Day 1, Wednesday, June 3rd 2026
Venue: Aula, Romanian Academy
08:30 - 09:00 Arrival and settling in
09:00 - 09:30 Opening
Chair: Octavian Popescu
Nicolae-Victor Zamfir, Vice President of the Romanian Academy
Mihai Dimian, Romanian Minister of Education and Research
Shaofeng Hu, Director of the Science Policy and Capacity Building, UNESCO
Ligia Deca, Secretary-General of the Romanian National Commission for UNESCO
Eugen Gheorghiu, Director of ICB
09:30 - 10:30 Distinguished plenary talk
Chairs: G. Misevic & O. Popescu
09:30 - 10:30 Eric Francis Wieschaus, Input Output, Cell Fate Decisions and the Global Proteome
10:30 - 12:30 Session I. From Genotypic and Phenotypic to Structure and Function: Cell Dynamics in Microbial and Biomedical Systems, Chair: G. Misevic
10:30 - 11:00 G. Calin, miRacles in cancer
11:00 - 11:30 P. Fischer, Interacting with cells via ultrasound and magnetic fields
11:30 - 12:00 E. Reimhult, Revealing biofilm structure-function relationships using cryo-SEM and confocal microscopy: a Pseudomonas aeruginosa case study on structure and antibiotic tolerance
12:00 – 12:30 E. Gheorghiu, Biodynamics: From Core Principle to Biomedical Translation. Early detection of viability alterations in cellular systems using label-free electrically modulated optical microscopy
Venue: ICB
12:45 - 13:15 Registration
13:15 - 14:15 Lunch & Poster Session
14:15 - 15:45 Session II. Phenotype Relationships Across Biological Scales – Open challenges for Mapping Genotype, Chair: O. Popescu
14:15 - 14:45 A. Babes, Novel insights into the pharmacology and modulation of temperature-gated Transient Receptor Potential ion channels.
14:45 - 15:15 H. Tang, Single-Cell Transcriptomics with SingleViral Uncovers Lytic HHV-6 Infection and Reactivation in CAR-T Cells
15:15 - 15:45 E. Röttinger, Deciphering the gene regulatory network logic underlying whole-body regeneration
15:45 - 16:00 Coffee Break
16:00 - 17:30 Session III. Cell physiomics - Biomedical Perspective on Analysis of Drug Sensitivity and Pathogenic Resistance, Chair: G. Misevic
16:00 - 16:30 Z. Zhu, Polymer Microneedle Arrays for Transdermal Drug Delivery and Integrated Electrochemical Sensing Applications
16:30 - 17:00 M. Surleac, Bioinformatic Approaches to Pathogen Genome Analysis
17:00 - 17:30 S. Simon, Early-stage development of magnetosomes in Magnetospirillum gryphiswaldense
17:30 - 18:15 Round Table #1. State of the Art on Rapid, in vitro diagnostics (IVDs) for severe infectious diseases
Co-Chairs: Liliana Viasu, George Calin, Octavian Popescu, Gradimir Misevic, Erik Reimhult, Lorand Savu, Eugen Gheorghiu
Day 2, Thursday, June 4th
09:00 10:00 Short Talks (of 5’) to highlight the main results - POSTER Session, Chairs: J.-L. Marty & A. Vasilescu / Meeting of the IAB of the ICB
10:00 - 11:30 Session IV. Optical microscopy for analyzing cellular dynamics, Chair: A. Podoleanu
10:00 - 10:40 P. Ferraro, Resolving 3D Cytomic Morphology: Intelligent Label-Free Tomography in Flow for Deep Phenotyping
10:40 - 11:10 M. Gheorghiu, A multimodal pipeline for cellular characterization based on electro-optical analysis
11:10 - 11:30 D. Ghete, Integrating Holotomography and 3D Fluorescence Microscopy: A New Era in 3D Live Cell Imaging
11:30 - 11:45 Coffee Break
11:45 - 12:30 Session V. Active matter aspects in cells and man-made models, Chair: A Ruckenstein
11:45 - 12:05 R. Fernandez, Bleb Assisted Self-propulsion of Living Cells
12:05 - 12:30 M. Popescu, Interface-mediated emergence of polarity and hydrodynamic flows in spherical sessile drops containing chemically active particles via a spontaneous symmetry breaking
12:30 - 13:00 Session VI. Optical microscopy and AI analysis challenges for quantifying cellular dynamics, Chair: M. Gheorghiu
12:30 - 13:00 C. Tudor, Zeiss Volumetric Imaging: from Lightsheet to Lightfield
13:00 - 14:00 Lunch
14:00 - 14:40 Demonstrations of ICB recent developments in IVD & biomarkers detection
14:40 - 15:50 Session VII. Biomarker-based approaches for rapid diagnosis, Chair: G. Calin
14:40 - 15:10 J.-L. Marty, Sensing the Future of Biosensors; Past, Present and the Emerging trends
15:10 - 15:30 Z. Li, Electrochemical biosensing of interstitial fluid biomarkers based on microneedle arrays
15:30 - 15:50 S. Litescu, Integrated Biosensing Applications in Environmental Systems
15:50 - 16:00 Coffee Break
16:00 - 17:30 Session VIII. Seeing Cells Differently: Electron vs. NMRI and Optical Microscopy Across Disciplines, Chair: E. Reimhult
16:00 - 16:30 G. Misevic, Glycan–Glycan Interactions in Self-Recognition and Glycocalyx Assembly: Structural and Functional Insights
16:30 - 17:00 J. Lindenau, Latest Zeiss Electronic Microscopy Technology for biological samples
17:00 - 17:30 S. Stanciu, Nanoscale Optical Imaging with Scattering-Type Near-Field Microscopy: From Instrumentation to Data-Driven Insights
17:30 - 18:15 Round Table #2. State of the Art on rapid Detection and Analysis of Drug Sensitivity/Resistance of pathogenic microorganisms and tumor cells
Co-Chairs: Carmen Chifiriuc, Claudiu Supuran, George Calin, Erik Reimhult, Victor Strimbu, Gradimir Misevic, Harald Stenmark, Peer Fischer, Lorand Savu
Day 3, Friday, 5th of June
09:00 - 09:45 Session IX. Novel therapeutic approaches to address pathogenic resistance, Chair: O. Popescu
09:00 - 09:45 C. Supuran, Carbonic anhydrase inhibitors: from anticancer to antiinfective agents
09:45 - 10:00 Coffee Break
10:00 - 11:00 Session X. AI assisted methods to assess dynamics of living cells, Chair: I. Dumitrache
10:00 - 10:30 A. Paun, Unconventional computing in the age of AI
10:30 - 11:00 M. Miotto, Sailing by noise: how cells have harnessed stochasticity
11:00 - 13:20 Session XI. Optical and molecular analysis of cellular responses to antitumoral therapy, Chair: S. Stanciu
11:00 - 11:30 M. Radu, Cellular and molecular approaches revealing the mechanism of FLASH radiotherapy
11:30 - 11:50 V. Nastasa, Laser-driven ultra-high dose rate radiation for biomedical applications using a 10 PW laser source
11:50 - 12:10 L. Sima, Molecular characterization of cancer cells response to unconventional irradiation radiotherapy schemes
12:10 - 12:30 A. Bran, Effect of ionizing radiation on melanoma cells at interaction with tissue-like artificial scaffolds
12:30 - 13:00 A. Mason, Expanding the Frontiers of Spatial Biology: Best-in-Class Solutions for Every Layer of Biology
13:00 - 13:20 Open discussions researchers – clinicians – industry (instrumentation) representatives
13:20 - 14:15 Lunch
14:15 - 15:40 Session XII. Photonics for analyzing cellular dynamics, Chair: E. Gheorghiu
14:15 - 14:50 A. Podoleanu, Combating movement and using movement in creating contrast in optical coherence tomography
14:50 - 15:20 S. Astilean, Plasmonic Nanoplatforms for Biosensing, Bioimaging and Plasmon-Enhanced Therapies
15:20 - 15:40 C. Polonschii, Electro-Optical Coherence Tomography for high-resolution real-time label-free viability assessment in 3D multicellular systems
15:40 - 15:50 Coffee Break
15:50 - 16:50 Session XIII. Data-Driven Insights into the Dynamics of Multicellular Systems, Chair: M. Radu
15:50 - 16:30 H. Stenmark, Lysosomal membrane permeabilization and repair: Mechanisms and biomedical importance
16:30 - 16:50 C.-A. Bogaciu, Neurexin and neuroligin recycling, as a mechanism of regulating synaptic transmission and plasticity
16:50 - 17:50 Round Table #3. State of the Art on novel antimicrobial compounds
Co-Chairs: Claudiu Supuran, Erik Reimhult, Ilda Barbu, Gradimir Misevic, Octavian Popescu
Day 4, Saturday, 6th of June
09:00 - 10:00 Session XIV. Transdisciplinary opportunities and challenges, Chairs: Andrei Ruckenstein
SSXI Key Note (45’) Mircea Dumitru, Can we understand consciousness? And if at all, how?
& 15’ Open Discussions
10:00 - 11:00 Session XV. Biosensing - new approaches, Chair: M. Gheorghiu
10:00 - 10:30 A. Vasilescu, Coupling SERS with enzyme inhibition as a path for the selective detection of the fungicide thiram
10:30 – 11:00 I.C. Barbu, The ARES project: the National Excellence Center for research in Antimicrobial Resistance
11:00 - 11:15 Coffee Break
11:15 - 12:15 Round Table #4. Launch of the Task Force: transdisciplinary routes to address pathogenic resistance
Co-Chairs: George Calin, Harald Stenmark, Victor Strimbu, Lorand Savu, Ilda Barbu, Eugen Gheorghiu
12:15 - 12:45 Best Poster Presentation Award & Closing Session