evolution, virus and host defense, and clinical virology. The format of the meeting will consist in selected plenary lectures combined with short talks selected from submitted abstracts and poster sessions.

The meeting webpage for registration and abstract submission will be open soon.

Thank you for your active participation and we are looking forward to seeing you in Bern.

Sincerely,


Organizing and Scientific Committee
  • Angela Ciuffi (University of Lausanne)
  • Cornel Fraefel (University of Zurich)
  • Jérôme Gouttenoire (University of Lausanne)
  • Ben Hale (University of Zurich)
  • Grégory Mathez (University of Lausanne)
  • Karin Metzner (University Hospital of Zurich)
  • Philippe Plattet (University of Bern)
  • Mirco Schmolke (University of Geneva)
  • Matthias Schweizer (University of Bern)
  • Caroline Tapparel Vu (University of Geneva)
  • Volker Thiel (University of Bern)





General Information

Swiss Virology Meeting, January 28 & 29, Bern, Switzerland

Scope:
Basic and applied virology
Date:
January 28 & 29, 2025
Tuesday January 28, 2025: 10:00 - 21:00
Wednesday January 29, 2025: 9:00 - 16:30
Location:
Ambassador Hotel, Seftigenstrasse 99, 3007 Bern - SWITZERLAND (Tel. 031/370.99.99)
Registration fees:
CHF 250.- for PhD students (MSc, PhD, MD, other)
CHF 350.- for Research Technicians, Post-docs and Principal Investigators
The registration fee includes meeting registration, accommodation and all meals.
(Cancellation policy: no reimbursement possible)
Contact:
contact@swissvirology.ch

Oral Presentations

  • Plenary talk Swiss Virology abroad : 45 minutes (35 minutes + 10 minutes discussion)
  • Plenary talks (senior group leaders) : 30 minutes (25 minutes + 5 minutes discussion)
  • Plenary talks (junior group leaders) : 20 minutes (15 minutes + 5 minutes discussion)
  • Short talks (from selected abstracts) : 15 minutes (12 minutes + 3 minutes discussion)

Poster sessions

Two poster sessions will be held during coffee breaks. Posters will be presented by postdocs and graduate students. To ensure maximum visibility of posters, all posters will stay mounted throughout the meeting. Poster size: 90 cm wide x 120 cm high.

Organizing and scientific committee (in alphabetical order)

  • Angela Ciuffi (University of Lausanne)
  • Cornel Fraefel (University of Zurich)
  • Jérôme Gouttenoire (University of Lausanne)
  • Ben Hale (University of Zurich)
  • Grégory Mathez (University of Lausanne)
  • Karin Metzner (University Hospital of Zurich)
  • Philippe Plattet (University of Bern)
  • Mirco Schmolke (University of Geneva)
  • Matthias Schweizer (University of Bern)
  • Caroline Tapparel Vu (University of Geneva)
  • Volker Thiel (University of Bern)

Steering Committee

  • Angela Ciuffi (University of Lausanne)
  • Cornel Fraefel (University of Zurich)
  • Jérôme Gouttenoire (University of Lausanne)
  • Matthias Schweizer (University of Bern)
  • Caroline Tapparel Vu (University of Geneva)




Program of the 10th Swiss Virology Meeting January 28 & 29, 2025, Bern

Tuesday, January 28, 2025

10:00 – 10:25
Arrival and Welcome Coffee

10:25 – 10:30
Welcome Address
Steering committee member TBA

10:30 – 12:00
KEYNOTE LECTURES (CUSO)
Introduction: Caroline Tapparel – Jérôme Gouttenoire

10:30 – 11:15
Timothy Tellinghuisen – F. Hoffmann La Roche Pharmaceuticals, Switzerland (2025001)
Virology at Roche

11:15 – 12:00
Gisa Gerold – Institute of Virology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Austria (2025002)
Virology meets proteomics: novel tools for host factor identification


12:00 – 14:00
Lunch and Poster Viewing
Round-table discussion of Ph.D students & postdocs with Invited Keynote Speakers


14:00 – 14:30
STUDENT SESSION (CUSO): Session from and by the students
Chairs: Noémie Roh – Shéryline Loison

14:00 – 14:15
Isabel Schultz-Pernice – (2025060)
Monkeypox virus spreads from cell-to-cell and leads to neuronal death in human neural organoids

14:15 – 14:30
Mariana Alcocer Bonifaz – (2025050)
Understanding antibody mediated mechanisms of cross-protection against heterosubtypic influenza virus infections


14:30 – 16:30
SESSION I: VIRUS-HOST INTERACTIONS: THE VIRUS SIDE
Chairs: Ben Hale – Mirco Schmolke

14:30 – 15:00
Charaf Benarafa – University of Bern (2025003)
Proteolysis in SARS-CoV-2 infections: a mixed blessing

15:00 – 15:30
Daniel Kaufmann – Lausanne University Hospital (2025004)
Interplay between HIV-specific immune responses and spontaneous HIV reservoir activity

15:30 – 15:45
Han Kang Tee – (202520)
Virus adaptation to heparan sulfate comes with capsid stability tradeoff

15:45 – 16:00
Anouk Lkharrazi – (2025065)
AAV2 can replicate its DNA by a rolling hairpin or rolling circle mechanism, depending on the helper virus

16:00 – 16:15
Maksym Samoilenko – (2025084)
R298L of African swine fever virus strain Georgia 2007 is a non-essential gene that is not required for virulence in pigs

16:15 – 16:30
Ambra Girarducci – (2025105)
Characterization of the association of NSP5 and NSP2 of avian rotavirus species D by cryo-electron microscopy


16:30 – 17:00
Coffee Break

17:00 – 19:00
POSTER SESSION

19:00 – 21:00
Dinner and Poster Viewing


Wednesday, January 29, 2025

07:30 – 08:45
Breakfast (at hotel)

09:00 – 11:00
SESSION II: VIRUS-HOST INTERACTIONS: THE HOST SIDE
Chairs: Matthias Schweizer – Philippe Plattet

9:00 – 9:30
Selma Dahmane – University of Basel (2025005)
Cryo-electron tomography journey of enterovirus-infected cells

9:30 – 10:00
Vibhu Prasad – University of Geneva (2025006)
Mechanisms of cell-autonomous and non-autonomous unfolded protein response in viral infections

10:00 – 10:15
Vera Flück – (2025087)
Comparison of MERS-CoV infection in human and camelid primary airway epithelial cells with single cell resolution

10:15 – 10:30
Ruben Assaraf – (2025096)
Deciphering the camouflage strategy of parvovirus B19 in blood plasma

10:30 – 10:45
Amal Fahmi – (2025138)
Exploring the neuroteratogenic potential of West Nile virus using human neural organoids

10:45 – 11:00
Damian Jandrasits – (2025131)
CRISPR-Cas9 knockout screen identifies potential host dependency factors of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus


11:00 – 11:30
Coffee Break

11:30 – 12:30
POSTER SESSION

12:30 – 14:00
Lunch and Poster Viewing


14:00 – 16:00
SESSION III: CLINICAL VIROLOGY: VACCINES AND ANTIVIRALS
Chairs: Karin Metzner – Volker Thiel

14:00 – 14:30
Aleksandar Antanasijevic – EPFL (2025007)
Studying epitope immunodominance in viral antigens by electron microscopy

14:30 – 15:00
Katharina Röltgen – Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (2025008)
Immune imprinting and breadth of antibody and B cell responses in SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination

15:00 – 15:15
Valeria Cagno – (2025059)
Novel attachment inhibitor with pan-respiratory virus activity

15:15 – 15:30
Luca Schlotheuber – (2025030)
Investigating SARS-CoV2 virus cross-reactive antibodies using single-cell droplet microfluidic based deep mutational scanning

15:30 – 15:45
Nadia Neuner-Jehle – (2025124)
Phylogenetic analysis of EV-A71, CV-A6, and CV-A16 using Nextstrain

15:45 – 16:00
Kevin Groen – (2025109)
Commonly recognized epitopes and functional characteristics of type-I interferon autoantibodies

16:00 – 16:30
CLOSING LECTURE
Chair: Cornel Fraefel

Urs Greber – (2025009)
Adenovirus – New insight in entry and assembly and some outstanding questions


16:30 – 16:45
Farewell Address





Registration

With the link below, you will be redirected to the University of Zurich for the registration, this should take only a few seconds.


(If the above button does not work, please use Google Chrome or copy the link below :
https://www.vetvir.uzh.ch/de/impressum/Registration-10th-SVM.html  )


Reminder: Registration opens on October 1, 2024. Deadline for registration and abstract submission is November 1, 2024.