Keynote
Patrick Cramer, President Max Planck Society & MPI Göttingen
The program features a keynote lecture by a Max Planck Director from a different institute. Since its establishment in 2010, the Epigenetics Meeting is proud to host colleagues from five different institutes of the the Max Planck Society: Herbert Jäckle (MPI-BPC, 2010), Stefan Jentsch (MPIB, 2012), Hans Schöler (MPI Münster, 2014), Manfred Gahr (2016) and Anthony Hyman (MPI-CBG, 2018). In 2022 Nicole Dubilier (MPI Bremen) had to cancel.
2024 Keynote
Patrick Cramer and his laboratory elucidated the molecular mechanisms of gene transcription and its regulation, which underlie cell differentiation and organism development. Cramer pioneered the structural analysis of cellular transcription machineries and described the molecular mechanisms underlying RNA polymerase II initiation, elongation, and regulation. This led to first molecular movies of transcription. The Cramer laboratory also developed functional genomics tools for quantifying transcription kinetics in cells. Cramer provided concepts such as the indirect recognition of promoters, the tunable active site of polymerases, allosteric transcription regulation, cellular buffering of mRNA levels, or elongation-controlled
regulation of transcription initiation. Using complementary structural and functional approaches, Cramer defined the cellular switches underlying gene activity, providing the basis for understanding diseases such as cancer.
Born on February 3, 1969 in Stuttgart. Study of chemistry at the Universities of Stuttgart and Heidelberg. Research student at the University of Bristol (UK) and Cambridge (UK). Diploma in chemistry in 1995 at the University of Heidelberg, doctorate at the University of Heidelberg/EMBL Grenoble (France) in 1998. Predoctoral fellow in Grenoble (France) from 1995 to 1998, postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University (USA) from 1999 to 2001. Tenure-track professor of biochemistry at the University of Munich from 2001 to 2003. Professor of biochemistry at the University of Munich from 2004 to 2014. Director of the Gene Center of the University of Munich (LMU) from 2004 to 2013. Director at the Max Planck Institute of Biophysical Chemistry since 2014. In 2023, became President of the Max Planck Society.