Colloqium to celebrate the retirement of Brian Foster from University Hamburg & DESY

9 Sept 2019, 15:00 → 10 Sept 2019, 22:10 Europe/Berlin

Hörsaal and Elbphilharmonie, Kleiner Saal (10.9.) (DESY)

Gudrid Moortgat-Pick (University of Hamburg / DESY), Karsten Buesser (DESY), Marc Wenskat (DESY), Nicholas Walker (DESY), Susan-Katrin Ketels (DESY)

Monday 9 September

Colloqium

DESY Hörsaal

1 Welcome Addresses

Moderated by Prof. Dr. Gudrid Moortgat-Pick

2 Grußwort der Universität Hamburg

Grußworte von Prof. H. Graener, Dean und Prof. J. Louis

3 Grußwort Prof. Dr. Joachim Mnich, DESY FH

4 HERA - Prof. Dr. Eckhard Elsen, CERN

Slides Brian_and_HERA.pdf

5 The (ILC) Life of Brian - Prof. Dr. Barry Barish, Caltech

Slides Foster-Barish_09-19_v1.ppt

6 Coffee Break

7 ‘The Making of Brian… Oxford and DESY, PETRA and TASSO’- Prof. Dr. Roger Cashmore, Oxford University

Slides Foster_DESY_Fest_with_mods.ppt

8 Plasma - Prof. Dr. Wim Leemans, DESY

Reception: Dinner Speech by Prof. Dr. Albrecht Wagner

Tuesday 10 September

Lecture & Concert

9 Grußwort - Dr. Enno Aufderheide, Secretary General of the Humboldt Foundation

10 The quest for the structure of the biological machine that reads our genes

Everyone has heard of DNA. But by itself, DNA is just an inert blueprint for life. It is the ribosome— an ancient and enormous molecular machine made up of half a million atoms —that makes DNA come to life by turning our genetic code into proteins and therefore into us. My book Gene Machine is a frank insider account of the race for the structure of the ribosome, a fundamental discovery in molecular biology, but one that could also lead to the development of better antibiotics against bacterial infections. But the book is also about the human messiness of science: the twists and turns of my career, initially being an outsider who gave up on physics to become a biologist, and then being the dark horse in a fierce competition with well-established groups. Gene Machine is also a frank and gossipy account of how science is done, with its mixture of insights and persistence as well as blunders and dead ends. It is also honest about how scientists behave, especially when the stakes are high, with their personalities, egos, insecurities and jealousies but also their kindness and generosity.

Speaker: Prof. Sir Venki Ramakrishnan, PRS

11 Interval

12 Concert

Kotaro Fukuma - Piano Jack Liebeck - Violin Alexandra Raikhlina - Violin Mathieu Herzog - Viola Ugne Tiskute - Viola Thomas Carroll - Cello Gemma Rosefield - Cello