3 March 2026
Successful Giersch conference
Kick-off of SCALE Cluster of Excellence
The current 2026 Giersch Conference at FIAS also marks the kick-off event for the SCALE Cluster of Excellence. The motto: “Towards digital twins for structural cell biology – criteria, chances, and challenges.”
Michaela Müller-McNicoll as spokesperson and FIAS Fellow Sebastian Thallmair opened the conference, dedicated to various types of digital twins. In his welcoming address, Bernhard Brüne, Vice President of Goethe University, praised SCALE as a “flagship in a unique environment with great partners.” FIAS Director Jan Wörner referred to the institute's new motto, “biologically inspired computation,” which he said fits perfectly with SCALE's goals.
Dagmar Iber from ETH Zurich opened the series of lectures with an exciting insight into digital twins of the female hormone cycle, lung development, and bladder cancer development. Max Bonomi from the Institut Pasteur described integrative structural biology in the age of artificial intelligence, using as an example the enzyme glutamine synthetase.
The following days were devoted to various types of digital twins, such as subcellular segments, multicellular and neural systems. Samantha Wood (Indiana University Bloomington), for example, described how intelligence arises: with the help of a digital twin, her team is investigating how chicks develop perception and social behavior in an environment. Sacha van Albada from FZ Jülich described the path to a digital twin of the cortex. Liesbet Geris (University of Liège) highlighted possibilities in the healthcare sector and showed already successful applications in intensive care medicine, pacemakers, and drug monitoring, for example. She also described the European roadmap initiative for a virtual human twin.
In a lively panel discussion, five researchers joined the SCALE team to discuss e. g. where a digital twin begins and a model system ends. During the conference, local researchers gave short presentations to complement the view of the “criteria, opportunities, and challenges of structural biology.”
