Talk of Sir John Gurdon, Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine 2012, during the EMBO workshop.
From 23rd to 26th April 2017, the Institute hosted the first international meeting exclusively dedicated to the Maternal-Zygotic Transition (MZT), organized by research group leader Nadine Vastenhouw. Under the title "Awakening of the genome: The maternal-to-zygotic transition", a jam-packed meeting program was presented under the umbrella of the EMBO Courses & Workshops Programme. EMBO Workshops are meetings that cover different and evolving aspects of life-science-related subject areas and bring scientists together to present and discuss their latest findings.
Focusing on genome activation allowed a first-ever platform for the MZT community. Participants from all over the world gathered to showcase an extensive range of techniques, approaches, and biological questions in 51 talks and 24 posters. Plenty of new and unpublished data made it exciting, and the meeting size of 120 participants meant that everyone could be easily approached.