Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences (MPINAT)
City Campus, Göttingen, Germany
"The INs and OUTs of Glia"
PROGRAMME
Monday, February 17, 2026
09:00 Welcome Note, Klaus-Armin Nave (MPINAT)
Session 1: The Making of Oligodendrocytes and Myelin
Chair: Moritz Rossner (LMU München)
09:15 Leda Dimou (University of Ulm)
NG2-glia at the crossroads: from health to disease
09:45 Amit Agarwal (University of Heidelberg)
The art of wrapping: how myelinating glia perfect sheath geometry
10:15 Hauke Werner (MPINAT)
Correlative microscopy and proteome analysis identifies molecular heterogeneity of myelin
10:45 - 11:15 Coffee & Tea break
Session 2: Oligodendrocytes in Disease
Chair: Johannes Hirrlinger (U. Leipzig, MPINAT)
11:15 Mika Simons (DZNE, Technical University Munich)
Myelination from development to adult
11:45 Goncalo Castelo-Branco (Karolinska Institute)
Transitions of oligodendroglia to disease-associated states in MS:
Insights from single-cell and spatial omics
12:30 - 13:30 Lunch break
Session 3: Learning from the Periphery: Schwann Cells in Disease
Chair: Michael Sereda (U.Göttingen, MPINAT)
13:30 Robert Fledrich (University of Leipzig)
Size matters: axon caliber-driven control of myelin quality
14:00 Ruth Stassart (University of Leipzig)
Glial determinants of peripheral nerve repair
14:30 Gerd Meyer zu Hörste (University of Münster)
Novel approaches to understanding the immuno-pathology
of human peripheral nerves
15:00 - 15:30 Coffee & Tea break
Session 4: Unconventional Neuron-Glia Interactions
Chair: Klaus-Armin Nave (MPINAT)
15:30 Robin Franklin (Altos Labs, Cambridge)
Schwann cells in the CNS
16:00 Evi Krämer (University of Mainz)
OUTbreak: glial extracellular vesicles and their journey
through the brain (and body)
16:30 Michelle Monje (Stanford University)
Neuron-oligodendroglial interactions in health and disease:
from cognition to cancer
17:00 Oriol Vinyals jr. (Google DeepMind)
Towards a brain-machine-interface
18:30 Apero
19:30 Dinner buffet
21:00 Open Bar
Tuesday, February 17, 2026
Session 5: Neuron-Glia Interactions
Chair: Wiebke Möbius (MPINAT)
09:00 Frank Kirchhoff (Homburg University)
Tbd
09:30 Maarten Kole (University of Amsterdam)
New nanoelectronics insights on the myelin sheath
10:00 Julia Edgar (University of Glasgow/MPINAT)
Transport routes across myelin: myelin motors matter
10:30 Aiman Saab (University of Zürich)
The metabolic symphony of white matter
11:00 - 11:30 Coffee & Tea break
Session 6: Glia in Alzheimer's Disease
Chair: Sandra Goebbels (MPINAT)
11:30 Constanze Depp (Harvard University)
Defective myelin, microglia and amyloid-beta: a trio infernale driving neurodegeneration
12:00 Andrew Sasmita (University of Cork)
Rethinking amyloid-β production through the lens of
oligodendrocytes and axons
12:30 Simone Eggert (MPINAT)
IN and OUT of microglia - Ab clearance under acidic conditions
13:00 - 14:00 Lunch break
Session 7: Responsive Glia
Chair: Markus Schwab (University of Leipzig)
14:00 Shane Liddelow (New York University)
What is a reactive astrocyte, and what do they do?
14:30 Gesine Saher (MPINAT)
Towards understanding brain ketone body metabolism
15:00 Anne Schäfer (MPI Aging Research)
"Adaptive" immunity by microglia
15:30 - 16:00 Coffee & Tea break
Session 8: The Ageing brain
Chair: Livia de Hoz (Charité, Cambridge U.)
16:00 Tal Iram (Weizmann Institute)
Preserving myelin integrity in aging and neurodegenerative diseases
16:30 Giovanna Malluci (Altos Labs, Cambridge)
Tbd
Session 9: Closing Lecture
17:00 Helmut Kettenmann (MDC, Shenzhen University of Advanced Technology)
The concept of glia – a historical journey
17:30 Klaus-Armin Nave (MPINAT)
Closing remarks
18:30 Dinner buffet
20:00 Party
