SMBE EVERYWHERE GLOBAL SYMPOSIUM

GENETICS OF ADAPTATION (GS6)

Sponsoring Society: The Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution (SMBE)

Organisers: Dr. Krushnamegh Kunte and Dr. Deepa Agashe, NCBS

Date and Venue: 21-22 November 2022, hosted in Dasheri Auditorium, NCBS, Bangalore, India

Geo region/Timezone: Asia/Oceania, Time: 09:00 AM - 17:00 PM IST (03:30 AM-11:30 AM UTC)

Description and Programme: The SMBE Everywhere Global Symposia is a series of ten virtual, 1-day Global Symposia which will be hosted across the world from July 2022 to April 2023. The Genetics of Adaptation symposium (GS6) hosted in India will focus on a broad range of topics in evolutionary genetics and molecular evolution, with an emphasis on studies of diversification and adaptation of non-model organisms and field systems that include the incredible biodiversity of the Oriental Region. The symposium will include two components:

I. A one-day in-person workshop in Bengaluru, India, a day before the main symposium (~50 participants). Our goal is to expose students in India to evolutionary genetics and molecular evolution, which is often not included in undergraduate biology curricula. The in-person workshop will feature: (1) tutorials on topics and methods such as phylogenetic analysis of speciation and adaptive diversification, next-generation sequencing, bacterial genome evolution, and the design and analysis of experimental evolution studies, and (2) talks on the history and introduction to research in evolutionary biology in India. Participants are encouraged to present a poster (in person) discussing their ongoing work.

Students registered for this workshop will attend the in-person sessions on 21st Nov, and they are also encouraged to attend the SMBE Everywhere Global Symposium on the 22nd, but in person rather than virtually. Apply here for this workshop. Unless you also want to present a virtual poster in the online symposium on the 22nd, you do not need to register for the virtual symposium separately. Participants will be provided on-campus accommodation for three nights (20-22 Nov), lunch and tea/snacks on both days, and dinner on the 21st. They will need to bear their own travel and other personal expenses.

II. A virtual symposium with three oral sessions (each with a plenary and a few contributed talks) and two poster sessions, all hosted on the virtual platform provided by SMBE. This is the main SMBE Everywhere Global Symposium. Contributed talks and posters will be chosen based on submitted research abstracts. Participants (PhD students, post-docs and faculty members) of this symposium should register and submit their abstracts directly on the SMBE Global Symposia website. The symposium is open to scientists from all over the world, not just from Asia. The three oral sessions are:
Session 1: Genetics of Adaptive Diversification: Genetic basis of adaptations that lead to adaptive diversification and speciation in natural systems. Plenary: Dr. Jun Kitano (NIG, Japan).
Session 2: Evolution and Diversification of Genes and Gene Families: Molecular evolution of gene families with respect to duplication and functional diversification. Plenary: Dr. Jun-Yi Leu (Institute of Molecular Biology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan).
Session 3: Mechanisms of Adaptation: Insights from laboratory experiments. Plenary: Dr. Kavita Jain (JNCSR, India).

Also see the webpage for this Global symposium on the SMBE website for further information.

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE OF WORKSHOP TALKS AND POSTERS, 21 NOV:

8:50 to 9 am: Introduction to the workshop
9 to 9:30 am: Amitabh Joshi: Crowded Cultures: Changing Paradigms in the Ecology and Evolution of Pre-adult Competitive Ability in Drosophila
9:30 to 10 am: Krushnamegh Kunte: Adaptive Diversification and Evolutionary Genetics of Butterfly Wing Colour Patterns
10 to 10:15 am: Coffee Break
10:15 am to 12:30 pm (a short break included): Vaishali Bhaumik, Dipendra Nath Basu, and Athulya Girish K.: Tutorial 1: Phylogenetic Analysis of Speciation and Adaptive Diversification
12:30 to 1:30 pm: Lunch
1:30 to 2 pm: Deepa Agashe: Molecular Evolution
2 to 3:30 pm: Riddhi Deshmukh, Muktai Kuwalekar, and Shivansh Singhal: Tutorial 2: Exploring Signatures of Selection from Genes to Genomes
3:30 to 4 pm: Coffee Break
4 to 4:30 pm: Aswin Sai Narain Seshasayee: Evolution of Bacterial Genomes
4:30 to 6 pm: Mrudula Sane, Shyamsunder Buddh: Tutorial 3: Experimental Evolution: Design and Analysis
6 to 7 pm: Open Discussion and Posters
7 to 9 pm: Dinner

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE OF SYMPOSIUM TALKS AND POSTERS, 22 NOV:

8:50 to 9 am: Introduction to the symposium
SESSION 1: GENETICS OF ADAPTIVE DIVERSIFICATION
9 to 9: 30 am: Jun Kitano (plenary): Genetic Mechanisms of Convergent Evolution in Sticklebacks
9:30 to 9:45 am: William (Bill) Sherwin: Improved Detection of Selection in Genomes: (^A)A cuts down false positives/negatives
9:45 to 10 am: Adam Eyre-Walker: Changing Population Size and Artifactual Correlations in McDonald-Kreitman Type Analyses
10 to 10:15 am: Christian Huber: Ancient Human Genomes Reveal Genetic Basis of Adaptation
10:15 to 10:30 am: Coffee Break
10:30 to 10:45 am: Riddhi Deshmukh: Evolution of Novel Mimicry Polymorphisms Through Haldane’s Sieve and Rare Recombination
10:45 to 11 am: Jay Storz: Genomic Analysis of High-altitude Adaptation in Andean Mice
11 to 11:08 am: Risa Iwasaki: Spatial and Temporal Target Changes of Advantageous Haplotype(s) at a Gastric Cancer-associated Gene, PSCA
11:08 to 11:16 am: Carlos Sarabia: A Haystack Surrounding the Needle: Finding the Signatures of Selective Sweeps in Admixed Populations via a Probabilistic Framework (SWIFr)
11:16 to 11:24 am: David Gokhman: Human-chimp Hybrid Cells Reveal Gene Regulatory Evolution Underlying Skeletal Divergence

11:25 to 11:45 am: Coffee Break

SESSION 2: EVOLUTION AND DIVERSIFICATION OF GENES AND GENE FAMILIES
11:45 am to 12:15 pm: Jun-Yi Leu (plenary): Plastic Transcriptional Networks and Transcription Factor Evolution
12:15 to 12:30 pm: Parth Raval: The Layered Costs and Benefits of Translational Redundancy
12:30 to 12:45 pm: Kai Wei: Dynamic Changes of Gene Copy Number Facilitate Adaptation to Novel Habitats in the Wild Tomato Solanum chilense
12:45 to 1 pm: Alexander Mikheyev: Is It Venomous? Revisiting Vertebrate Venoms
1 to 2 pm: Lunch and Poster Session
2 to 2:15 pm: Muktai Kuwalekar: Duplication and Sub-functionalisation Characterise Diversification of Opsin Genes in the Lepidoptera
2:15 to 2:30 pm: Bin He: Parallel Expansion and Divergence of the Hyr/Iff-like (Hil) Adhesin Family in Pathogenic Yeasts Including Candida auris
2:30 to 2:37 pm: Akshi Gupta: Ortholog Replacement Reveals a Novel Function of the Transcription Factor TFIIIC Complex in Mitotic Chromosome Segregation
2:37 to 2:45 pm: Ashutosh Sharma: Birth and Death in Terminal Complement Pathway

SESSION 3: MECHANISMS OF ADAPTATION
2:45 to 3:15 pm: Kavita Jain (plenary): Polygenic Adaptation Dynamics in a Large, Finite Population
3:15 to 3:30 pm: Sutirth Dey: Matter of Size: How Population Size Affects Bacterial Adaptation
3:30 to 4 pm: Coffee Break
4 to 4:15: Juliette de Meaux: Strength of Stabilizing Selection on the Amino-acid Sequence is Associated with the Amount of Non-additive Variance in Gene Expression
4:15 to 4:30 pm: Laasya Samhita: Mistranslation Alters the Genetic Basis of Adaptation to Antibiotics
4:30 to 4:38 pm: Evgenia Belousova: Dynamics of dN/dS at Short Timescales
4:38 to 4:46 pm: Shira Zion: Adaptation Under Prolonged Resource Exhaustion is Characterized by High Levels of Convergence and Frequent Historical Contingency
4:46 to 4:54 pm: Viswa Koppisetty: Allele-specific Post-transcriptional Modulation of Stress Responses by MKT1 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
4:54 to 5:15 pm: Final Q&A
 

POSTERS:
Konrad Pawlak: Adaptation of the Usability of Synonymous Codons in the Genome in Alternative Genetic Codes in the Context of the Influence of Selection at the Amino Acid Level
Ziyang Xia: Genetic Insights into Local Adaptation of Lipid Metabolism in Fishing-based Populations in Southern East Asia
Luis Daniel González-Vázquez: Evaluating Molecular Adaptation of SARS-CoV-2 in Galicia
Supreet Saini: Public-good Driven Release of Heterogeneous Resources Leads to Genotypic Diversification of an Isogenic Yeast Population
Utkarsha Mahanta: Deciphering the Myxobacterial Genome Expansion as an Evolutionary Driver of Aerobic Respiration and Complex Traits
Yannick Schäfer: Large-scale Turnover of Immune Receptor Gene Copies in D. rerio
Sashikanta Barik: Asymmetric Cooperativity Dictates Kinetic Barriers For Unzipping At Replication Origins And Termini Through GC Skews
Parthasarathi Sahu: Unidirectional Replication of DNA Through Maximization Of Replicative Potential
Vaidehi Shah: Increased Copy Number of Introgressed Chromosomes is a Potential Mechanism of Introgressed Hybrid Driven Speciation
Wei-Han Lin: Investigating the Regulatory Mechanism of Protein Expression Noise by Experimental Evolution in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Tarani Jindal: Molecular Evolutionary Analysis of Subterranean Loach Pangio bhujia Endemic to Southern India
Manaswini Parija: Evolutionary Dynamics of Transposon Domestication

Cancellations:
Workshop: Raghavendra Gadagkar: Caste and Nutrition in a Primitively Eusocial Wasp – What We Need to Do Before Studying Molecular Evolution
Symposium: Sergey Kryazhimskiy: Mutualism-enhancing Mutations Dominate Early Adaptation in a Two-species Microbial Community