17. Oct 2025 Actualia (engl.) · Conference Report

International Symposium of Endocytobiology in Berlin

Group photo during the Thursday session in the Elisabeth Schiemann lecture hall of the Freie Universität Berlin. Photo: Dr. Petra Redekop

From 16th to 19th September 2025, 74 scientists attended the 23rd Symposium of the International Society of Endocytobiology (ISE), which takes place at various locations in Germany, alternating with the International Conference of Endocytobology. At the Freie Universität Berlin, a lively exchange on presymbiotic and endosymbiotic cell and organelle biology took place over 29 lectures, 31 posters, during a campus tour, and in a particularly relaxed atmosphere at the "Young Organelle BBQ" and the conference dinner. Organiser Professor Margarete Baier reports about topics of the meeting, and the titles and names of the awarded early career scientists. 

Topics ranged from interorganismic recognition of organisms and processes of organelle evolution, to peculiarities of RNA homeostasis and protein biosynthesis, to plastid-nucleus signaling, thylakoid biogenesis, photosynthesis regulation, and biotechnological aspects. A special feature of the conference was the breadth of subjects from pre-endosymbiotic organisms to highly developed red and green plastids, mitochondria and secondary endosymbioses and experiments on the stability of artificially generated endocytobioses.

Numerous contributions were presented by early career scientists. Marie Karstens from Ruhr University Bochum received the award for the best poster presentation on "Molecular analysis of the biogenesis pathways of thylakoid membrane proteins in Arabidopsis thaliana" from a grant provided by the German Society for Plant Sciences (DBG). Further prizes went to Leonora Peters (Universität Halle, granted by the ISE) for the talk „The PPR protein PPR596 is important for splicing of nad2 and assembly of Complex I in mitochondria of Arabidopsis thaliana“, Yoji Okabe (University of Tokyo, sponsored by Agrisera) for the talk „Potential for photosymbiosis: Algal survival and acclimation in fish embryos“ and Alain Gervasi for the best bioinformatic presentation „Modular microscopy platform to study microalgae motility, photophysiology and photoprotection“ (Université de Liège, Belgium; sponsored by Granger Institut, Chicago). The symposium concluded with an invitation from Prof. Dr. Marek Eliaš to the next International ISE Conference in September 2026 in Ostrava (Czech Republic). The meeting was supported by the DBG.

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In October 2025

Prof. Dr Margarete Baier, Freie Universität Berlin, Institute of Biology, research group Plant Physiology, Berlin