After hosting a successful inaugural symposium in 2016, Hanne Poulsen (Aarhus) and Stephan had been lucky enough to receive a Novo Nordisk Symposium grant to host a number of world-class speakers on the topic of “Studying and controlling membrane proteins with light”: Anna Moroni (Milan, Italy), Peter Hegemann (Berlin, Germany), Ofer Yizhar (Weizmann, Israel), Ehud Isacoff (Berkeley, USA), Baron Chanda (Wisconsin, USA), Antoine Triller (Paris, France), Yuki Bando (Columbia, USA) and Justin Taraska (NIH, USA). We are very grateful to NNF, the speakers and all attendees for making it a great day – and hope to organise a follow up in 2018!