SULSA’s Disruptive Technologies in the Life Sciences Conference will hear from individuals involved in the groundbreaking technologies that are affecting the way we conduct our life sciences research.

Life Sciences research is constantly evolving, with technologies periodically emerging that fundamentally improve our ability to interrogate biological systems.

Connecting individuals across the spectrum of research and industry, this exciting conference will be an invaluable opportunity to hear from the pioneers of the ground-breaking technological advances that are fundamentally changing the way we study biology and understand disease.

Recent examples include iPSCs and directed differentiation with organoids beginning to recapitulate mammalian tissues in vitro, the array of diverse CRISPR/Cas9 approaches and the rainbow of fluorescent proteins to localise cellular components in order to probe gene function and dissect disease mechanisms. Next-gen sequencing has changed our understanding of whole genomes and biological diversity and is helping us to catalogue the cell-level complexity of tissues via single cell transcriptomics. Quantitative proteomics is helping us unravel the regulation of complex cellular processes. Exciting developments in microscopy and photonics allow us to examine everything from 3D macromolecular structures using cryoEM, the inner workings of cells using super-resolution imaging, and whole organisms in unprecedented detail using light sheet imaging. Computational analysis of “big data” and the application of AI technologies will change the way biological research is done in the future.

Taken together, these technological advances will provide a window on biology that enables us to view and interpret systems at multiple scales, with unprecedented clarity.