12^th Visegrad Symposium on Biomolecular Interactions

Topics:

• Simulating biomolecular interactions
• Measuring biomolecular interactions
• Drug development and diagnostics
• Machine learning and big data

Visegrad Symposia gathers researchers interested in the study of biomolecular systems with wide array of scientific approaches. They range from computational methods, including quantum calculations and atomistic or coarse-grained simulations, to experimental, mainly spectroscopic techniques. As such the meeting is a unique platform for sharing ideas and approaching common scientific problems from different points of view, often leading to the establishment of fruitful, interdisciplinary collaboration.

The history of the meetings dates back to 2009 and 2010, when two „Mini-symposium on computation of interactions in biological systems“ were organized by the research teams from Nové Hrady and Szeged in their respective towns. Later joined by partners from Bratislava and Kraków, and benefiting from the support of Visegrad International Fund, they established the tradition of annual symposia on structural systems biology. The 1^st Visegrad Symposium was organized in 2011 in Nové Hrady, Czech Republic, followed by 2^nd Visegrad Symposium in 2012 in Gyöngyöstarján, Hungary, 3^rd Visegrad Symposium in 2013 in Smolenice, Slovakia, 4^th Visegrad Symposium in 2014 in Nové Hrady, 5^th Visegrad Symposium in 2015 in Szeged, Hungary and 6^th Visegrad Symposium in 2016 in Warsaw, Poland and 7^th Visegrad Symposium in 2017 again in Nové Hrady and 8^th Visegrad Symposium in 2018 in Lučenec, Slovakia. Last pre-Covid symposium 9^th Visegrad Symposium was organized in 2019 in Szilvásvarád, Hungary. Next 10^th Visegrad Symposium organized in Nové Hrady, Czech Republic was postponed to 2022 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
So far the last 11^th Visegrad Symposium was in 2023 in Röjtökmuzsaj, Hungary in cooperation with Austrian colleagues.

The conferences were very succesful. Apart of the scientists from the partner institutions and their colleagues in Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, the conferences attracted many scientist from the other countries like Austria, Germany, France, Great Britain, Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, Spain and Switzerland. The conferences were also attended by many students including the participants of the summer schools organized in Szeged (later in Miskolc) and Nové Hrady, that are mainly the undergraduate students from USA, Canada and UK.

This year the conference will beheld in Piešťany, Slovak Republic. As in the previous years, this year conference will focus on various computational and experimental methods used in the study of biologically relevant macromolecules.
We hope that this conference will be as successful as the previous ones.

The organizing team

Ján Urban

David Řeha

Milan Melicherčík

Ivan Sukuba

Zuzana Garaiová