Image: Adobe Stock, Samoresh (Generated with AI)
We cordially invite you to attend the KBC DAYS 2026 conference with the main theme "Dynamic Worlds: Responses and Transformations from Molecules to Landscapes" on 10-11 November!
27 October 23.59 - registration deadline for the KBC DAYS 2026.
20 October - deadline for PhD students to express their interest in presenting their projects.
30 October - abstract submission deadline for PhD students' presentations.
When: Tuesday, 10 November - Wednesday, 11 November 2026
Where: Carl Kempe salen (KB.E3.03) (MAP) and other locations at KBC
We invite you to participate in KBC DAYS, an annual interdisciplinary conference. This conference aims to foster collaborations between different departments and research centres affiliated with the Chemical Biological Centre, KBC, including departments from two faculties of Umeå University and the Faculty of Forest Sciences, SLU.
The scientific theme of this year's KBC DAYS is "Dynamic Worlds: Responses and Transformations from Molecules to Landscapes". With this theme, we invite participants to explore how systems across scales—from atoms, molecules and cells to organisms, ecosystems, and landscapes—sense, respond to, and are transformed by internal and external excitations. Beyond time-resolved change, dynamics is understood here as the interplay of interactions, constraints, and signals that shape systems across scales.
"Dynamic Worlds" provides a unifying framework for interdisciplinary research within the Chemical Biological Centre, fostering dialogue across life and materials sciences. By highlighting shared mechanisms and consequences of change in complex systems, the theme aims to inspire new connections, perspectives, and collaborations across different research fields.
We welcome newcomers, long-term KBC residents, and other curious researchers to learn about or update themselves on the research infrastructures available at KBC and Campus Umeå, get to know more about their services, and discuss potential projects!
You will also gain insights into what happened at KBC during the previous year by listening to exciting scientific talks from new faculty members of the KBC environment, awardees and researchers who received large grants in the past year, presentations by PhD students and activities organised by the Umeå Postdoc Society (UPS)!
As usual, the KBC DAYS will bring researchers from different departments and scientific disciplines together, offering numerous opportunities to network, participate in engaging discussions, and generate new ideas and collaborations!
Claus Ropers, Professor, Director, Department of Ultrafast Dynamics, Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences, Göttingen, Germany
Curriculum Vitae
After studying physics at the University of Göttingen and the University of California, Berkeley (USA), Claus Ropers worked at the Max Born Institute in Berlin and received his doctorate at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in 2007. After a year as project leader at the Max Born Institute, he returned to the University of Göttingen in 2008, where he initially worked as a junior professor with tenure track, heading the research group Nano-Optics and Ultrafast Dynamics. In 2011, the University appointed him as professor at the age of only 34 years. Since 2013, he has held the professorship for Experimental Solid State Physics and has been managing director of the IV. Physical Institute – Solid State and Nanostructures since 2014. Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences.
Research Interests
The experimental physicist and his team investigate the structural, electronic, and magnetic dynamics in solids, nanostructures, and surfaces. Thereby, the researchers want to answer fundamental questions that are also of technological relevance: How do the complex properties of materials emerge? How do photovoltaic energy conversion processes take place? To do so, Ropers needs to develop new experiments. For his research, Ropers uses ultrafast electron microscopy – a field to which he has made a decisive contribution and in which he is one of the leading scientists worldwide.
Selected Awards
He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Carl Ramsauer Prize of the Physical Society of Berlin, the Walter Schottky Prize of the German Physical Society, the Klung Wilhelmy Science Prize, the Ernst Ruska Prize and the Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation.
Webpage: https://www.mpg.de/14782516/multidisciplinary-sciences-ropers
Jordi Bascompte, Professor of Ecology, Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Switzerland
Jordi Bascompte is Professor of Ecology at the University of Zurich and Director of the PhD Program in Ecology. He is best known for having brought the interactions of mutual benefit between plants and animals into community ecology, at a time largely dominated by predation and competition. His application of network theory to the study of mutualism has identified general laws that determine the way in which species interactions shape biodiversity.
Jordi is one of the most highly-cited scientists according to Thompson Reuters. Among his distinctions are the European Young Investigator Award (2004), the Ecological Society of America’s George Mercer Award (2007), the Spanish National Research Award (2011), the British Ecological Society’s Marsh Book of the Year Award (2016), the Ramon Margalef Prize in Ecology (2021) and the Cozzarelli Prize of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (2025). Recipient of an ERC’s Advanced Grant, Jordi has served on the Board of Reviewing Editors of Science and has been the Ideas and Perspectives Editor at Ecology Letters. His books include Self-Organization in Complex Ecosystems (with R.V. Solé) and Mutualistic Networks (with P. Jordano), both published by Princeton University Press.
Jordi obtained a PhD in Biology at the University of Barcelona (1994), supervised by Ricard V. Solé. This was followed by a postdoctoral position in Steven Frank's laboratory at the University of California, Irvine (1996 and 1997). After that, he was awarded an independent postdoctoral fellowship at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS, 1998 and 1999). In 2000, he became Associate Professor (Full Professor from 2008) at the Doñana Biological Station, a center of the Spanish Research Council, where he was based until moving to Zurich in 2015.
Webpage: https://www.bascompte.net/
Ville Kaila, Professor of Biochemistry, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
Ville R. I. Kaila was born in 1983 in Helsinki, Finland. He received his M.Sc. in 2006 and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 2009 at the University of Helsinki in the group of Prof. Mårten Wikström. After his Ph.D., he worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the groups of Prof. Dage Sundholm at the University of Helsinki, and Dr. Gerhard Hummer at the Laboratory of Chemical Physics, at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD. He became Adjunct Professor (Docent) of Physical Biochemistry at University of Helsinki in 2011. In 2013 he was appointed (W2) tenure-track Professor of Computational Biocatalysis at Department of Chemistry at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), and tenured in 2018 (W3). In 2019 Kaila and his research team moved to Stockholm University where he currently is Full professor of Biochemistry (former chair of G. von Heijne). His research is focused on understanding molecular principles of enzyme catalysis, with special emphasis on biological energy conversion, which he explores using a combination of computational biochemistry and biophysical experiments. Prof. Kaila has also studied classical violin at the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki, Finland, and actively performs as a musician.
Webpage: https://www.su.se/english/profiles/v/vika1812, https://villekaila.com/
Time in the programme is Central European Time (CET), e.g. Stockholm, Umeå
Note! The programme is under construction, preliminary and subject to change
8.30 Registration and poster mounting
and coffee
Chairperson:
9.00 Welcome
Stefan Björklund
Scientific Coordinator of KBC
9.05 Opening KBC DAYS 2026
9.15
9.25 KEYNOTE LECTURE I
10.10 Coffee break
Chairperson:
10.40 TBA
Sun Nyunt Wai
Department of Molecular Biology, UMU, Recipient of the Bo and Barbro Hammarström Prize at Umeå University for 2026
10.55
11.10 TBA
José Davila Velderrain
Department of Molecular Biology, UMU
11.25
11.40
12.00 Lunch break
Chairperson:
13.00 Elevator talk presentations by PhD students (2 min each), Part 1
tba
13.10 KEYNOTE LECTURE II:
13.55 Elevator talk presentations by PhD students (2 min each), Part 2
tba
14.05 Poster presentations by PhD students and research infrastructures
and Coffee
Chairperson: Anna Strandberg
15.00 Using crystals to track the Earth's past climate extremes
Morgan Jones
Department of Ecology, Environment and Geoscience, Umeå University
15.15 Nanostructured carbon materials for removal of actinides from industrial waste solutions
Alexandr Talyzin
Department of Physics, Umeå University
15.30 Methane emissions from northern rivers: from microbial to planetary scales
Gerard Rocher Ros
Department of Ecology, Environment and Geoscience, Umeå University
15.45 Optical bio-manipulation of cells, vesicles and single molecules
Pól Martin Bendix
Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
16.15 Gut microbial modulation of intestinal mucus function
Björn Schröder
Department of Molecular Biology and Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden (MIMS), Umeå University
16.30 Poster viewing and mingling before the dinner starts
16.45 KBC Ping-Pong Tournament Semi-Finals and the Final
- Award ceremony for the KBC Ping-Pong Tournament winner
18.00 Dinner
- Announcement of the PhD student presentation prize winners
- Announcement of the KBC Employee of the Year
8.30 Coffee
Chairperson: Madhusree Mitra
9.00 From research to benefit for society
Johan Nordlund
IP- and innovation lawyer, The Innovation Office, Umeå University
Programme organised by UPS
9.15 The forest value chain – from seeds to trees where STEM sees
Christian Kugge
Research specialist, Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget (SCA) R&D
9.35 Panel discussion: "From Postdoc to PI: Winning Grants and Finding Your Path"
Moderator: Madhusree Mitra, Umeå Postdoc Society (UPS)
Panel members:
Eric Capo, Department of Ecology, Environment and Geoscience
Laura Bacete, Department of Plant Physiology, Umeå Plant Science Centre (UPSC), Umeå University
Max Renner, Department of Chemistry, Umeå Centre for Microbial Research (UCMR)
Paulina Wanrooji, Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics
Ryo Morimoto, Department of Molecular Biology, Molecular Infection Medicine Sweden (MIMS)
Verena Kohler, Department of Molecular Biology
10.35 Coffee break
Chairperson: Linda Sandblad
10.55 Start of a live experiment by electron microscopy – “Bridging scales”
11.05 Overview and news from KBC research infrastructures – Local and National facilities in one building
Linda Sandblad
Director of Umeå Centre for Electron Microscopy and SciLifeLab Site Umeå, Umeå University
11.15 Infrastructure at the Translational Research Centre
Ola Billing
Department of Diagnostics and Intervention, Umeå University
11.25 SITES – a national open resource for ecosystem science
Marcus Wallin
Director of the national infrastructure SITES (The Swedish Infrastructure for Ecosystem Science)
11.35 Combining lab-sources and synchrotron X-rays: Need, strategies and future
Mahesh Ramakrishnan
TEC Lab, Department of Applied Physics and Electronics, Umeå University and Guest Researcher – MAX IV
11.45 National unique research infrastructure to elevate your research
Linda Sandblad
Director of Umeå Centre for Electron Microscopy and SciLifeLab Site Umeå, Umeå University
12.00 Posters by Research Infrastructures
and
standing lunch
13.00 Posters by Research Infrastructures (continued) and
Guided tours to infrastructure facilities /drop-in discussions with infrastructure representatives
Chairperson: Morgan Jones
13.30 KEYNOTE LECTURE III: Exoplanets, near and far, small and rare, large and plenty?
Stephanie Werner
Centre for Planetary Habitability, University of Oslo
14.15 Precision spectroscopy using optical frequency combs
Aleksandra Foltynowicz Matyba
Department of Physics, Umeå University
14.30 Coffee break
Chairperson: Stefan Björklund
14.45 Why the Arctic Matters – Communicating Science to Make an Impact
Keith Larsson
Director of the Arctic Centre at Umeå University and Coordinator of the Climate Impacts Research Centre, Department of Ecology, Environment and Geoscience, Umeå University
15.00 Disarming Fusobacterium nucleatum: Development of FadA Inhibitors to Enhance Immunotherapy and Reduce Tumor Burden in Colorectal Cancer
Fredrik Almqvist
Director of the Umeå Center for Microbial Research, UCMR, Department of Chemistry, Umeå University
15.15 Efficient genome editing in worms
Changchun Chen
Department of Molecular Biology, Umeå University
15.30 Concluding remarks
Stefan Björklund
Scientific Coordinator of KBC
- Announcement of photo contest winner
Information about and pre-registration for the various activities organised in the frame of this year's KBC DAYS will be available on this webpage soon. Stay tuned for the email and digital screen announcements!
Scientific Organisers
Stefan Björklund, Professor, Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics, Scientific Coordinator of KBC, Umeå University
Andreas Kohler, Assistant Professor, Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics, Umeå University
Gerard Rocher Ros, Assistant Professor, Department of Ecology, Environment and Geoscience, Umeå University
Nicolò Maccaferri, Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, Umeå University
Nils Skoglund, Associate Professor, Department of Applied Physics and Electronics, Umeå University
Preeti Moar, Postdoctoral fellow, Department of Clinical Microbiology, Umeå University and Umeå Postdoc Society (UPS)
Suresh Jesuthasan, Associate professor, Department of Molecular Biology, Umeå University
Susan McEvoy, Assistant Professor, Department of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology, Umeå Plant Sciences Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU)
Conference Organisers
Stefan Björklund, Professor, Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics, Scientific coordinator of KBC, Umeå University
Anna Shevtsova, Communications Officer, Chemical Biological Centre (KBC), Umeå University
Ingrid Söderbergh, Research coordinator, Umeå Centre for Microbial Research (UCMR), Umeå University
Ainhoa Querejeta, Coordinator, SciLifeLab Site Umeå
Anna Shevtsova, PhD, Communications officer, KBC
E-mail: info.kbc@umu.se, anna.shevtsova@umu.se
Tel. +46 (0)70 547 2672
Visiting Address: KBC-building, KB.J3(C3.25.25), Linnaeus väg 6, 90736 Umeå
