Joint Symposium on Global Health
Kyoto University (KU) – University of Vienna (UNIVIE)

at the University of Vienna
June 18 to 20, 2024

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Content

Introduction

3

General Information

4

Location Map

5General Program

6

Short Bios and Abstracts

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Introduction

The Joint Symposium on Global Health taking place from June 18 to 20, 2024 at the Universityof Vienna is a collaborative effort between the University of Vienna and Kyoto University in theframework of their Strategic Partnership. Established in 2019, this partnership represents a
commitment to strengthening the ties between the two institutions, deepening and broadening
their inter-institutional collaborations, and fostering a spirit of academic and cultural exchange.
This three-day Symposium on Global Health stands as a testament to the shared dedication of the
University of Vienna and Kyoto University to addressing some of the most pressing challenges of
our time. The theme of Global Health has been chosen not only for its relevance but also for its
critical importance in the contemporary world. By bringing together leading scholars and researchers from both universities, we aim to create a forum for knowledge exchange and meaningful
dialogue and discussions.
The Joint Symposium on Global Health intends to enable fruitful discussions that will inspire new
insights and collaborative endeavors. It is our hope that this event will not only enhance ourunderstanding of global health issues but also pave the way for impactful future research collaborations.
This booklet provides information about the researchers and participants from Kyoto University
and the University of Vienna.

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General Information
Universität Wien
International Office
Universitätsring 1 | 1010 Wien
https://international.univie.ac.at/
Contact
International OfficeTel.: +43 1 4277 18201

Janna Kazim, Senior Partnership Manager

Tel: +43 664 4757023

Dr. Barbara Good, International Director

Tel.: +43 664 8176326

Hotel
Hotel Regina
Rooseveltplatz 15 | 1090 Wien
Tel.: +43 1 404460 | Email: regina@kremslehnerhotels.at
https://www.hotelregina.at/de/hotel-regina-wien
Taxi
Taxi 40100
Tel.: +43 1 40100
https://www.taxi40100.at/en/
Public Transport
Upon check-in at Hotel Regina, you will be provided with a weekly ticket for city-wide travel. The ticket is valid
for seven days on all public transport. With the ticket you can take as many journeys as you like on the trains(Schnellbahn or S-Bahn), underground (U-Bahn), tram (Straßenbahn) and bus; special express bus lines (e.g.
airport bus) and tourist services like the hop on hop off sightseeing buses are excluded.
Wiener Linien Route Planner: https://www.wienerlinien.at/web/wl-en
Emergency Numbers
Police: 133
Ambulance service: 144
General Practitioners' Out-of-hours service: 141
Expert assistance in cases of poisoning: +43 1 4064343
https://www.wien.gv.at/english/contact/emergency.html

4Location Map

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General Program
Day 1 – Tuesday, June 18, 2024
09:15 – 09:30

Registration

09:30 – 09:55

Opening Session – Plenary
Moderated by Dr. Barbara GOOD,
Director of the International Office, UNIVIE• Rector Sebastian SCHUETZE, UNIVIE• President Nagahiro MINATO, KU• H.E. Ryuta MIZUUCHI,
Ambassador of Japan to Austria• Prof. Wolfgang MAZAL,
Scientific Advisor to the Strategic Partnership, UNIVIE

09:55 – 10:00

Photos and Gift Exchange

10:00 – 11:00

Keynote Lectures – Plenary• Yukiko UCHIDA, Professor (Cultural Psychology,
Social Psychology), Director of Institute for
the Future of Human Society, KU• Prof. Dr. Bernadett WEINZIERL,Head of Research Group Aerosol Physics andEnvironmental Physics, UNIVIE

11:00 – 12:00

PhD Pitch Talk – Plenary
Moderated by Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Forgó,
Department of Innovation and Digitalisation in Law, UNIVIE
Short presentations by ten PhD Students
from KU and UNIVIE

12:00 – 13:00

Lunch

13:00 – 13:30

Transfer to Group Sessions

Small Ceremonial Hall
(Kleiner Festsaal)
UNIVIE Main Building

6Group Sessions
13:30 – 17:00

18:30 – 21:00•••

Microbiology and Microbe-host Interactions
Mathematical Biology and Medicine
Social Psychology | Current research on Japan’sSociety and Cultures

Please see Group Session
Programs

Plachuttas Gasthaus zur Oper,
Walfischgasse 5, 1010 Wien

Welcome Dinner

Day 2 – Wednesday, June 19, 2024
Group Sessions
09:00 – 11:30•••

Microbiology and Microbe-host Interactions
Mathematical Biology and Medicine
Social Psychology | Current research on Japan’sSociety and Cultures

11:30 – 12:00

Transfer to Plenary

12:00 – 13:00

Lunch

13:00 – 14:00

Closing Session – Plenary
Wrap-up of Group Sessions
Closing Remarks by• Vice Rector Manuela BACCARINI, Vice Rector for
Research and International Affairs, UNIVIE• Executive Vice President Tetsuo SAWARAGI,Executive Vice-President for Research Ethics, Integrity,
Code of Conduct, and International Affairs, KU

Please see Group Session
Programs

Small Ceremonial Hall
(Kleiner Festsaal),
UNIVIE Main Building

Excursions for KU participants

14:00 – 18:00

14:00 – 15:00
15:00 – 16:00
16:00 – 16:30
16:30 – 17:30
17:30 – 18:00

Transfer to the Botanical Garden of the University of Vienna
Guided Tour Through the Botanical Garden
Walk from the Botanical Garden to the Belvedere Museum
Guided Tour “Gustav Klimt and His Time”
Transfer to University of Vienna Main Building

Day 3 – Thursday, June 20, 2024
All day

Individual Lab Visits (optional)

7Mark ANTHONY | University of Vienna
Mark Anthony is a recently appointed tenure-track assistant professor of fungal ecology at the
University of Vienna. He has a Vienna Science and Technology Fund Research Group for Young
Investigators Head and a Swiss National Science Foundation Ambizione Fellow. Prior to his postat the University of Vienna, he did his PhD in the U.S.A. at the University of New Hampshire as a
U.S. National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. He then moved to Switzerland to
do a post-doc at the ETH Zürich and the Swiss Institute for Forest, Snow, and LandscapeResearch (WSL).

Links between soil mycobiomes and forest functioning
Soil fungi are among the most diverse communities on earth. They profoundly influence ecosystem functioning as
the main decomposers of plant litter and as ubiquitous plant-associated symbionts. Yet with >5 million fungal
species in soils, it is critical to understand how differences in the mycobiome may ripple to influence ecosystem
functioning. Here, I will discuss how fungi influence forest carbon cycling through the lens of fungal diversity, with aparticular focus on forest productivity and soil carbon storage.
Session: Microbiology and Microbe-host Interactions

Robert BÖHM | University of Vienna
Robert Böhm is Professor of Social Psychology in the Context of Work, Economy, and Society at
the University of Vienna since 2021. He is also the designated co-director of the “Research
Network Health Within Society” as well as of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center“Social and Behavioral Research in Antimicrobial Resistance (SABRA)” at the University of Vienna.
In his research, Robert Böhm studies human judgments and decisions in response to societal
challenges, including major health threats such as infectious diseases and antimicrobial
resistance. He has been and advisor and research collaborator for the World Health Organization(WHO), the United Nations (UN), and governments of several countries.
Session: Social Psychology

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Silvia BULGHERESI | University of Vienna
Silvia Bulgheresi is Associate Professor of Environmental Cell Biology at the
University of Vienna since 2020. Prior to that, she was an independent principal
investigator at the Marine Biology Department of the University of Vienna. She
did her PhD at the Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP), Vienna.

Cell biology of animal symbionts
The phylogenetic and morphological diversity of bacteria is bewildering. However, bacterial cellbiology has been focusing on a dozen species that divide by transverse binary fission. This gravely limits
our understanding of key life processes such as cell growth and chromosome segregation. Here, I will
present what we have learned from studying the reproductive biology of non-model multicellularbacteria that thrive in the human mouth.
Session: Microbiology and Microbe-host Interactions

Jingjie CHEN | Kyoto University
Jingjie Chen is a first-year doctoral student at the Division of Biological Sciences,
Department of Science, Kyoto University and is supervised by Prof. Hiroyuki Ogata.
She completed her master’s degree in the same division and is interested in themolecular and cellular mechanism in virus-host and virus-virus interactions. During
her postgraduation, she worked on the gene expression changes within the coinfection system constituted by giant viruses, virophages, and the eukaryotic hosts.
Currently, she is working on the same topic based on her previous results and is
focusing on the detailed gene function verification and protein interaction exploration.
Virophage infection affects the transcriptome landscape of giant virus
Virophages are small double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) viruses that parasitize giant dsDNA viruses. Sputnik is a
virophage that can only replicate inside the host amoebae when co-infecting with mimiviruses. The co-infection
results in reduced production of infective mimivirus particles and abnormal morphology of the virions. Interaction
between virophages, giant viruses, and host amoebae remains poorly understood. In this study, we performed atime-course transcriptome analysis of Acanthamoeba castellanii cells infected with Acanthamoeba polyphaga
mimivirus (APMV) and Sputnik 3 virophage (hereafter called as Sputnik+) and compared their gene expression
pattern to those only infected with APMV (Sputnik-). Between these two conditions, amoeba gene expression
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patterns were similar but the APMV gene expressions were drastically different. APMV genes were classified into
four groups based on their expression timings in the absence of Sputnik infection: “immediate early,” “early,”“intermediate,” and “late.” Sputnik infection differently affected the APMV genes with different expression timings.
For immediate early and early genes, the expression period was prolonged, while for intermediate genes, theexpression start time was delayed by co-infection with Sputnik.
Keywords: Virophages, Giant viruses, transcriptome, virus-virus coinfection
Session: Microbiology and Microbe-host Interactions

Igor DE ALMEIDA | Kyoto University
Originally from Brazil, Igor de Almeida received his bachelor’s degree in psychology
from the University of Sao Paulo (Brazil), and master’s and Ph.D. from Kyoto University(Japan). He is currently working as a lecturer at Kyoto University.His research interests
include 1) well-being across cultures; 2) cultural diversity in psychological research; 3)culturally specific emotions; 4) conceptualization and differences in emotions acrosscultures; and 5) natural language processing and other computational methods applied
to research in social science.

Well-being and the workplace, an analysis in Japan, Taiwan, the US, and the UK
Previous research has highlighted the importance of happiness and wellbeing on people’s physical andmental health and productivity, among other benefits. This project aims to identify and understandworkplace characteristics that influence well-being in four cultures: Japan, Taiwan, the UK, and the US.
We investigated various antecedents of well-being, such as social support, power at the workplace, selfconstrual, age, socio-economic status, and so on, as well as several types of well-being, such as life
satisfaction, interdependent well-being, and eudemonic well-being at the workplace.
The results revealed that factors such as perceived power at the workplace, self-construal, and social
support impact happiness and well-being. Thus, the study discusses the cultural differences in terms ofwhat impacts happiness. For instance, social support, in the form of having colleagues that one can counton and share information about the workplace positively impacts well-being at the workplace; in Japan,
this impact is significantly higher than in the other studied cultures.
Keywords: well-being, workplace, cross-cultural
Session: Social Psychology | Current Research on Japan’s Society and Cultures10Antoine DIEZ | Kyoto University
After obtaining Ph.D. from Imperial College London under the supervision of Prof. Pierre
Degond and Prof. Sara Merino-Aceituno (Univ. Vienna), Dr. Antoine Diez joined Kyoto
University in 2022 as a program specific researcher at the BiMed-Math lab led by Prof.
Sungrim Seirin-Lee. He works in the field of applied mathematics and is interested in theemergence of self-organized patterns across scales in biological systems. His research
primarily focuses on large interacting particle systems with applications in the modeling ofvarious phenomena in developmental biology. He works with both analytical tools (inparticular Partial Differential Equations and Stochastic Analysis) and numerical models.
Understanding limb morphogenesis: From 3D organoids to mathematical models
Despite the experimental advances in controlling cell fate to obtain various cell types in culture, it is challenging to
produce tissues with a certain shape, especially those made of mesenchymal cells such as limbs. Limb morphogenesis is an emerging phenomenon which can be observed in 3D organoid cultures: starting from a sphericalaggregate of cells, one or several limb buds spontaneously develop through various complex chemical andmechanical processes. Experimental imaging data give a good insight into the individual and collective behaviorof the cells but the precise interaction mechanisms leading to the emergence of limb buds remain unclear. Usinga first principle approach, we propose a mathematical model based on a novel coupling hypothesis between the
dynamics of morphogens and the mechanical forces acting between individual cells. Numerical simulations in a
simplified setting show the emergence of an arbitrary number of limb buds. The mathematical analysis leads to a
Cahn-Hilliard model with extra terms that are believed to play a crucial role in symmetry breaking. Understanding
the sharp interface limit associated to this model is a challenging problem which is still under investigation. This
work is conducted in collaboration with Rio Tsutsumi, Steffen Plunder, and Hyunjoon Park.
Keywords: Limb bud morphogenesis, mathematical modeling, phase-field, organoids, interface
Session: Mathematical Biology and Medicine

Gianluca FAVRE | University of Vienna
Graduated in Theoretical Physics at the University of Pavia, completed a PhD under thesupervision of Prof. C. Schmeiser at the University of Vienna, focusing on Hypocoercivity forlinear and non-linear kinetic models. In 2021, spent one and a half months at the Universityof Kyoto collaborating on biological models with Prof. K. Svadlenka. Currently, he is working
on models for Opinion Formation (OF), with his primary objective being to delve deeper into
the mathematical foundations of OF, starting from recent results on Epistemic Bubbles andEcho Chambers in the fields of epistemology and social sciences.
Over the past decade, the proliferation of social networks has radically transformed modes of communication,
influencing how individuals develop and solidify their beliefs. A significant outcome of this dynamic is the
emergence of "echo chambers," where groups of individuals evolve to hold extreme, immutable opinions. This11

work presents a mathematical exploration aimed at understanding the mechanisms behind the formation of theseecho chambers. Specifically, we examine how the structure of the network and initial opinion distributions
contribute to this phenomenon. The goal is to offer a comprehensive mathematical description that elucidates theconditions under which echo chambers are likely to form, thereby informing strategies for mitigating their effects
on public discourse.
Session: Mathematical Biology and Medicine

Marina GROSS | University of Vienna
After completing her master’s degree in psychology at RWTH Aachen University in Germany
in 2022, Marina Gross became a Research Assistant at the Social and Economic Psychology
group under supervision of Robert Böhm. Her research focuses on health informationseeking behavior, particularly in the context of vaccination decision making and antibiotic
use. Her research applies behavioral experiments. For instance, she develops and tests
behavioral interventions to increase vaccination readiness and reduce mis- and overuse ofantibiotics in primary care.

Session: Social Psychology | PhD Pitch Talk

Valentina HAMPEJS | University of Vienna
Hello, my name is Valentina Hampejs, and I started my doctoral studies at the University of
Vienna in March 2024, associated with the Vienna Cognitive Science Hub. After completing both
my Bachelor's and Master’s degrees in Psychology at the same university, I was eager tocontinue my academic journey. I am part of the EU Horizon RESONATE research team, whichaims to gather additional evidence on the positive effects of nature on our health and wellbeing. My work focuses on various methodological aspects such as scale development forbiopsychosocial resilience, data synthesis, and analysis from three case studies investigating
at-risk populations engaging in physical activity in nature. Having lived in Vienna for most of mylife, I enjoy visiting different countries and learning about other cultures. In my spare time, I love
doing Pilates and going for walks or hikes - there's something truly refreshing about exploring thegreat outdoors.

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The potential of natural environments to enhance well-being and improve mental, physical, and social health has
been the subject of past research. While links between nature and health have been shown, the underlying
mechanisms are still unclear. RESONATE is a four-year EU-funded project uniting experts in the fields of health,environment, economy, and society to conduct nine distinct case studies investigating the effects of nature andhealth. The case studies will evaluate the effectiveness of nature-based therapies (NbTs) on three levels of participants: the general public, at-risk groups, and individuals with pre-existing health impairments. We hypothesise that
exposure to natural stimuli, such as forests or urban parks, may promote healthy lifestyles, prevent illness, andsupport rehabilitation, thereby increasing biopsychosocial resilience. Currently, resilience is used as an umbrellaterm, indicating that there is no existing universal definition. This three-year doctoral project, conducted within
RESONATE, will first provide a universal conceptualisation of biopsychosocial resilience, which will form the basis fordeveloping a Self-Report Biopsychosocial Resilience Scale. Furthermore, the project will focus on the synthesis of datafrom three strongly aligned case studies of at-risk populations. Our objective is to identify causal links that
demonstrate the potential for NbTs to complement traditional healthcare.
Session: PhD Pitch Talk

Ibuki HAYASHI | Kyoto University
Ibuki Hayashi’s research interests is in the file of microbial community ecology; particularly, he is interested in various processes in community transitions such as stochastic or
deterministic processes. He has been conducting experiments at the Toju Laboratory in
Kyoto University as a JSPS Doctoral Course Research Fellow to verify the various ecologicalconcepts. He has been using both the DNA based experimental approach and informatics
to deal with big-data and analyze the complex species-rich microbial systems. By unifying
these wet and dry methods, he is trying to find some working regularities among thecomplex microbial systems.
Probing Ecological Stochasticity in Experimental Microbial Systems
In natural systems, community transitions are often observed. One of our major goals in community ecology is
the prediction and manipulation of communities for applied utilization. Subsequently, it is important to understand various transition processes such as biotic interactions, abiotic interactions, and environmental fluctuations
in community transition. However, there are stochastic processes among community transitions, and knowledge
on how these processes work and affect the accuracy of the predictability of community transitions is limited.
Thus, I conducted the experiment to observe the transition processes of the multi-replicated communities. I aimed
to quantify the effect of stochastic processes by evaluating the emerging differences among the replicated communities under the same condition. The results revealed that the stochastic processes cause not only continuous
differences among replicates but also discrete differences. Through a series of experiments, we propose theimportance of quantifying stochastic processes among the various processes of community transitions.
Ibuki Hayashi, Hiroaki Fujita, Hirokazu Toju, Deterministic and stochastic processes generating alternative states of
microbiomes, ISME Communications, Volume 4, Issue 1, January 2024, ycae007
Keywords: Microbiome dynamics, Community assembly, Amplicon sequencing, multiple stability
Session: Microbiology and Microbe-host Interactions | PhD Pitch Talk
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Lukas HELMLINGER | University of Vienna
Lukas Helmlinger is a PhD student at the Centre for Microbiology and Environmental
Systems Science at the University of Vienna. In the research group of Matthias Horn,he combines his interest in microscopy and bioinformatics to study symbiosis. Prior
to that he finished the master’s program of Environmental Microbiology at the
University of Vienna.

Adaptations of environmental chlamydiae to social amoebae
Chlamydiae are best-known as widely prevalent human pathogens. However, far less is known about theircounterparts, the environmental chlamydiae, which are found in animals and single-celled organisms alike.
Some of these single-celled organisms, the social amoebae, have developed a unique life cycle. Wheneverfood is scarce tens of thousands of these cells form multicellular structures to ensure the survival of the
population. Understanding how social amoebae and their chlamydial symbionts co-evolved with each otherwill shed further light on the adaptations of, potentially pathogenic, symbionts to their respective hosts.

Hiroyuki HIKIDA | Kyoto University
Hiroyuki Hikida is an assistant professor at Kyoto University. He received a PhD in
Agricultural Science from the University of Tokyo for his research on an insect virus,
baculovirus. He moved to Kyoto University as a postdoctoral researcher to study giant
viruses that infect free-living amoebae. He primarily focuses on biology and evolution of
giant viruses, especially on the trajectories of viruses that have evolved to become giant
and how they hijack host systems. Currently, he is isolating new viruses from theenvironment and working on their comparative genomics with infection experiments.

Diversity of virocells formed by different giant viruses
Giant viruses are diverse viruses with huge particles and genomes. The viruses encode many genes related tocellular processes, such as metabolism or translation, which evoked the concept of virocell. Previously, people
considered viral particles as “viruses,” but, according to the virocell concept, infected cells whose machineries
were hijacked by viruses are also considered as another form of “viruses.” Although isolation studies haveuncovered vast diversity in particle morphology and genetic contents of giant viruses, diversity of virocells hasremained relatively unexplored. Here, we aimed to reveal the diversity of virocells and compared early transcriptome patterns of different giant viruses in infected cells. Some host genes showed similar expression patterns
among the cells infected with different viruses, whereas some others showed unique expression pattern specificto certain viruses. These results indicated that each virus has a different strategy to hijack host cellular14

machinery. Furthermore, we found that proportion of viral transcripts was extremely low in cells infected withpithovirus throughout the analysis, compared with the other viruses. This suggests that pithovirus has a unique
infection strategy without host-transcript takeover. Overall, we found that virocell-forming processes of giant
viruses are also diverse, just like their morphology and genetic contents.
Keywords: Transcriptomics, Diversity, Infection experiment, Giant virus
Session: Microbiology and Microbe-host Interactions

Matthias HORN | University of Vienna
Matthias Horn is Professor and department head at the Centre for Microbiology andEnvironmental Systems Science (CeMESS) at the University of Vienna. Matthias held an
FWF START Award and an ERC Starting Grant (Consolidator Track) and has worked at
the Technische Universität München (Germany), the University of Washington (Seattle,USA), and the Australian Institute for Marine Sciences (Townsville, Australia). He iscoordinator of the PhD program “Microbial Symbioses” funded by the Austrian Science
Fund and the University of Vienna.

Amoebae as intracellular arena for bacterial symbionts and giant viruses
Chlamydiae are well-known as pathogens of humans. Yet, these intracellular bacteria are also widelydistributed in various environments and eukaryotic hosts, including protists such as amoebae. Here I will
discuss, how studying these microbes has contributed to our understanding of the evolution of theintracellular lifestyle of bacteria and the relationship with their eukaryotic hosts. I will show how bacterial
symbionts impact the biology and ecology of amoebae, and how they interact with giant viruses, a highly
unusual group of viruses recognized only recently.
Session: Microbiology and Microbe-host Interactions

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Christiane V. R. HÜTTER | University of Vienna
Christiane V. R. Hütter is a trained architect and computational bioengineer. During her PhD in thegroup of Jörg Menche, she explores how data can be understood and navigated in virtual reality,
blending digital arts and biomedical sciences. Her work focuses on creating visually interpretabledata representations of high-dimensional digital matter that allow for interactive exploration withina virtual environment to foster insights and generate knowledge. Utilizing analytical tools, interface
modalities driven by natural human gestures and language, as well as developing applicationtailored visual languages, her work is centered around a synergistic relationship between humanand machine intelligence. Simultaneously to her scientific efforts, her experience includes artworks
and architectural installations, frequently exhibited, among others, at the Ars Electronica Center.
DataScope: Immersive Exploration and Analysis of High-Dimensional Data in Virtual Reality
Christiane V. R. Hütter1,2,3 , Felix Müller1,2,5,6, Sebastian Pirch1,4, Martin Chiettini1,4, Jörg Menche1,2,4,5,6
1 Max Perutz Labs, Vienna BioCenter Campus (VBC), Dr. Bohrgasse 9, 1030 Vienna, Austria
2 University of Vienna, Center for Molecular Biology, Department Structural and Computational Biology, Dr. Bohrgasse 9, 1030 Vienna, Austria
3 Vienna BioCenter PhD Program, a Doctoral School of the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna, Dr. Bohrgasse 9, 1030 Vienna, Austria
4 CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Lazarettgasse 14, AKH BT 25.3, 1090 Vienna, Austria
5 Faculty of Mathematics, University of Vienna, Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1, 1090 Vienna, Austria
6 Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Network Medicine at the University of Vienna, Augasse 2-6, 1090 Vienna, Austria

Data exploration is an important part of analysis in biomedical research, especially when facing vast amounts ofhigh-dimensional and multimodal data. Tools to perform exploratory data analysis are often limited in compatibility (i) to interchange data modality, such as between spatial context and more abstract higher dimensionality,(ii) by visual language, such as interpretable representations of high-dimensional data in lower dimensions and(iii) by technological operation boundaries, such as limiting hardware. Rethinking the future of data analysis, we
propose the DataScope, an instrument utilizing the VR visualization platform DataDiVR1 to perform interactive
data exploration and analysis in a 3D immersive environment using virtual reality (VR). To extract knowledge
from data, one operates on a transforming 3D data object with various interface modes, such as speech, text,
graphical and natural interfaces empowered with an artificial assistant to guide the exploration. This synergistic
approach between computational efficiency of machine learning tools, visual representations tailored to the
cognitive abilities of human perception and natural interaction modes in a 3D environment leads to quantitativeand qualitative insights and fosters novel hypotheses more efficiently compared to common, technologicallylimited methods. The DataScope aims to transform how we explore and derive insights from extensive data
landscapes by decoding high-dimensional data into a 3D environment, designed for natural humanlanguage- and gesture-based interaction.
1

Pirch, S., Müller, F., Iofinova, E., Pazmandi, J., Hütter, C.V.R., Chiettini, M., Sin, C., Boztug, K., Podkosova, I., Kaufmann, H., Menche, J. The

VRNetzer platform enables interactive network analysis in Virtual Reality, Nat. Comm. 12, 2432 (2021)

Keywords: immersive data analysis, human-data interaction, data visualization, virtual reality, machine intelligence
Session: PhD Pitch Talk

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Hanno JENTZSCH | University of Vienna
Hanno Jentzsch is a political scientist specializing in Japanese politics. He currently holds a
position as Lecturer for Global Political Economy of Japan at the Leiden Institute for Area
Studies and will join the Department of East Asian Studies at Vienna University as an Assistant Professor for Politics of Japan in August 2024. His research interests include social andregional inequalities, the political economy of rural revitalization, social welfare, decentralization, and local governance. His monograph “Harvesting State Support” (University ofToronto Press, 2021) analyzed institutional change and local agency in Japan’s agricultural
sector. His current research project focuses on changing state-society relations in Japan’s
depopulating rural areas.
Session: Current Research on Japan’s Society and Cultures

Takuya KAGEYAMA | Kyoto University
Takuya Kageyama is a Ph.D. student at the Center for Ecological Research and Ecosystems &Coevolution Laboratory, Kyoto University. His research interest pertains to how ecologicalinteraction drive ecological dynamics and the consequent emergence of ecological community property. After joining his current place of affiliation, he started conducting research
focusing on soil ecosystems. According to him soil ecosystems are fantastic because there
are numerous kinds of organisms such as bacteria, fungi, and microorganisms that interact
with each other, causing the emergence of complex dynamics. In his current research, he
tried to entangle the process of emerging ecological population stability using time series
analysis and metagenomics. He is also interested in other various ecosystems such as animalgut microbiome and flower nectar microbiome. He plans to expand research in the said
areas.
The emergence of mechanism of ecological population stability
Soil ecosystems provide ecological function and services that form the foundation of all organisms living on Earth
including human beings. However, the interactions among these organisms remain understudied. Moreover, population dynamics of organisms are also unknown. Ecological interaction is an important driver of ecological dynamics;
therefore, it is important to understand the relationship between ecological interaction and dynamics for soil ecology.
In my research, I obtained high-resolution population dynamics of soil prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea) by using
DNA metabarcoding method. Then, I determined the interactions among the prokaryotes using time series causal
estimation method employing neural network. In addition, I estimated their metabolic potential from 16S rRNA
regions. By synthesising these results, I found a positive relationship between population stability and metabolic
potential. This suggests that the portfolio effect is functioning between population stability and metabolic potential.
Keywords: soil ecosystems, microbe, population dynamics, population stability, metabolic potential
Session: Microbiology and Microbe-host Interactions | PhD Pitch Talk
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Mariko KANAMORI | Kyoto University
Mariko Kanamori is an early-career researcher specializing in social epidemiology andpublic health and also a qualified veterinarian. She is a postdoctoral research fellow at
the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science; she is working with Professor Uchida.
She is currently visiting the Department of Public Health Sciences, Stockholm University.
She has an excellent track record in research on society and health. She completed her
Ph.D. at the University of Tokyo in March 2022. Her doctoral research on the social
determinants of mental health in rural areas was awarded the IKUSHI Prize, the mostprestigious award for doctoral students in all academic fields in Japan, with encouragement from the Emperor of Japan. Drawing from her experience as a clinical veterinarian,she conducted a study relevant to One Health, which received recognition for its numberof downloads and citations. She is keen to collaborate across disciplines.
Interdependent culture and older adults’ well-being: Health and psychological happiness inJapanese communities
I will talk about our recent review of the well-being and health of older adults in Japan. Our focus is the impact
of social capital and social relationships in local communities, considering both individual and societal factors.
The prevailing values in Japanese culture tend to foster a sustained and stable form of interdependent happinessamong older adults, suggesting that communal support systems play an important role. We highlight the value ofmulti-level datasets, such as the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study (JAGES) dataset, for understanding theinfluence of social participation on the health and well-being of older adults. A growing body of evidence underscores the central role of social relationships in the health and well-being of older adults.
Here is the bibliographic information for this review.
Yukiko Uchida, Mariko Kanamori, Shintaro Fukushima, Kosuke Takemura. (2023). Interdependent culture and older adults’
well-being: Health and psychological happiness in Japanese communities. Current Opinion in Psychology.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2023.101729
Keywords: Well-being, Health, Social capital, Multi-level dataset, Community
Session: Social Psychology | Current Research on Japan’s Society and Cultures

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Wolfram MANZENREITER | University of Vienna
Wolfram Manzenreiter is Professor of Japanese Studies and Head of Department at
the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Vienna. His research isconcerned with social and anthropological aspects of sports, emotions, work andmigration in a globalising world. He is author of several books and numerous articles
and book chapters on cultural globalization, body culture, transnationalism andwell-being. Currently he is working on community happiness in Japan’s rural
peripheries.
Session: Current Research on Japan’s Society and Cultures

Sara MERINO-ACEITUNO | University of Vienna
Associate Professor at the University of Vienna since 2021, arrived to theuniversity with a tenure-track position in 2018. Her research is inspired on
emergent dynamics from interacting-particles systems in biology and social
sciences. Lecturer at the University of Sussex (2018); post-doc at Imperial
College London (2015-2018); PhD at the University of Cambridge (2015).

Modeling and kinetic theory to investigate biological systems: I will explain in a nutshell the type of
biological questions that our research group is investigating and the tools that we use.
Session: Mathematical Biology and Medicine

19

Léo MEYER | University of Vienna
I graduated in Mathematics for Life Sciences at the Ecole Polytechnique (Paris,
France) in 2020 and I defended my PhD in 2023 at the Universite d’Orleans (Orleans,
France). The subject of my PhD was the modeling of the size distribution of adipose
cells, which are responsible for the storage of energy in the form of lipid vesicles.
This involved adapting a pre-existing model, theoretical and numerical results aswell as parameter estimation on data from rats. I am currently a postdoctorate
working under Sara Merino Aceituno on models of collective dynamics and theirapplication to biology.
I will be presenting some numerical exploration of a model for the migration of interneurons in thecortex as well as some image analysis for in vitro experiments.
Session: Mathematical Biology and Medicine

Carmella MOSCHELA | University of Vienna
I graduated in Applied Mathematics at the University of Rome, 'La Sapienza', andcurrently I am a PhD student in Mathematics at the University of Vienna under thesupervision of Christa Bücker, Sara Merino-Aceituno, and Christian Schmeiser. During
my doctoral studies, I have specialized in math-biology, focusing on modeling thecollective motion of living agents. The approach I used includes both theoreticalanalysis as well as the use of numerical simulations to study microscopic systems
where the agents are treated as particles. Additionally, through several collaborationsin Paris, my research has explored Coagulation-Fragmentation models and TransportCoagulation equations. These models are applied to characterize non-instantaneous
biological processes and autophagy in cellular systems.
In this presentation I will introduce two distinct biological setups; the first scenario deals with the diffusion
process of proteins within a complex geometric structure connecting the Endoplasmic Reticulum and the
Nuclear Envelope in eukaryotes. In this context our mathematical model aims to elucidate how the geometry
between these two organelles impacts the protein diffusion dynamics. In the second scenario, we investigate amathematical model which has been introduced to describe the behavior of Escherichia Coli; in particular, weshow how the model exhibits very different collective behavior according to different parameters values.
Session: Mathematical Biology and Medicine

20Claudia MUßNIG-WYTRZENS | University of Vienna
Claudia Wytrzens graduated in Technical Mathematics at the TU Wien and is currently
doing a PhD in Mathematics under the supervision of Sara Merino Aceituno at the
University of Vienna. In the course of her doctoral studies, she is deriving macroscopic
models (PDEs) from underlying agent-based models for anisotropic particle interactions, which in the future might be applied to biological systems. In this way she isinvestigating how macroscopic structures in biological settings emerge from individual
particle interactions. Moreover, she is also performing numerical simulations of thesemodels as well as a model for network formation e.g. for blood vessels or leaf veins.
In this talk we will give a short introduction into how biological networks can emerge from particle interactions
where nematic alignment is imposed directly in order to mimic volume exclusion interactions. An example of theemergence of such a network would be e.g. the networks of fibers. Moreover we will present an alternative formulation of an individual based model where we do not impose nematic alignment directly but rather introduce ananisotropic repulsion potential. We will see that this will also lead to nematic alignment at the macroscopic
description of the system.
Session: Mathematical Biology and Medicine

Masataka NAKAYAMA | Kyoto University
Masataka Nakayama received his Ph.D. from Kyoto University. After working as a postdoc at Kyoto University and Carnegie Mellon University, he joined Kyoto University as afaculty member. His research interest is collectively emerging dynamics of mind. He
investigates different levels of dynamics: 1) emergence of cognition via collective computation by interconnected neurons, 2) emergence of cognition via interaction withenvironment, and 3) emergence of culture via interacting agents who recursively work
as a social environment to each other. He is conducting these examinations using themethodology of psychological experiment and survey as well as artificial neural networkmodeling, including large language models. Currently, he is focusing on 1) how theemotion of awe relates to the transformation of values and cultures, 2) scientificallyunderstanding the dynamic process of psychological counseling, and 3) how emotions
emerge in daily life.
Decoding Daily Well-being in Japan
To comprehend “global” well-being, it is crucial to understand both cultural diversity and cultural universals. Wellbeing, an abstract concept, is intimately linked to cultural values and is rooted in daily events and activities withinsocio-cultural contexts. Understanding a culture, its values, and well-being involves observing daily life within that
culture. While this bottom-up approach is beneficial for understanding underrepresented cultures, it is timeconsuming and costly. We have developed an automated, quantitative bottom-up methodology to decode the daily
21basis of well-being, leveraging deep-learning techniques. We engaged Japanese participants in a two-week diarystudy, wherein 351 participants maintained a diary for more than seven days. The diary entries, which were in text
format, detailed daily activities and events, and included ratings for the daily happiness level. Each text was encodedusing a pretrained BERT model (a deep learning-based language model), and subjected to independent component
analysis. The encoded texts were then regressed onto daily happiness and longer-term well-being. Our results
demonstrated that daily texts could predict daily and longer-term happiness (r >≈ .40). Therefore, we could extract
interpretable components of daily happiness from the text.
Keywords: Well-being, culture, natural language processing, deep learning
Session: Social Psychology | Current Research on Japan’s Society and Cultures

Hiroyuki OGATA | Kyoto University
Hiroyuki Ogata is a professor of bioinformatics at Kyoto University. Prof. Ogata is an inbioinformatics, genomics, and metagenomics. He has been interested in the ecology andevolution of marine microorganisms, and “giant viruses.” He has been a core member of
the Tara Oceans Consortium, which realized the first global microbiome sampling expedition (2009-2013) and have consolidated outstanding achievements with over 150 papers
including those in Science, Nature, and Cell. Since 2014, Ogata has been heading theChemical Life Science Laboratory, the Bioinformatics Center, Institute for Chemical
Research, Kyoto University. Currently, the laboratory comprises six staff scientists, 12
graduate students, and four bachelor students. The laboratory performs field sampling
and wet lab experiments, with a focus on omics and bioinformatics.
Giant viruses – perspectives on their ecological and evolutionary impacts
It is believed that giant viruses have a major influence on the ecosystem and evolution of eukaryotes. In this
symposium, I would like to summarize our results, obtained from large-scale metagenomic and statisticaland phylogenomic analyses, regarding these intriguing viruses. First, large-scale metagenomic data haverevealed their diversity, exceeding the level of the domain Bacteria; however, our recent survey has suggested
that we have not yet reached even the characterization of major lineages of these viruses existing in nature.
Indeed, we have recently uncovered a previously unrecognized viral phylum “Mirusviricota.” A recent follow
up study confirmed their hidden diversity and broad host ranges. Regarding its ecological roles, they are oneof the major viral players that affect the global carbon cycle through enhancing or reducing the biologicalcarbon pump. In terms of evolution, these viruses adapt to cold environments by altering their gene composition in a process decoupled with the adaptation of eukaryotic genomes. Furthermore, phylogenomic
analyses revealed that they provided some important genes (such as DNApol, Actin, Histone, and tRNA
synthetases) to early eukaryotes at the proto-eukaryote époque.
Keywords: Giant viruses, eukaryotes, metaomics, phylogenomics
Session: Microbiology and Microbe-host Interactions
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Isabelle PROCHASKA-MEYER | University of Vienna
Isabelle Prochaska-Meyer is a University assistant at the Department of East AsianStudies (Japanese Studies Section) at the University of Vienna. Her researchexpertise relates to the topics of religion (especially Okinawan religion), ruraldepopulation and revitalization in Japan, and digital transformation and ageing.
With a methodical focus on ethnographic fieldwork, her previous research
projects centered on spirit mediums in Okinawa (dissertation project) and older
adults in depopulated rural municipalities in Nagano and Yamanashi (documentary movie “65+. Being old in Japan” available on YouTube). Her recent interest
lies in digital habits of older adults.
Session: Current Research on Japan’s Society and Cultures

Florian PURKARTHOFER | University of Vienna
Florian Purkarthofer is a researcher interested in urban studies, hetero-/utopias ascritique, and the social role of sensation and perception in contemporary societies,
currently based at the Department of East Asian Studies, Faculty of Philological andCultural Studies, University of Vienna (Austria). From 2018 to 2019 worked at the German
Institut for Japanese Studies, Tokyo and from 2014 to 2016 he was at the Tokyo Metropolitan University (TMU), Department of Urban Science. At the moment he is finishing a
project on urban space in western Tokyo as a nexus of conflicting individual perceptions
and social constructions, by employing experimental methods from multisensory anthropology. Further projects aim at delving into human and non-human cocreation of urban
spaces and the social life of digital sensations.
Session: Current Research on Japan’s Society and Cultures23

Sungrim SEIRIN-LEE | Kyoto University
Professor Seirin-Lee completed her Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Okayama University in 2010, two years ahead of schedule. During her
Ph.D., she was selected for the JSPS DC1 program and studied at Wolfson Center for
Mathematical Biology, Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford, focusing on
mathematical modeling of pattern formation. Afterward, she served as a JSPS PD at
the Graduate School of Mathematical Sciences, University of Tokyo, and the RIKEN
Institute. In 2014, she joined Hiroshima University’s Department of Mathematics as
an Assistant Professor, and was later promoted to Associate Professor. She servedwith JST SAKIGAKE researcher from 2016 to 2019. In 2020, she became a professor at
the Graduate School of Integrated Life Sciences, Hiroshima University. In October
2021, she was appointed professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, Kyoto
University. in January 2023, she was concurrently appointed professor at theGraduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University.
Mathematical Medicine: How Mathematics can Contribute to Medicine?
Medicine is broadly divided into basic and clinical fields. Basic medicine can be likened to basic biologicalscience and has been recognized in a multidisciplinary fusion research field for decades. On the other handclinical medicine is different from basic medicine in terms of its aims and methodologies. While basic medicine
aims to be useful in the “future,” clinical medicine focuses on the “present,” prioritizing the treatment ofpatients in the present. Therefore, mathematical sciences that cater to the needs of clinical medicine must
produce mathematics that are useful “now” rather than in the “future.” This approach requires a different
mindset even in mathematical modelling from conventional approaches. Drawing on over seven years ofexperience collaborating with clinical dermatologists on skin diseases, I would like to discuss the formationof collaborative research from encounters in the field, responses to needs, and the development ofmathematical sciences that exceed expectations and are useful in the “now.”
Keywords: Mathematical Dermatology, Pattern formation, Skin disease
Session: Mathematical Biology and Medicine

24Genta SHIMA | Kyoto University
Genta Shima is a Ph.D. student at the Graduate School of Biostudies, Kyoto University,
Japan. His research interests are inorganic chemistry and ecology, with a consistentfocus on the dynamics, stability, and controllability of complex systems. His initial studies at a college of technology investigated the structure and properties of metal
complexes. Subsequently, he transitioned to the field of ecology. As an undergraduate,
he investigated the plasticity of tree traits in forest ecosystems. At present, his research
centers on the stability of biotic community dynamics by analyzing the time-series
dynamics of bacterial communities using amplicon sequencing.
Stable states and their shifts in freshwater bacterial communities
The stability of biotic communities as complex systems is a longstanding topic dealt with in ecology. However,attempts to understand the stability of complex systems remain difficult in ecology, although scientists have had
considerable success in fields such as chemistry and physics. A major challenge has been the lack of sufficient
data to test theories due to the complexity of the subject.
Recent remarkable advancements in DNA analysis techniques have made it possible to obtain large amounts ofdata, particularly for bacterial communities, allowing for practical testing of community stability.
In this study, metabarcoding methods using amplicon sequencing were used to obtain data on the dynamics offreshwater bacterial communities in commercial eel aquaculture tanks over a period of 377 days. Time series
analysis revealed that the dynamics of these bacterial communities can be categorized into several stable states,with occasional shifts between these states.
Understanding the stability of biotic communities through the accumulation of extensive ecological data is thefirst step toward engineering and controlling these systems as desired.
Keywords: Community ecology, Community dynamics, Time series analysis, Alternative stable state, Regime shift
Session: Microbiology and Microbe-host Interactions | PhD Pitch Talk

Maximilian O. STEININGER | University of Vienna
Maximilian O. Steininger is a PhD student in Psychology at the University of Vienna. He
works at the Social, Cognitive, and Affective Neuroscience Unit (SCAN) and is keenlyinterested in environmental neuroscience. After completing his Master’s in 2015, focusing
on biological psychology and psychological assessment, Max was employed as a
researcher at the Cognitive Science Hub. He then spent five years working as a psychometrician at a research and development department in the private sector, developing
various psychological tests and assessments. Motivated by his curiosity and the freedomof academic research, Max returned to university in 2021 to pursue his PhD, which isfunded by the Doctoral Program in Cognition and Communication.

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Contact with nature offers numerous benefits for both physical and mental health. Beyond enhancing positive health indicators, evidence suggests that nature exposure also aids humans in processing adverse experiences. In my PhD research, I
employ a systematic, multi-methodological approach to explore how nature influences the processing of acute stress andpain. My first project is a systematic review and meta-analysis, demonstrating that exposure to nature in medical and experimental settings results in a moderate reduction of subjective pain. In the second study, we replicate this finding in the laboratory using neuroimaging techniques, revealing that this reduction in pain is evident not only on a subjective but also at aneural level. By applying machine learning based approaches and analyzing neural responses from specific brain regions, weshow that early stages of the pain processing hierarchy are modulated when individuals observe nature. The final study
examines whether exposure to virtual natural environments can help participants better prepare for and recover from acutestress. The results of my PhD research highlight the potential of nature to alleviate aversive experiences and provide crucial
insights into the cognitive and neural mechanisms involved.
Session: PhD Pitch Talk

Tsubasa SUKEKAWA | Kyoto University
Tsubasa Sukekawa received a Ph.D. from the Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Science,
Hokkaido University. He is a researcher at the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human
Biology (ASHBi), Kyoto University. His work focuses especially on pattern formation
phenomena described by reaction-diffusion equations. His Ph.D. thesis is related to stability
analysis on mass-conserved reaction-diffusion equations used as model equations of cell
polarity. Currently he has been working on applied mathematics. He has recently developed
a method to interpolate experimental images using the Optimal Transport theory andphase-field model. This method is useful for simulating reaction-diffusion equations on
realistic cell shapes.
Imaging data-based model description tool using optimal transport and phase-field model
Capturing the geometrical shapes of cells is essential for understanding biological phenomena. However,limitations of time resolution of live imaging and other experimental factors prevent us from obtaining sufficient
information about cell shapes. In this study, we develop mathematical tools to infer intermediate cell shapes
from time series data of experimental images to overcome this limitation. Our method is based on the combination of Optimal Transport (OT) and phase-field model. OT is a mathematical theory that gives distance andoptimal matching between probability distributions. Using OT, we can perform interpolation and obtain velocity
fields corresponding to intermediate cell shapes and deformation. However, the conventional methods may
generate unnatural deformation, such as cracks. To improve this property, we combine the velocity fieldobtained by OT with a phase-field model. Our new method successfully regenerated more realistic cell shapes.
Finally, we propose a new bio-chemical modeling defined on real cell shapes. Our research will open new
avenues for mathematical modeling approaches to pattern formation phenomena, including cell dynamics
based on live imaging data of cells. This study was conducted in collaboration with Sungrim Seirin-Lee from
Kyoto University and Toshiaki Yachimura from Tohoku University.
Keywords: Reaction-diffusion equations, Interpolation, Optimal Transport theory, Phase-field model
Session: Mathematical Biology and Medicine
26

Hirokazu TOJU | Kyoto University
Hirokazu Toju’s research interest is the ecological and evolutionary processes of
species-to-species interactions. In nature, plants and animals interact with diverse
taxonomic clades of bacteria and fungi; thus, he has been trying to understand theorganization of the stability and functions of such plant- and animal-associatedmicrobiomes. Currently, he is running an interdisciplinary project on the dynamics
of species-rich microbial ecosystems.

Drastic shifts in microbial community dynamics
Microbial communities are often classified into discrete or semi-discrete sets of species compositions. Such“multi-stability” of microbiomes has been intensively discussed in theoretical studies, but empirical studies
that statistically reveal the relationship between community compositions and stability remain scant. Here,I will talk about how we can infer the structure of “stability landscapes,” on which “alternative stable states”
of microbial community compositions are divided by tipping points of community dynamics.
Keywords: Microbiomes, symbiosis, basins of attraction, regime shift
Session: Microbiology and Microbe-host Interactions

Yukiko UCHIDA | Kyoto University
Yukiko Uchida is the director and professor at the Institute for the Future of Human Society,Kyoto University. She has conducted empirical research in cultural psychology, such as
international and regional comparative studies on “happiness and well-being” and “self andsocial relations.”
Dr. Uchida has authored over 200 academic papers. She has served on the editorial boards ofinternational journals and has been an invited keynote speaker at various international
conferences. She has received many awards, including Kyoto University’s Best Female
Researcher Award, the Japanese Psychological Association International Encouragement
Award, and she was selected as an APS Fellow. Dr. Uchida has established solid relationships
with corporations and governments, showcasing outstanding abilities in research exchange
and the social dissemination of research findings. She was a member of the Cabinet Office’s
Study Group on Well-being, contributing to the development of well-being indices.
Culture and Well-being: How Does an Interdependent Lifestyle Promote Health and Well-being?
This talk will explore perspectives on well-being and health in Japan, a nation renowned for its longevity. I willemphasize the impact of social capital and social relationships in local communities and workplaces, considering27

both individual and societal factors. The prevailing values in Japanese culture tend to promote a sustained and stable form of interdependent happiness, suggesting the critical role of support systems.
We often recognize a universal drive toward happiness and well-being, but what are the mechanisms that guide thispursuit? As a cultural psychologist, I examine well-being not only as a universal desire, but also as a construct deeply
shaped by cultural meanings and individual experiences within specific cultural contexts. I will highlight cultural
psychological theoretical frameworks and data analyses from studies outside of WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) societies.
In particular, I will highlight the value of cross-cultural and cross-regional studies within Japan. Our team has drawn
on multilevel datasets from over 400 local communities to understand the influence of social participation on healthand well-being. In doing so, we aim to foster a dialogue about how motivational research conceptualizes andaddresses the role of culture in shaping our pathways to well-being.
Keywords: Culture, Well-being, Community, Social Capital, Health
Session: Keynote Speaker | Social Psychology | Current Research on Japan’s Society and Cultures

Michito UJINO | Kyoto University
Michito Ujino is a 6th grade bachelor student at the Faculty of Medicine, Kyoto
University. He belongs to the mathematical biology and medicine groups in Advanced
Study of Human Biology (ASHBi), and is studying mathematical and computational
methods for prediction of biological experiment and prognosis of various diseases inclinical situation. Under the supervision of Prof Sungrim Seirin-Lee, he is researching thenumerical simulation of culture system of germ cell lineage and severity of bullous
pemphigoid with differential equations and cellular automata. His research interest are
applied mathematics, including numerical method of partial differential equations, andoptimization algorithm with biological or clinical data.
Integrated understanding of human PGCLC development using multi-scale mathematical modeling of
gene-cell-BMP dynamics
Understanding germ cell fate is one of the most challenging problems in biology and medicine. Primordial
Germ Cell (PGC) is the origin of germ cell lineage, which differentiates into spermatozoa or oocytes. Recently,
many extracellular morphogenic substances, such as BMP and genetic regulatory networks required for PGC
development have been identified through experiments. However, the spatial effect of BMP distribution in the
dynamics of germ cell differentiation remains poorly examined. To understand the mechanism of germ cell
development and its relationship with BMP, we developed a multi-scale mathematical model composed ofgenetic/transcriptomic networks of ordinary differential equations (ODE), stochastic model for differentiation
decision, and BMP-individual cell interaction model of partial differential equation (PDE) combining discrete
cellular dynamics. The model parameters were determined based on the scRNA-seq data and otherexperimental data with genetic algorithm. Using the model, we explored the spatial effect of BMP on PGC
28

development through in silico experiments using numerical analysis of the multi-scale model of PGCdevelopment. We found that the spatial pattern of BMP is crucial for the efficient production of PGCs. Accordingly, we propose a new in vitro experiment framework for PGC manipulation based on gene-cell-BMP
dynamics.
Keywords: mathematical model, differential equation, germ cell
Session: Mathematical Biology and Medicine

Wolfram WECKWERTH | University of Vienna
Wolfram Weckwerth is full professor at the University of Vienna, Head of the Department
for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology and Director of the Vienna Metabolomics Center(VIME). He is a pioneer of metabolomics in systems biology and the application ofmultiomics and modelling technologies to plants, microbes, animals, human and theirinteractions. He is coordinator of the PHD program Molecular mechanisms of plant
resilience in the climate crisis, funded by the Austrian Science Fund and the University of
Vienna. He has published more than 320 papers with a H-index of 81. He also serves inmany advisory boards and is president of the Austrian Society of Plant Biology.
Panomics of host-microbe interaction and beyond
Integration of multiomics analysis using metabolomics, proteomics, RNAseq, metabolic modelling, AI, machinelearning - in short PANOMICS technology - applied to natural variation of host-microbe interaction goes beyondclassical genomic techniques and offers valuable tools to characterize the system and understand evolutionary
plasticity linking molecular regulation and phenotypes. In this lecture, I first explore the holobiont concept andits investigation by applying PANOMICS technologies. In a second part I will present data on macrophages as
an example of “host-macrophage” interaction.
Session: Microbiology and Microbe-host Interactions

29

Bernadett WEINZIERL | University of Vienna© Sabine Rieß /Lichtspiel Foto

Bernadett Weinzierl was appointed full professor and Head of the Aerosol Physics andEnvironmental Physics Research Group at the University of Vienna in 2016. She worked
as aerosol scientist at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) between 2004 and 2016, andobtained her doctorate at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU) in 2008.
She was awarded an ERC starting grant in 2014.
She is an expert in (airborne) in situ aerosol and cloud measurements and modelsupported data analysis. She has coordinated several large-scale airborne field
experiments including SALTRACE and A-LIFE, and acted as instrument PI for coarse modeand cloud measurements in numerous NASA- and NOAA-led aircraft missions.
Her scientific work has been recognized with several awards including a Presidential Rank
NASA Group Achievement Award in 2024. Recently, she received the Weiss Award (2023) Austria's most highly endowed privately funded research prize in the field of meteorology
for studying microplastics in the atmosphere.
Since 2017, she organises the bi-annual international univie: Summer School “Basic
Aerosol Science” in Vienna.

Aerosols: Tiny Particles, Big Impact
Atmospheric aerosols, tiny particles suspended in air, are an important constituent of the global climate system.
They not only affect the atmospheric radiation budget through scattering and absorption of solar radiation andthrough their role in water and ice cloud formation, but also impact air quality and human health. According to a
recent study, particulate matter pollution caused around 135 million premature deaths worldwide in the past
forty years.
The research Group Aerosol Physics and Environmental Physics at the University of Vienna combines highlysophisticated laboratory, ground-based and aircraft experiments with innovative modelling to study thefundamental physical and chemical properties of aerosol particles and clouds during their formation and life
cycle. It has a long history of collaboration with researchers of Kyoto University going back to the 1980-ies.
In this presentation, I will briefly introduce the role of atmospheric aerosols in climate and public health issues,
discuss the role of aerosol research during the Covid-19 pandemic, and show recent results from airborne andlaboratory measurements of mineral dust and microplastics. The presentation will close with an outlook on
high-priority research questions to be addressed in the future so that aerosol science can contribute its share tosolving grave issues faced by the global community.
Session: Keynote Speaker30

Liu WENWEN | Kyoto University
Liu Wenwen is a second-year Ph.D. student at Kyoto University, who has research experiencein both wet lab and bioinformatics techniques. Her academic journey began at the Chinese
Academy of Agricultural Sciences, where she studied plant molecular genetics (2017–2020).
Her undergraduate research focused on the role of Chlorophyllide a Oxygenase in altering
plant color and reducing biomass, which got her interested in evolutionary biology.
Continuing her work in the Ogata lab, she delved into marine biology and conducted fieldsampling and bioinformatics works. Her doctoral project aims to explore the ecology of
giant viruses in deep ocean, by generating time-series metaomics data regarding theirevolution and adaptation within the mesopelagic dark water layer. She hypothesized that
giant viruses evolved unique mechanisms to maintain stability and activity in the dark ocean.
Her study will offer insight into currently unrecognized viral survival strategies and theirecological impacts.
The ecology and evolution of giant viruses in mesopelagic layer
Giant viruses (GVs) are pivotal components of marine ecosystems, yet their roles in the mesopelagic zone remains
underexplored compared with those in the photic layer. In this symposium, I would like to introduce my research
on GVs ecology in the deep ocean. Using seasonal samples of mesopelagic seawater from Muroto in Kochi
Prefecture, we generated a comprehensive dataset that includes 18S rRNA/rDNA metabarcodes, metagenomes,
and metatranscriptomes. Our data revealed the presence of active GVs, particularly those from the Imitervirales
and Algavirales lineages, in the mesopelagic layers. Analyses of the seasonal variations in the community compositions of both GVs and their potential hosts (microeukaryotes) suggest adaptive behaviours in response to environmental and biotic shifts. In terms of evolution, we identified a clade of GVs that appears to be exclusive to the deep
oceanic environment. This discovery implies that GVs might have evolved distinct mechanisms to adapt to themesopelagic layer, and underscores their possible roles in the deep-sea ecological dynamics and evolutionary
processes.
Keywords: Giant viruses, mesopelagic layer, season dynamic
Session: Microbiology and Microbe-host Interactions | PhD Pitch Talk

31

Ruixuan ZHANG | Kyoto University
Ruixuan Zhang is a third-year Ph.D. student at Kyoto University and is supervised by
Prof. Hiroyuki Ogata. He holds a research fellowship from the Japan Society for the
Promotion of Science (JSPS DC2). His research interests are evolutionary biology,
genomics, and bioinformatics. Currently, he is focusing on the interaction between
giant viruses and their host amoeba. He investigates the strategies that viruses use
to reprogram the cellular metabolic network for virus progeny production, theresource limitations and competition between the host and virus, and theunderlying evolutionary processes.
A giant virus creates its own subcellular environment to overcome the codon-tRNA mismatch
A codon usage consonant with the cellular tRNA pool is important for efficient protein synthesis. Typically,
this tRNA supply and codon frequency in mRNAs are well balanced in cells. In contrast, viruses, that rely onhost translation machinery, may use codons that are not frequently used in the host. However, how theseviruses overcome the imbalance of tRNA supply and codon usage remains ambiguous. In this study, we
surveyed the transcriptome, translatome, and tRNA statuses in mimivirus-infected amoeba through RNA-seq,
Ribo-seq, and tRNA-seq. Despite the huge difference in viral codon usage (A/T biased) and host one (G/C
biased), viral genes were efficiently translated as found in host genes. Ribosome traversal on viral genes was
not interrupted even with a mismatch in cellular tRNA supply. Our data suggest that the translation of themimivirus genes may occur in the unique cellular environment tailored for viral codon usage.
Keywords: Giant viruses, host-virus interaction, evolution, codon-usage, tRNA
Session: Microbiology and Microbe-host Interactions | PhD Pitch Talk

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