9th Annual Computational Biology Workshop
8-12 September, 2025
Sainsbury Laboratory, Cambridge
Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University (SLCU) and the Plant Reproduction and Development Lab, ENS Lyon jointly host the International Plant Computational Biology Workshop.
The annual meeting is spearheaded by members of the Computational Morphodynamics group and aims to bring together scientists interested in modelling plant development and will feature invited speakers from multiple disciplines and those working on other model systems in life sciences. The workshop features seminars based around a different theme each day and ample time for group discussions on current and future challenges in modelling development and morphogenesis. The meeting also includes more technical discussions and hackathons, where model developers aim to integrate software from different groups on image processing, meshing, and modelling.
17 March Registration opens
22 April Registration deadline for participants wishing to apply for travel grants
16 May Travel grant applicants informed of whether they have been awarded a grant
31 July Registration closes
Programme 2025
All events take place in the SLCU Auditorium unless otherwise noted.
Day 1 - Mechanics
12:45 Arrivals and Welcome
13:00 Talk
14:00 Talk
15:00 Coffee break
16:00 Flash talks and poster session (Atrium)
18:00 Drinks reception (Atrium)
19:00 End
Day 2 – Patterning processes
09:00 Talk
10:00 Talk
11:00 Discussions
12:00 BYO Lunch (Atrium and Courtyard)
13:00 Talk
14:00 Discussions
15:00 Coffee break
15:30 Technical discussions (Board Room)
18:00 BYO barbecue (Roof Terrace)
Day 3 - AI
09:00 Talk
10:00 Talk
11:00 Discussions
12:00 BYO Lunch (Atrium and Courtyard)
13:00 Talk
14:00 Discussions
15:00 Coffee break
15:30 Technical discussions (Board Room)
18:00 Visit to a Cambridge Pub
Day 4 – Computer graphics
09:00 Talk
10:00 Talk
11:00 Discussions
12:00 BYO Lunch (Atrium and Courtyard)
13:00 Talk
14:00 Discussions
15:00 Coffee break
15:30 Technical discussions (Board Room)
18:00 Private dinner (speakers only)
Day 5 - Concepts
09:00 Talk
10:00 Talk
11:00 Discussions
12:00 BYO Lunch (Atrium and Courtyard)
13:00 Talk
14:00 Discussions
15:00 Coffee
15:30 Technical discussions (Board Room)
18:00 Social hour (Format TBC)
TBC
Registration is now open- please use this link.
Registration closes on 31 July.
The workshop is free to attend. Registered delegates are expected to organise and pay for their own travel, accommodation and catering. If you would like to apply for a travel grant (see below), we suggest you apply before 22 April.
We are offering up to three grants of up to £500 towards the cost of economy travel to Cambridge. Grant recipients will also be provided with single bed and breakfast accommodation. Preference will be given to postgraduate students or postdocs beginning their careers and/or ethnic groups underrepresented in science, and scientists from resource-limited countries. Recipients will be expected to generate any additional funding they require to cover their travel and subsistence costs beyond £500. Recipients will be notified of their award in May to allow enough time to generate additional funds and apply for visas if necessary. You can apply by filling in the 'travel grant' section of the registration form: you do not need to apply separately.
Accommodation in Cambridge
In Cambridge there are multiple options for accommodation including hotels, bed and breakfasts, guesthouses, college rooms, and serviced apartments. The UK Plant Biomechanics Day will be held during the University of Cambridge Term break and so College may have single student rooms available. To find suitable accommodation, we recommend checking the following hotels and websites:
On-site facilities for children and carers
We have a number of onsite facilities and resources to support attendees and their families. While we are not able to provide on-site childcare, we have a dedicated family room and private lactation room with refrigerator for milk storage - both accessible at any time and located very close to the auditorium. We also provide a number of baby/toddler furniture items, such as highchairs, toilet seat and changing table.
Please contact events@slcu.cam.ac.uk if you have any questions or suggestions for ways that we can support you during the event.
Junior Delegates
Children will be issued with a Junior Delegate pack including a name badge (first name only, with emergency contact details on the back) and some activities that they might enjoy. Children must be accompanied by a parent or carer at all times.
Family Room (Darwin Room)
A multi-use room will be a dedicated space for families to use during the day. This room has soft lounges, table and chairs, soft floor coverings and is a suitable space for carers to use when supervising young children or for childminders/partners/carers to use while the event is in progress.
There are also baby changing facilities, toddler toilet seat and highchairs available on site.
Lactation
Breastfeeding is welcome in all public areas of the building. We also provide a private room for nursing and pumping with a separate fridge for milk storage.
Access to the Botanic Garden
The Lab is surrounded by the Cambridge University Botanic Garden, a traffic free area with a café. Please contact the conference organisers so we can arrange for free access to the Garden for your partner/childminder during the conference.
Suggested activities for children
We are gathering ideas and suggestions from local families and will list nearby parks, activities and child friendly cafes and restaurants on this page closer to the date of the conference.
Local Attractions
Please find below links to a number of family-friendly attractions within walking distance of the symposium or accessible by public transport:
- University of Cambridge Museums and Botanic Garden
- Cambridge University Botanic Garden
- Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
- The Fitzwilliam Museum
- Museum of Zoology
- Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences
- Museum of Classical Archaeology
- Kettle's Yard
- The Polar Museum
- Whipple Museum of the History of Science
- Centre for Computing History
- Cambridge Ice Arena
- Cambridge Outdoor Market
- Cambridge Science Centre
- Cherry Hinton Hall Park (duck ponds)
- Nene Valley Railway (home to Thomas)
- Sheep's Green (play park)
Getting to Cambridge
Train
The city of Cambridge is easily accessible by train, with the primary station located about a mile from the city centre, which takes approximately 20 minutes on foot. The Sainsbury Laboratory is located only 1 km, or 0.6 of a mile, from Cambridge Station.
For train schedules and ticket reservations, visit National Rail Enquiries or Trainline.
Driving
There is no car parking available at SLCU other than two spaces reserved for those who require disabled access. If you are planning to drive to Cambridge, we recommend you either book accommodation that includes parking or use the Park & Ride scheme. If you need to park in the area, full-day pay and display parking is available at the Cambridge Rail Station and Trumpington Road (0.3 miles). For more information, please visit www.cambridge.gov.uk/parking.
Bus
Local bus services usually run to/from Cambridge bus station in Drummer Street, and/or the adjacent Emmanuel Street and St Andrew’s Street. There are frequent buses from the railway station to the city centre.
The 'U' Universal bus service bus service runs from Eddington, next to the Madingley Road Park and Ride site, through to our Biomedical Campus from Monday to Saturday, and from Eddington to Cambridge Railway Station on Sundays.
Previous workshops have been held here and in Lyon: https://project.inria.fr/pcbw2024/.
7th International Plant Computational Biology Workshop
4 – 8 September 2023 | Sainsbury Laboratory | Cambridge, UK
Invited speakers:
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Richard Smith (JIC, UK)
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Brendan Lane (JIC, UK)
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Christophe Godin & Landry Duguet (RDP-Lyon, France)
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Olivier Ali (RDP-Lyon, France)
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Gabriella Mosca (ZMBP, University of Tubingen (DE))
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Renske Vroomans (SLCU, UK)
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Pau Formosa-Jordan (MPIPZ, Germany)
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Emmanuel Faure (CNRS Montpellier, France)
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Monica L Garcia-Gomez (Utrecht University, The Netherlands)
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Leah Band (University of Nottingham, UK)
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Dagmar Iber (ETH Zurich, Switzerland)
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Adrienne Roeder (Cornell University, USA)
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Philippe Andrey (IJPB, Versailles, France)
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Christian Fleck (FDM, Germany)
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Isao Tokuda (Ritsumeikan, Japan)
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Paul Villoutreix (INSERM, France)
Programme
Monday 4 September
- 12.45 Welcome/Introduction, Henrik Jönsson/James Locke/Francois Nedelec/Renske Vroomans (Auditorium)
- 13.00 Adrienne Roeder: Stochasticity and Robustness in Arabidopsis sepal patterning and morphogenesis
- 14.00 Isao Tokuda: Mathematical modelling and control of spatiotemporal dynamics in Arabidopsis circadian clock
- 15.00 Coffee and discussions (Atrium & Auditorium)
- 16.00 Richard Smith and Brendan Lane: Puzzle cell shape emerges from the interaction of growth and mechanical constraints
- 17.00 Social Drinks & Nibbles (Atrium)
Tuesday 5 September
- 09.00 Pau Formosa-Jordan: Plant multicellular dynamics: From cellular patterning to developmental transitions
- 10.00 Gabriella Mosca: MorphoMechanX and tension development in growing fruits
- 11.00 Coffee and discussions (Atrium & Auditorium)
- 12.00 Lunch Break (BYO food, cafes and bakeries nearby)
- 13.00 Philippe Andrey: Beyond singularity in spatial analyses of plant cells and tissues
- 14.00 Discussions (Auditorium)
- 15.00 Coffee (Atrium)
- 15.30 Technical Discussion (Board Room)
- 18.00 Bring your own BBQ (Roof Terrace)*
*Bread, salads and drinks will be provided. Bring your own food to grill on BBQ.
Wednesday 6 September
- 09.00 Christophe Godin and Landry Duguet: An attempt to reconciliate auxin transport models at the SAM with recently observed quantitative patterns of auxin and PIN1
- 10.00 Leah Band: Modelling hormone distributions regulation root development
- 11.00 Coffee and discussions (Atrium & Auditorium)
- 12.00 Lunch Break (BYO food, cafes and bakeries nearby)
- 13.00 Renske Vroomans: Using evolutionary simulations to elucidate plant development
- 14.00 Discussions (Auditorium)
- 15.00 Coffee (Atrium)
- 15.30 Technical Discussion (Board Room)
- 18.00 Outing to Panton Arms Pub
Thursday 7 September
- 09.00 Dagmar Iber: How to pattern tissues?
- 10.00 Emmanuel Faure: Can we characterise the natural variability of ascidian development?
- 11.00 Coffee and discussions (Atrium & Auditorium))
- 12.00 Lunch Break (BYO food, cafes and bakeries nearby)
- 13.00 Paul Villoutreix: Inference and machine learning methods in developmental biology: bridging morphogenesis and patterns of gene expression
- 14.00 Discussions (Auditorium)
- 15.00 Coffee (Atrium)
- 15.30 Technical Discussion (Board Room)
- 18.00 Private Dinner (speakers only)
Friday 8 September
- 09.00 Christian Fleck: Modelling with insufficient data. An example from trichome patterning (online delivery)
- 10.00 Nick Monk: Transient dynamics in models of intercellular signalling
- 11.00 Coffee and discussions (Atrium & Auditorium)
- 12.00 Lunch Break (BYO food, cafes and bakeries nearby)
- 13.00 Olivier Ali: The Killing: the missing link between Geometry and Mechanics?
- 14.00 Discussions (Auditorium)
- 15.00 Coffee (Atrium)
- 15.30 Technical Discussion (Board Room)
- 18.00 Social Hour (format TBC)