Registration is now open!

Click here to register.

Bringing together scientists from diverse biological disciplines, the International Society of Protein Termini (ISPT) unites researchers interested in the structure, substrates, and regulatory roles of protein termini across prokaryotic, animal, and plant systems. This community converges to explore enzymatic modifications, cellular quality control mechanisms, and their implications for organelle dynamics and stress responses. Advances in terminomics, cryo-EM studies, and biotechnological applications such as PROTACs underscore the field’s transformative potential in medical sciences and biotechnology.

The 5th biannual meeting of the International Society of Protein Termini (ISPT), will be held at Palazzo dei Normanni in Palermo, Italy from Juni 3-6, 2026.

Register until January 31, 2026!

For updates, please follow @ispt-proteinterm.bsky.social‬, the official Bluesky account of the ISPT. Please use #proteintermini2026 and also have a look at #proteintermini2019 and #nterm2017

Protein termini are critical hubs regulating protein fate, folding, localization, and degradation, yet they remain largely overlooked in mainstream conferences. Historically, research on termini has been fragmented across communities studying protein degradation, signaling, or structural biology. However, recent discoveries and technological advances demand a unified perspective.

Breakthroughs include the discovery of terminus-specific enzymes and substrates, mechanistic insights into how terminal modifications dictate protein stability, and new links to organelle homeostasis and stress responses. Cutting-edge approaches—such as N- and C-terminomics, cryo-EM structures of ribosomes bound to terminus modifiers, and terminus-inspired biotechnologies (e.g., PROTACs, tunable half-life tools)—highlight the transformative potential of this field. Yet, no dedicated international forum exists to integrate these advances across biological kingdoms and disciplines, representing both an opportunity and a pressing unmet need.

Programme and uniqueness
The Palermo workshop will explore the fundamental roles of protein termini across kingdoms of life, with emphasis on how terminal modifications regulate protein fate, signaling, and disease. The four-day programme is structured around eight thematic sessions that follow the functional journey of protein termini—from synthesis and co-translational processing, through terminal modifications, stability and signaling, to applications in medicine and biotechnology.

Highlights include two keynote lectures (Beckmann and Hartl), a dedicated session on terminal degrons introduced by Varshavsky (ISPT Lecture), and a closing session on therapeutic innovation. This progression fosters interdisciplinary dialogue across structural biology, cell biology, proteomics, synthetic biology, and translational research.

Our current board:

Chair:
Carmela Giglione, French National Centre for Scientific Research, France

Vice Chairs:
Anna Kashina, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Nico Dissmeyer, University of Osnabruck, Germany

Secretary of international relations:
Beatrice Giuntoli, University of Pisa, Italy

Secretary of scientifc meetings:
Ruth Geiss-Friedlander, University of Freiburg, Germany

Treasurer:
Francesco Licausi, University of Oxford, UK

Thomas Arnesen, University of Bergen, Norway
Andreas Bachmair, Max F. Perutz Laboratories, Austria
Tanja Bange, Ludwig Maximilians University, Germany
Emily Flashman, University of Oxford, UK
Michael John Holdworth, The University of Nottingham, UK
Rong Huang, Purdue University, USA
Cheol-Sang Hwang, Korea University, South Korea
Changhoon Ji, Seoul National University, Executive Director, AUTOTAC BIO, Inc. Korea
Yong Tae Kwon, Seoul National University, South Korea
Chris Overall, University of British Columbia, Canada
Freddie Theodoulou, Rothamsted Research, UK
John Tooley, University at Buffalo, USA

Social media:
Thomas Arnesen via Bluesky
our handle: @ispt-proteinterm.bsky.social

The International Society for Protein Termini (ISPT) is now on Bluesky, our Twitter/X is retired.

If you are not on Bluesky, but still would like us to share relevant information such as a new publication from your lab, please send an email directly to Thomas Arnesen, thomas.arnesen@uib.no, and we will post it.