Conference
Light Harvesting Satellite Meeting of the 17th International Congress on Photosynthesis Research
- Date
- Thursday 4 August 2016 - Sunday 7 August 2016
- Location
-
Egmond aan Zee

The Light Harvesting Satellite Meeting is a satellite meeting of the 17th International Congress on Photosynthesis Research, held in Maastricht, The Netherlands, and focuses on natural photosynthetic light harvesting.
The meeting will be chaired by Dr. Anjali Pandit (Structure & Regulation in Photosynthesis Lab, Leiden University), and will bring together international photosynthesis biochemistry, biophysics and structural/molecular biology experts for open scientific discussion on emerging questions and hypotheses. The meeting covers 6 themes varying from Quantum Biology of Light Harvesting to Evolutionary Aspects and Light Adaptation and will address the role of flexible light harvesting in adjusting photosynthesis to fluctuating environmental conditions.
Venue
The Light Harvesting Satellite Meeting will take place in Hotel Zuiderduin in Egmond aan Zee, a village located at the beautiful Dutch North-Sea coast, approx. 30 km north of Amsterdam.
Address:
Hotel Zuiderduin, Zeeweg 52, 1931 VL Egmond aan Zee, The Netherlands.
Scientific Organising Committee
Dr. Anjali Pandit, Leiden University
Prof. Roberta Croce, VU University Amsterdam
Prof. Herbert van Amerongen, Wageningen University
Dr. Ivo van Stokkum, VU University Amsterdam
External Advisory Board
Prof. Harry Frank, Univ. of Connecticut, USA
Prof. Robert Blankenship, Washington Univ. of St. Louis, USA
Prof. Rienk van Grondelle, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Prof. Richard Cogdell, Glasgow University, UK
Prof. Tomas Polivka, University of South Bohemia, Czech Republic
Prof. Bruno Robert, CEA Saclay, France
Prof. Diana Kirilovsky, CEA Saclay, France
Prof. Chunhong Yang, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Prof. Leonas Valkunas, Vilnius University, Lithuania
Prof. Claudia Buchel, Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Prof. Alfred Holzwarth, MPI for Bioinorganic Chemistry, Mülheim a.d. Ruhr, Germany
Programme
Thursday 4 Aug 2016
18:30 - 19:50 Dinner
19:55 - 20:00 Opening
Key-note lectures
20:00 - 20:40 Zhenfeng Liu Structure of PSII-LHCII supercomplex: the supramolecular basis for light-harvesting processes in plants
20:40 - 21:20 Robert Blankenship Evidence for a cysteine-mediated mechanism of excitation energy regulation in the FMO antenna complex
21:30 - Social mixer
Friday 5 Aug 2016
07:30 - 08:30 Breakfast
Session 1: Light harvesting and its regulation, part A
08:30 - 08:50 Alexander Ruban The mechanism of dynamic control of the photosynthetic light harvesting in plants
08:50 - 09:10 Shigeichi Kumazaki Imaging of Photochemical Properties of Thylakoid
09:10 - 09:30 Nicoletta Liguori A dark state associated to carotenoid distortions (S*) can quench chlorophyll excitation in a Light-Harvesting Complex of plants
09:30 - 09:50 Jevgenij Chmeliov Temperature-Dependent Fluorescence Measurements in LHCII Aggregates Reveal the Nature of Self-Regulation in Light-Harvesting Antenna
9:50 - 10:20 Coffee break
Session 2: Light harvesting and its regulation, part B
10:20 - 10:40 Claudia Büchel Involvement of the Lhcx protein Fcp6 of the diatom Cyclotella meneghiniana in the macro-organization and structural flexibility of thylakoid membranes
10:40 - 11:00 Vladimír Špunda Elevated temperatures facilitate extremely rapid zeaxanthin-dependent induction of nonradiative dissipation of excitation energy within photosystem II in Norway spruce needles
11:00 - 11:20 Erica Belgio High light grown Chromera velia displays similar physiological response to lincomycin-treated plants
11:20 - 11:40 Alberto Natali Light-harvesting Complexes (LHCs) Cluster Spontaneously in Membrane Environment Leading to Shortening of Their Excited State Lifetimes
Discussion: Light harvesting and its regulation
11:40 - 12:40 Discussion leaders: Diana Kirilovsky, Chris Duffy
12:40 - 13:40 Lunch
Session 3: Structure and assembly
14:00 - 14:20 Jakub Psencik Carotenoid triplet state formation in the light-harvesting complexes of selected algae from the phylogenetic SAR group
14:20 - 14:40 Yuliya Miloslavina A low complexity 3D model for heterogeneous wild type Chlorobaculum tepidum chlorosomes
14:40 - 15:00 Hitoshi Tamiaki Synthesis of zinc 20-substituted bacteriochlorophyll-d analogs and their chlorosomal self-aggregation
Discussion: Structure and assembly
15:00 - 15:30 Discussion leader: Richard Cogdell
15:30 - 16:00 Poster flashes
16:00 - 18:00 Poster viewing
Key-note lecture
18:00 - 18:40 Roberto Bassi A comparative analysis of Photosynthetic Light use efficiency Regulation Mechanisms from unicellular algae to higher plants through mosses
19:00 - 20:25 Dinner
49-ers evening program
20:30 - TBD Richard Cogdell Football, beer and long term collaboration: delving into the mechanisms of light harvesting
Graham Fleming Understanding The Rates and Mechanisms of Photosynthetic Energy Transfer: 1949 to Now. (A 49ers Perspective)
Arvi Freiberg The Quest for Photosynthetic Excitons: My Pilgrimage
Leonas Valkunas Photosynthetic Excitons
Saturday 6 Aug 2016
07:30 - 08:30 Breakfast
Session 4: Excitation energy transfer, theory and experiment, part A
08:30 - 08:50 Darius Abramavicius Correlations and delocalization in excitonic model
08:50 - 09:10 Benedetta Mennucci “Ab initio” simulation of the excitonic properties of light-harvesting complexes
09:10 - 09:30 Jürgen Hauer Vibronic coupling explains the ultrafast carotenoid-to-bacteriochlorophyll energy transfer rate
09:30 - 09:50 Gediminas Trinkunas Insight into the alteration of light harvesting antenae in thylakoids by the fluctuating antenna model
9:50 - 10:20 Coffee break
Session 5: Excitation energy transfer, theory and experiment, part B
10:20 - 10:40 Shigeru Itoh Ultra-fast dissipation of excess excitation energy by multiple pathways in dry mosses and lichens with algal/cyanobacterial symbionts
10:40 - 11:00 Noam Adir Deciphering the remarkable functionalities of the phycobilisome
11:00 - 11:20 Yutaka Shibata Drought-induced fluorescence quencher in a poikilohydric moss, Breum argenteum, is formed in the photosystem II core complex
11:20 - 11:40 Emilie Wientjes Fluorescence lifetime imaging shows the PSI/PSII antenna size ratio of grana and stroma inside a leaf
Discussion: Excitation energy transfer, theory and experiment
11:40 - 12:40 Discussion leaders: Tomas Polivka, Leonas Valkunas
12:40 - 13:40 Lunch
Session 6: Emerging approaches
14:00 - 14:20 Miroslav Kloz Resolving the nature of the carotenoid S* state via Femtosecond Stimulated Raman scattering
14:20 - 14:40 Petar Lambrev Energy transfer in light-harvesting antenna complexes probed by two-dimensional spectroscopy
14:40 - 15:00 Fatemeh Azadi Chegeni Protein and lipid dynamics in photosynthetic thylakoid membranes probed by in-situ solid-state NMR
15:00 - 15:20 Pu Qian Architecture of a Nanotube Assembly of Light-Harvesting LH2 Complexes from Rhodobacter sphaeroides
15:20 - 16:00 Poster flashes
16:00 - 18:00 Poster viewing
Key-note lecture
18:00 - 18:40 Cheryl Kerfeld Evolution and Structural and Functional Modularity of the Cyanobacterial Orange Carotenoid Protein
19:00 - 20:30 Dinner
Sunday 7 Aug 2016
8:00 Breakfast
9:30 Leave, bus to main conference (lunch packages for on the bus)