Call for Abstracts
Dear Colleagues, Scientists and Students,
the 4th ESAB Digital Congress on 23rd - 25th November 2026 is a leading global meeting place for discussing your research. In addition to Invited Plenary and Keynote lectures from leading academic and industrial institutions covering cutting-edge developments in biocatalysis and re-lated fields, Keynote Lectures, Lectures and Poster Presentations will be selected by the Scienti-fic Committee from the submitted abstracts. We invite you to actively participate in this exci-ting event and to share your research with the global scientific community. The Programme of the 4th ESAB Digital Congress is continuously being updated, and the current programme can be found at: https://www.ntnu.edu/esab-2026/programme
We are looking forward to meeting you and encourage you to submit abstracts by 31st August 2026. Submission details and templates are available at https://www.ntnu.edu/esab-2026/ , where also further details on the 4th ESAB Digital Congress, topics, registration, and sponsoring opportunities can be found.
Roland Wohlgemuth, ESAB President, on behalf of
The 4th ESAB Digital Congress 2026 Committee
Programme
Monday 23rd November 2026, 9.00 -17.30 Central European Time (CET)
09.00-09.10 Opening of the 4th ESAB Digital Congress, Words of welcome and Introduction
09.10-09.40 Plenary Lecture 1: Prof. Dr. Anthony Green, Department of Chemistry & Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK Title: Building Enzymes with New Function
09.40-12.30 Oral Presentations selected from submitted abstracts
12.30-13.00 Plenary Lecture 2: Prof. Dr. Michael Jewett, Department of Bioengineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA Title: Synthetic Biology for People and Planet Health
13.00-14.10 Lunch Break
14.10-14.40 Plenary Lecture 3: Dr. Michael Breuer, Department of White Biotechnology Research – Biocatalysis, BASF SE, RGR/DB, Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Germany Title: TBA
14.40-15.20 Oral Presentations selected from submitted abstracts
15.20-15.45 Keynote Lecture 2: Prof. Dr. Silvia Osuna, ICREA & Institut de Química Computacional i Catàlisi (IQCC) and Departament de Química, Universitat de Girona, Spain Title: Coevolution and Correlation-mediated Allosteric Networks for Enzyme Design
15.45-16.05 Oral Presentations selected from submitted abstracts
16.05-16.35 Plenary Lecture 4: Prof. Dr. Huimin Zhao, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA Title: Expanding the Boundary of Biocatalysis: From Directed Evolution to Autonomous Experimentation
16.35-17.30 Poster Session
17.30 End of Day 1
Tuesday 24th November 2026, 9.00 -17.30 Central European Time (CET)
09.00-09.10 Words of welcome Day 2 and Introduction
09.10-09.40 Plenary Lecture 5: Prof. Dr. Tobias Erb, Department of Biochemistry & Synthetic Metabolism, Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Marburg, Germany Title: Synthetic Biology meets AI: Engineering New Biocatalytic Strategies for CO2 Conversions
09.40-12.30 Oral Presentations selected from submitted abstracts
12.30-13.00 Plenary Lecture 6: Prof. Dr. Xiaoguang Lei, College of Chemistry, Peking University, Beijing, China Title: Transformative Amide Synthesis Enabled by Biocatalysis
13.00-14.10 Lunch Break
14.10-14.40 Plenary Lecture 7: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Kroutil, Institute of Chemistry, & Field of Excellence Biohealth, BioTech Med Graz, University of Graz, & Austrian Centre of Industrial Biotechnology (acib), Graz, Austria Title: Expanding the Toolbox for C-H Oxidation, Amine Formation and C-C Bond Formation
14.40-16.05 Oral Presentations selected from submitted abstracts
16.05-16.35 Plenary Lecture 8: Prof. Dr. Yang Yang, Departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Bioengineering, University of California Santa Barbara, CA, USA Title: New Strategies for Stereoselective Radical Biocatalysis
16.35-17.30 Poster Session
17.30 End of Day 2
Wednesday 25th November 2026, 9.00-17.30 Central European Time (CET)
09.00-09.10 Words of welcome Day 3 and Introduction
09.10-09.40 Plenary Lecture 9: Prof. Dr. Pimchai Chayen, School of Biomolecular Science and Engineering, Vidyasirimedhi Institute of Science & Technology (VISTEC), Wangchan Valley, Rayong, Thailand Title: TBA
09.40-10.05 Keynote Lecture 5: Prof. Dr. Margit Winkler, CCBIO, Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), Wädenswil, Switzerland Title: Featuring Aldehydes and Ketones in Chemoenzymatic Heterocycle Synthesis
10.05-12.30 Oral Presentations selected from submitted abstracts
12.30-13.00 Plenary Lecture 10: Prof. Dr. Sarah Lovelock, Manchester Institute of Biotechnology and Department of Chemistry, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK Title: TBA
13.00-14.10 Lunch Break
14.10-14.40 Plenary Lecture 11: Prof. Dr. Martin Hayes, Discovery Sciences, BioPharma R&D, AstraZeneca, Mölndal, Sweden, and School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Australia Title: TBA
14.40-16.05 Oral Presentations selected from submitted abstracts
16.05-16.35 Plenary Lecture 12: Dr. Carlos Martinez, Pfizer Worldwide Research and Development, Groton, CT, USA Title: TBA
16.35-16.45 Final Words, Closing of the 4th ESAB Digital Congress and Outlook into Future
