Here, we list public events and 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.
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 23, 2026 09:00 - 12:00
Dem Leben auf der Spur - Wie wird man Wissenschaftlerin?
MPI-CBG
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
Jun 26 - Jun 27, 2026 17:00 - 00:00
Dresden research institutions open their doors to the public and share their science through a variety of lectures, experiments, guided tours, exhibitions, and films.
MPI-CBG
Aug 10 - Sep 18, 2026
A 6 Week Intensive on Combinatorics in Algebraic Statistics and Game Theory
MPI-CBG
Aug 24 - Aug 25, 2026
Celebrating 25 years at the MPI-CBG in Dresden
MPI-CBG
Sep 15, 2026 14:30 - 16:00
Johanna Lattner: Wenig Sauerstoff, große Wirkung – Wie sich Plazentazellen spezialisieren und neues Leben ermöglichen
MPI-CBG - Auditorium
Mar 5, 2026 15:00 - 16:00
Bernat Jordà Carbonell
VU Amsterdam
CSBD SR Top Floor (VC)
Host: Local Organisers: Nikola Sadovek, Maximilian Wiesmann, Giulio Zucal
Hypergraphs extend graphs and simplicial complexes by representing higher-order interactions with more degrees of freedom. However, the absence of downward closure makes the usual chain-level boundary operators fail. How to get around this is not trivial and different authors have proposed different approaches that get to completely different homologies. While trying to better understand what information is relevant from the hypergraphs, we notice that one of the most promising homology theories (relative barycentric homology) is equivalent to the compact support homology of our geometric realisation of a hypergraph. We prove a natural isomorphism between these homologies and determine the functoriality of the former. BONUS: How can we adapt TDA tools generally used for biology to paleontology? In Paleo we don’t have access to 3d structures, only images of sections of rock that might be degraded and transformed after such a long time. More specifically, if we want to bring life to the scientific discussion on origins of life, we need to look at fossils of bacteria. The small scale and degradation makes this task quite complicated and the use of morphometry has not been applied successfully (yet!).
Mar 9, 2026 14:00 - 15:00
Emanuel N. Lissek
1NA Technologies B.V.
CBG Galleria
Host: LMF
DNA curtains are a high-throughput single-molecule assay that enables simultaneous visualization of thousands of DNA-protein interactions, revealing statistically relevant single-molecule level insights. DNA molecules are aligned on nanofabricated barriers within a microfluidics flow cell, allowing real-time observation of dynamic processes such as DNA replication, and repair, using TIRF microscopy and/or spinning disk confocal microscopy. 1NA's DNA curtains flow cell addresses key barriers of implementation by applying semiconductor manufacturing practices to the nanofabrication of the barriers. Flow cell design minimizes dead volume and reagent use, while protocols have been optimized for rapid setup. This approach preserves the resolution of single-molecule methods while overcoming throughput limitations. It is particularly well-suited for in vitro studies of DNA-binding proteins or the mechanistic characterization of small-molecule modulators. Applications include quantifying DNA-protein kinetics, mapping interaction heterogeneity, or screening small molecule interactions.
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.
Mar 19, 2026 15:00 - 16:00
Andreas Thom
TU Dresden
CSBD SR Top Floor (VC)
Host: Local Organisers: Nikola Sadovek, Maximilian Wiesmann, Giulio Zucal
In the analysis of three-dimensional biological microstructures such as organoids, microscopy frequently yields two-dimensional optical sections without access to their orientation. Motivated by the question of whether such random planar sections determine the underlying three-dimensional structure, we investigate a discrete analogue in which the ambient structure is the vertex set of a Platonic solid and the observed data are congruence classes of planar intersections. For the regular dodecahedron with vertex set V, we define the planar statistic of a subset X⊆V of vertices as the distribution of isometry types of inclusions Π∩X⊆Π∩V⊆V, and ask whether this statistic determines X up to isometry. We show that this is not the case: there exist two non-isometric 7-element subsets with identical planar statistics. As a consequence, there exist two polytopes in R3, whose distribution of isometry classes of two-dimensional intersections is identical, while the polytopes are not themselves isometric. This result is an analogue of classical non-uniqueness phenomena in geometric tomography.
Mar 28, 2026 19:00 - 21:00
Wolfgang Nellen, Prof. für Genetik
University of Kassel
CBG Large Auditorium
Host: MPI - CBG
Apr 16, 2026 11:00 - 12:00
Jeremy Gunawardena
Pompeu Fabra University, Spain
CBG Large Auditorium
Host: Aida Maraj
Apr 16, 2026 15:00 - 16:00
Selvi Kara
Bryn Mawr College
CSBD SR Top Floor (VC)
Host: Local Organisers: Nikola Sadovek, Maximilian Wiesmann, Giulio Zucal
Flow-firing, introduced by Felzenszwalb-Klivans, is a 2D analogue of chip-firing: an integer flow on the edges of a cell complex evolves by repeatedly applying local rerouting moves around faces. In their original work, the only proven confluent family on the grid stabilized (independent of firing choices) into an Aztec diamond, a centered diamond-shaped patch of unit squares. In this talk I will explain how far this phenomenon extends. For a natural family of conservative “pulse” initial conditions, we prove a three-regime theorem: there is a small-support regime with unique stabilization to the Aztec diamond, an intermediate regime where stabilization occurs but the terminal state is not unique (though the Aztec diamond can still occur), and a large-support regime where confluence fails, including a range where the Aztec-diamond outcome is impossible.
May 7, 2026 11:00 - 12:00
Daniel Fletcher
UC Berkeley, USA
CBG Large Auditorium
Host: Stephan Grill
May 21, 2026 00:00 - 00:05
Jacqueline Tabler
Max Planck Institute of Cell Biology and Genetics
CBG Large Auditorium
Host: Stephan Grill
TBA
May 28, 2026 11:00 - 12:00
Raymond Goldstein
University of Cambridge, UK
CBG Large Auditorium
Host: Pierre Haas
Jun 11, 2026 00:00 - 00:05
Benjamin Schumann
TUD Dresden University of Technology, Germany
CBG Large Auditorium
Host: André Nadler
TBA
Sep 17, 2026 11:00 - 12:00
Takashi Hiiragi
Hubrecht Institute, Netherlands
CBG Large Auditorium
Host: Augusto Ortega Granillo and Jonathan Jackson
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
Katharina Sonnen
Hubrecht Institute, Netherlands
CBG Large Auditorium
Host: Rita Mateus
Nov 5, 2026 00:00 - 00:05
Anne-Claude Gavin
University of Geneva, Switzerland
CBG Large Auditorium
Host: Martin Buitrago Arango and Koichiro Takenaka
TBA
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
Max Planck Institute of Biophysics, Germany
CBG Large Auditorium
Host: Alexander von Appen
Dec 10, 2026 11:00 - 12:00
David Pellman
Harvard Medical School, USA
CBG Large Auditorium
Host: Alexander von Appen