"From September 3rd to 7th, 2025, I had the incredible opportunity to attend the “Protein Synthesis and Translation Control” conference at EMBL Heidelberg. As a PhD student in the lab of Kathrin Leppek at the University of Bonn, where I study how ribosomes (protein-building factories in cells that translate messenger RNAs [mRNAs] into proteins) perform functions beyond protein-synthesis (translation), this was my first international conference. I had the opportunity not only to attend some of the most insightful talks from the field but also to present my work as a poster. I am very grateful to the University of Bonn Foundation for enabling my attendance.
The conference highlighted range of research topics within the field. In particular, I really enjoyed the talk from one of the keynote speakers, Marina Rodnina. She discussed how epigenetic modifications (chemical changes) in mRNA and local protein folding dynamics can influence protein diversity in cells, indicating the flexibility of translation. Her research focuses on identifying the structures and mechanisms that are still unknown, using purified components of the translation machinery.
My PhD work focuses on sterically blocking specific regions of ribosomal RNA (rRNA) of ribosomes using DNA antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) that interfere with interacting mRNAs or proteins in innate immune cells. Targeting these rRNA regions can help us understand the direct role of ribosomes in translation regulation. A talk from Jay Brito Querido focused on how such rRNA regions interact structurally and functionally with specific repeat-expansion segments in certain mRNAs associated with diseases. Since his talk is closely associated with my research question of using oligos as tools to sterically block rRNA in cells to get an altered phenotype, his findings were particularly relevant to me. In addition, I found a talk from Kyrillos Abdallah quite close to my research as well. The talk focused on how the researchers developed an assay they termed Direct Analysis of Ribosome Targeting (DART) to characterise specific regions of mRNAs which are not translated into proteins called 5’ UTRs (5’ untranslated regions). The assay enabled them to identify 5’ UTRs that promote either strong or weak initiation of translation to adjust protein levels. Since my research also involves investigating the role of such UTRs that regulate translation in innate immune cells, this talk helped me understand how diverse the definition of an “active 5’ UTR” is. Additionally, there were several talks on how cells use alternative means of initiating translation using 5’ UTR elements, especially under certain cellular contexts, which made me realise that there is no single gold standard method developed yet to assess such interesting RNA elements, and this is an evolving area of research.
I also presented my poster at the conference. The poster session opened new research questions for my PhD work and helped me obtain new knowledge that I will apply to my future experiments. During my trip, I met many scientists who work on new and fascinating research questions. I also had the chance of reconnecting with my former master’s thesis supervisor and one of the organisers of the conference, Alfredo Castello, after 3 years, who gave me valuable feedback on my ongoing work.
Overall, my trip to the EMBL conference was one of my first experiences in presenting my work to an audience that is deeply focused on different mechanisms of translation regulation. It made me realise how the questions in the field have become more mechanistic in nature over time, and how we are currently in the post-structural era of the ribosome field. This trip was not only intellectually enriching but also gave me a sense of belonging in the field."
A report by Samyukta Narayanan
