Membrane Function: Insights from Cellular Diversity and Evolution

Date: 13 – 16 June 2027

Location: Buxted Park, East Sussex, UK

Organisers: Snezhana Oliferenko and Cunqi Ye

This Workshop will explore the key principles governing biological membrane organisation and function through the lens of chemical and compositional diversity of membrane lipids, which arose in evolution. Our programme encompasses the evolutionary and developmental plasticity of lipid metabolism and membrane function, biophysical and metabolic constraints on the evolution of lipids and membranes, mechanistic insights into how lipid diversity translates to function, and the cutting-edge technologies and the emerging needs for modern lipid research. By integrating an evolutionary perspective with lipid biochemistry, membrane biophysics, physiology, cell biology and state-of-the-art technology development, the workshop will cut across the traditional fields of research, providing an orthogonal view of membrane biology.

This Workshop will include the following sessions:

The evolution of biological membranes
The organismal plasticity of membrane function
Translating lipid diversity to cellular function
Metabolism: fuelling the evolution of membrane complexity
New technologies and methods in lipid and membrane research

Organisers & speakers

Snezhana Oliferenko Kings College London & The Francis Crick Institute, UK
Cunqi Ye Zhejiang University, China

Bruno Antonny CNRS IPMC, Nice, France
Buzz Baum MRC-LMB, Cambridge, UK
Emmanuelle Bayer University of Bordeaux, CNRS, Laboratory of Membrane Biogenesis, France
Itay Budin University of California San Diego, USA
Robert Ernst Saarland University, Germany
Miriam Greenberg Wayne State University, USA
Alwin Köhler Max Perutz Labs, Vienna, Austria
Benoît Kornmann University of Oxford, UK
Nick Lane University College London, UK
Ilya Levental University of Virginia School of Medicine, USA
Cornelia Meinert University of Nice, France
James Saenz Center for Molecular Biology (ZMBH), Heidelberg University, Germany
Andela Saric Institute of Science and Technology, Austria
Courtney Stairs Uppsala University, Sweden
David Teis Institute of Molecular Biochemistry, Medical University of Innsbruck, Austria
Sarah Veatch University of Michigan, USA
Laura Villanueva Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) & Utrecht University, The Netherlands
Brittany White-Mathieu University of New Hampshire, USA

Early-career researchers

Apply here

Application closes on 11 December 2026.

We offer 10 funded places for early-career researchers (PhD, postdocs and PIs in the first three years of their first appointment) to attend our Workshops along with the 20 invited speakers. We just ask that you pay for your own travel costs. If you would like to attend please complete the online application form and include a one page CV and a letter of support from your supervisor. If your supervisor would prefer to send the letter directly to us please ask them to email it to workshops@biologists.com

All attendees are expected to actively contribute to the Workshops by asking questions at presentation sessions and taking part in discussions, as well as giving a short talk on their research.

Some travel grants are available for researchers that are based in Global South countries (list of qualifying GS countries), on an application basis. Please contact us for more details.

About Buxted Park

Buxted Park Hotel

The Workshop will be held at the beautiful Buxted Park in East Sussex which dates back to the 12^th century. The current house was built in 1722 by Sir Thomas Medley and is an elegant Grade II Palladian mansion set in 312 acres of parkland. Over the years it has played host to a number of high profile visitors including William Wordsworth, Winston Churchill, and George V and Queen Mary. Whilst it was a health hydro in the 1960s Gregory Peck, Dudley Moore and Marlon Brando were regular visitors.

Buxted Park is less than 25 miles from Gatwick Airport and 60 miles from Heathrow Airport. There are direct trains taking 1 hour 10 minutes from London Bridge to the village of Buxted which is only a mile away from the hotel.

Buxted Park Hotel
Station Road
Buxted
East Sussex
TN22 4AY
Tel: +44 (0) 1825 733333