Cell Biology at Scale 2026
June 3, 2026 @ 08:00 – 17:00 CEST
The Cell Biology at Scale (CB@S) meeting is co-hosted by SciLifeLab, the national research infrastructure for life science in Sweden, and Biohub. This event aims to bring together researchers working at the interface of cell biology, imaging, functional genomics, computational biology, and artificial intelligence.
Recent advances in multiplexed molecular profiling, high-resolution imaging, perturbation technologies, and AI-driven modeling are changing how we study cells. Conducting cell biology at scale is not simply about increasing throughput. It represents a shift in how experiments are designed, how data are integrated, and how biological questions are formulated across molecular, cellular, and organismal levels.
CB@S 2026, a one-day symposium, will focus on forward-looking perspectives:
- How do we integrate multimodal cellular data?
- How can modeling and AI help build predictive, cell-scale theoretical frameworks?
- What experimental and computational strategies are still missing?
The symposium will be accessible both on site and via live stream.
The annual CB@S meetings started four years ago, and so far, all have taken place in the United States. Now for the first time, the meeting will be hosted in Europe. Stockholm is an established international center for interdisciplinary life science research, with strong environments in cell biology, data-driven biology, and technology development.
This event is kindly supported by Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation.
Invited Speakers
Alexander van Oudenaarden, Hubrecht Institute
Aubrey Weigel, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Florian Jug, Human Technopole
Jan Funke, Human Technopole
Johann Wenckstern, EPFL
Johannes Schöneberg, UCSD
Lukas Kapitein, Utrecht University
Magda Bienko, SciLifeLab, Karolinska Institutet / Human Technopole
Ralf Jungmann, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry
Suliana Manley, EPFL
Registration
Registration for on-site participation is now closed. Registration for on-line participation remains open.
Program
Program and sessions are preliminary and subject to change
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 08:00 | Doors open, registration, coffee |
| 09:00 | Welcome remarks (SciLifeLab & Biohub) Jan Ellenberg, Manuel Leonetti & Paul Blainey |
| Session I – Molecular Mapping at Scale Moderators: Johan Elf + Paul Blainey | |
| 09:20 | Novel sequencing tools to monitor translation in individual cells Alexander van Oudenaarden |
| 09:40 | DNA-associated intronic RNAs form introsomes that shape genome architecture in neurons Magda Bienko |
| 10:00 | Short presentations Integrating spatial multi-omics to reveal inflammatory and regulatory signalling niches in the lung Alexandra Firsova From Genome to Drug Targets: A Computational Pipeline for Setaria digitata Bará Adi How to achieve high throughput and correlative biophysical, physiological and multiomic data Erdinc Sezgin |
| 10:15 | Session Wrap up |
| 10:20 | Coffee Break |
| Session II – Cellular Organization & Dynamics Moderator: Jan Ellenberg | |
| 10:50 | 4D Cell Biology: Drug Discovery using Advanced Microscopy, Organoids, Digital Twins, and AI Johannes Schöneberg |
| 11:10 | Using light to dissect and direct cellular organization and dynamics Lukas Kapitein |
| 11:30 | Mapping Cells at Scale: Sharing Data and Workflows for Tissue-Scale vEM Aubrey Weigel |
| 11:50 | Tunable Three-Photon-Activatable Cyclooctynes for Wavelength-Selective Labeling of Nascent RNA and Proteins in Cells Daniel Fürth |
| 12:00 | Short presentations The Fourth Dimension: Probing Developmental and Evolutionary Time in Spatial Omics Marco Grillo Stitch-seq: A Facile and High-Throughput Perturbation Sequencing Method Frances Keer MINFLUX – SRS – TPE FLIM imaging of bacteria and their targeted host cells Chinmaya Venugopal Srambickal |
| 12:15 | Session Wrap-up |
| 12:20 | Lunch and Poster session |
| Session III – From imaging to models Moderators: Carolina Wählby + Manuel Leonetti | |
| 13:30 | From DNA Nanotechnology to Biomedical Insight: Towards Single-Molecule Spatial Omics Ralf Jungmann |
| 13:50 | Smart microscopy reveals patterns in the mitochondrial life cycle Suliana Manley |
| 14:10 | Live-cell nanoscopy empowered by computation Ilaria Testa |
| 14:20 | Short Presentations Scaling Cell Biology with Smart Microscopy: Adaptive Workflows as a Service Rafael Camacho Agentic-J: An All-Round AI Agent for Cell Biologists Analyzing Microscopy Images from Exploration to Publications Jianxu Chen From Learning to Generating Representations: Constructing a Visual-based World Model for Virtual Cells at Meso-scale Gaole Dai |
| 14:35 | Discussion & Session Wrap-up |
| 14:40 | Coffee Break |
| Session IV – Outlook: Building Predictive Cell Biology Moderators: Sanja Vickovic + Jason Swedlow | |
| 15:10 | AI as a Trusted Partner for Scientific Discovery Across Biological Scales Florian Jug |
| 15:30 | Mechanistic Models of Morphogenesis Jan Funke |
| 15:50 | Virtual Patient Labs: AI-Driven Simulation and Diagnostics for Precision Oncology Charlotte Bunne |
| 16:10 | Short Presentations Cells as Single-Molecule Protein Proximity Networks Filip Karlsson Live-cell transcriptomics with engineered virus-like particles Mohamad Najia |
| 16:20 | Virtual Biology Initiative Manuel Leonetti |
| 16:30 | Alpha Cell Jan Ellenberg |
| 16:40 | Panel discussion Audience Q&A |
| 17:10 | Conference Wrap up – Thank you |
| 17:15 | End of Meeting Post-symposium mingle |
Poster Session
Scientific Committee
Paul Blainey
Iain Cheeseman
Johan Elf
Jan Ellenberg
Manuel Leonetti
Carolina Wählby
Lucas Pelkmans
Jason Swedlow
Sanja Vickovic
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