Program
Thursday 28th May 2026
| 09:30 AM | Registration and coffee/tea | |
|---|---|---|
| 10:15 AM | Welcome remarks | Michel Krall Jürgens (CEO) - Sophion Bioscience |
| 10:25 AM | Housekeeping | Yuji Tsurubuchi (Country Manager, JP) - Sophion Bioscience |
| Session 1 | Chair: Makoto Tominaga - Nagoya City University, Japan | |
| 10:30 AM | Deadly cures: using venomous animals to develop personalised anti-seizure medications | Glenn King - The University of Queensland, Australia |
| 10:55 AM | Pathophysiological roles of cardiac IKs channels | Junko Kurokawa - University of Sizuoka, Japan |
| 11:20 AM | TMEM63 proteins are mechanically activated lipid scramblases contributing to membrane mechano-resilience | Ben Corry - Australian National University |
| 11:45 AM | Uniquely evolved plant K⁺ transporters | Nobuyuki Uozumi - Tohoku University, Japan |
| 12:10 PM | Group photo - Lunch, Exhibits and Posters (odd number) | |
| Session 2 | Chair: Yoshihiro Kubo - National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Japan | |
| 01:45 PM | TRPC channel modulation as a therapeutic target | Reiko Sakaguchi - University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Japan |
| 02:10 PM | AMPA receptors under the knife: How RNA editing and alternative splicing co-evolved to sculpt brain signaling | Derek Bowie - McGill University, Canada |
| 02:35 PM | The extracellular K+-gated anion channels | Takushi Shimomura - Hiroshima University, Japan |
| 03:00 PM | TCM-based ion channel drug discovery | Jian Yang - Shenzhen Medical Academy of Research and Translation, China |
| 03:25 PM | Tea/Coffee, Exhibits and Posters (even number) | |
| Session 3 | Chair: Kazuya Tsurudome - Sophion Bioscience, Japan | |
| 04:00 PM | Role for the small GTPase Rem2 in dopaminergic regulation of synaptic release | Ryan Alexander - University of California, San Francisco, USA |
| 04:25 PM | Visualizing P2X Ion Channels: Optical Probes for P2X7R and PET Tracers for the Imaging of P2X4 and P2X7 Receptor Expression | Anna Junker - University Tübingen, Germany |
| 04:50 PM | Chemical strategies for fluorescent visualization of endogenous AMPA receptor trafficking during synaptic plasticity | Shigeki Kiyonaka - Nagoya University, Japan |
| 05:15 PM | News & Views from Sophion | Esben Gad - Sophion Bioscience, Denmark |
| 05:40 PM | Wrap up | Yuji Tsurubuchi - Sophion Bioscience, Japan |
| 06:00 PM | Dinner reception | |
| 08:00 PM | Closing remarks | Yuji Tsurubuchi & Michel Krall Jürgens - Sophion Bioscience |
Friday 29th May 2026
| 09:15 AM | Tea/coffee | |
|---|---|---|
| 09:30 AM | Welcome remarks | Yuji Tsurubuchi - Sophion Bioscience, Japan |
| Session 4 | Chair: Glenn King - The University of Queensland, Australia | |
| 09:35 AM | Nav1.4s are dispensable for muscle contractions in zebrafish. | Souhei Sakata, Osaka Medical and Pharmaceutical University, Japan |
| 10:00 AM | Structural Basis of Lipid Gating of Inwardly Rectifying Potassium Channels: Can the G-Loop be the Main Gate | Sun-Joo Lee - Washington University, USA |
| 10:25 AM | Effects of horizontal and vertical electric fields on lipid bilayers | Eiji Yamamoto - Keio University, Japan |
| 10:50 AM | Tea/coffee - Exhibits and poster session | |
| Session 5 | Chair: Derek Bowie - McGill University, Canada | |
| 11:40 AM | Electrophysiological Approaches to Decipher Endosomal TRPML2 Channel Function | Cheng-Chang Chen - National Taiwan University, Taiwan |
| 12:05 PM | Assessment of drug-induced inotropic changes using human iPSC-derived 3D engineered cardiac tissues: A comparison with a 2D cardiomyocytes model | Yoshiko Okai - Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited, Japan |
| 12:30 PM | Small ‘cells’, single channels and transporters: new recording capabilities using high resistance HiR QPlates and low noise Q-amp amplifiers | Kazuya Tsurudome - Sophion Bioscience, Japan |
| 12:55 PM | Lunch, Exhibits and Posters (odd number) | |
| Session 6 | Chair: Yasushi Okamura - University of Osaka | |
| 02:25 PM | Effects of different modulators on the structural, dynamic and functional properties of the human potassium Kir2.1 | Catherine Vénien-Bryan - Sorbonne University, France |
| 02:50 PM | Subcellular compartmentalization of voltage-gated ion channels at the axon initial segment in vivo | Yilin Tai - Fudan University, China |
| 03:15 PM | Beyond the Block: Dissecting hERG Channel Modulation for Safer Drug Development | Kazuharu Furutani - Tokushima Bunri University, Japan |
| 03:40 PM | Poster Award Ceremony | Esben Gad - Sophion Bioscience, Denmark |
| 03:45 PM | Closing remarks and wrap up | Michel Krall Jürgens - Sophion Bioscience, Denmark |
The agenda is subject to change. Speakers, session titles, and other details may be updated or altered without prior notice. Please check for updates closer to the event. The organizers are not responsible for any inconvenience caused by these changes.