Important announcements
RESULTS ANNOUNCEMENT:
More than 1000 abstracts have been selected and the scientific program is under construction. Stay tuned!
SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACT IS CLOSED
Arrange your travel
Deadline for Early bird registration fees:
May 20, 2024
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SMBE 2024
Keynote Speakers
Alicia Mastretta-Yanes
CONAHCYT - UNAM.
Alicia is a biologist from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), and holds a PhD from the University of East Anglia, England. She currently Works as a CONAHCYT Research Fellow at Instituto de Ecología - UNAM. Her research focuses on incorporating genetic diversity into conservation using evolutionary approaches, spanning diverse ecosystems such as the Lacandona jungle, sky-islands, polluted forests, and Mexican agroecosystems. She contributed to the development of genetic diversity indicators, now adopted by the Global Biodviersity Framework, and she is actively involved in co-formulating approaches for nations to monitor and safeguard genetic diversity on a global scale.
Aida Andrés
University College London, UK.
Aida is Professor of Population and Evolutionary Genomics at University College London (UK). She is interested in how organisms adapt to their environment. In her work, this means analysing genomes, both modern and ancient, to infer how natural selection mediates genetic adaptations. Her group works mostly on humans, as they have an interesting history of fast colonisation of diverse habitats, and in endangered primates, where the ability to adapt to quickly changing environments is crucial for survival. Her group tackles these questions using genomic approaches to study the processes of adaptation, population genetic techniques to make inferences on the history of selected alleles, and functional information to infer the consequences in present-day phenotypes of previously adaptive alleles. The group is particularly interested in the types of natural selection that maintain diversity within populations (e.g. balancing selection) or that create differences among populations (e.g. local adaptation), as well as adaptive introgression.
Scott V. Edwards
Harvard University, USA.
Scott holds a B.A. from Harvard University (1986) and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley (1992). Following his doctoral studies, he served as an Alfred P. Sloan Postdoctoral Fellow in Molecular Evolution at the University of Florida, Gainesville (1992-94). As a scientist, he has broad interests in the evolution of life on earth and the processes that have generated biodiversity. His research primarily utilizes birds as models to study patterns of speciation, biogeography, evolution of the genome, and the process of adaptation. This work has exposed his lab to a wide range of questions, from the evolution of immune genes and disease resistance to how best to reconstruct the tree of life.
Stephen Wright
SMBE President University of Toronto, Canada.
Stephen is the current President of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution (SMBE). His research focuses on understanding nucleotide polymorphism and genome evolution in natural plant populations. He explores questions such as the role of mutation vs. natural selection in genome structure evolution, how population history and mating systems affect genetic variability, and the rate and genetic basis of adaptive evolution and deleterious mutation. He uses DNA sequence polymorphism and molecular evolution analysis, large-scale genome sequence data analysis, and population genetic theory to investigate these questions. He applies these approaches in a comparative context, studying both model and non-model organisms, to understand genome diversity and structure patterns. His current projects include studying transposable element evolution, the impact of recombination and mating systems on genome evolution, the effects of demographic history and natural selection on genetic diversity, and the role of gene and genome duplication in species diversification and genome evolution.
Graduate Student Excellence Awards Winners
Sung-Ya Lin
I grew up in Taiwan, where I completed a bachelor’s degree in Life Science at National Taiwan University (NTU). During that time, I worked in Dr. Hsueh-Chi Sherry Yen’s lab at Academia Sinica studying protein degradation and learned the fundamental concepts of scientific research and molecular biology techniques. After graduation, I continued to pursue a master’s degree and joined Dr. Chau-Ti Ting’s lab at NTU, where I studied the sex-ratio meiotic drive in Drosophila and became fascinated with selfish genetic elements and genetic conflict. My fascination for these rapidly changing parts of the genome led me to join Dr. Mia Levine’s lab at the University of Pennsylvania as a PhD student. Currently, my research combines genetic, evolutionary, and cell biological approaches to understand the causes and consequences of the rapid evolution of telomere binding proteins that shape essential cellular functions.
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Christopher Blake
I am an evolutionary microbiologist conducting my PhD at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia with Mike McDonald. Before joining Mike's lab, I received my training in Biology (B.Sc.) at Kiel University in Germany and in Microbiology (M.Sc.) at Copenhagen University in Denmark, where I was working with Ákos T. Kovács. I am mainly interested in how complex microbial communities evolve together and adapt to rapidly changing environments. My research focuses on how evolution can alter the stability landscape of microbial communities, both as free-living communities and within host systems.
Maria Jose Palma Martinez
I am a PhD candidate at the Sohail lab at the Center for Genomic Sciences, UNAM. Previously during my master’s, I had the amazing opportunity of working on the MXBiobank. Currently, my research focuses on promoting intentional decisions about the way we group humans in genetics and biomedical research. In this project, along with a trans-disciplinary team of collaborators, we developed a computational pipeline and web browser based on relational thinking.
I am a bioinformatician at heart and I am also interested in the study of non-human species. I truly believe in the role of science in the search for knowledge that allows us to make better decisions as a society.
Jaison Jeevan Sequeira
I always find it challenging to introduce myself because I am passionate about many things, and I tend to get excited about new experiences. That's why I decided to study genetic variation and the ancestral origin of indigenous populations along the southwest coast of India. I have trained myself to become an aspiring population geneticist, and in my free time, I enjoy pursuing my other interests, such as singing and song writing, freelance sound engineering, and motivational speaking.
Twitter: @jaisonjseq
Ben Michael Moran
Ben Moran is a 5th-year PhD student in the Department of
Biology at Stanford University. As part of the laboratory of Prof. Molly
Schumer, he has spent his dissertation studying hybrids between swordtail
fishes (Xiphophorus spp.) in the
Sierra y Huasteca Hidalguense, with frequent trips to the CICHAZ field station
in Calnali, Hidalgo, México. Ben is interested in the eco-evolutionary
processes that can be revealed in natural hybrid zones, as well as the
relationship between human impacts on the environment and novel hybrid zones.
Looking forward, he is excited to expand the role of population genomics in our
understanding and conservation of biodiversity.
Twitter/X: @Ben_M_Moran
Meaghan Marohn
I am a PhD student in Priya Moorjani’s lab at UC Berkeley as part of the department of Molecular and Cell Biology with a designated emphasis in Computational Biology. My current project aims to revisit the evolution of lactase persistence by leveraging data from South Asian populations. Prior to pursuing my PhD I received my B.A. from Barnard College in Biology and Anthropology. In addition to population genetics research, I have enjoyed learning more about the scientific writing community at Berkeley and partaking in education and outreach initiatives in the Bay Area to practice different science communication efforts. When I’m not trying to unravel the mysteries of human evolution and diversity, I enjoy exercising my creative side by drawing and painting.
Mariela Tenorio
I am a biologist who has had the privilege of working with and meeting special people who guided me on my scientific journey. I earned my Ph.D. at the Center for Genomic Sciences under the mentorship of Dr. Diego Cortez. Over the past five years, my research has focused on the expression of sex chromosomes in lizards, a project that has allowed me to develop extensive technical and bioinformatic expertise. I am committed to advancing our understanding of genomic sciences and contributing to the scientific community.
Siliang Song
I am a 5th-year PhD student at the University of Michigan, working in Prof. Jianzhi Zhang's lab. My research focuses on fitness landscape, molecular evolution, and human behavioral evolution. Currently, I utilize large-scale biobank data to investigate the evolution of human sex ratios. My broader research interests include adaptive tracking, the evolution of sex and its derivatives (sexual reproduction, sex chromosome, sex ratio, etc.). In my leisure time, I enjoy exploring the diversity of insects in the wild and learning physics.
Bárbara Sousa da Mota
Born and raised in Portugal, I studied physics in my home country before switching to biology. I have spent the last five years studying population history using ancient DNA at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. In particular, I worked on implementing imputation techniques for ancient genomes and then leveraged these methods to study the genomic history of the Rapanui. I have very recently finished my PhD and am very much looking forward to my future projects. During my time in Switzerland, you could often find me hiking the magnificent mountains.
Workshops
SMBE 2024
Key dates
Call for Symposia
October 2023
Selection of Symposia
November 2023
Announcement of Selected Symposia
January 2024
Call for abstracts Submission
February 2024
Deadline for submitting abstracts
March 15, 2024
Deadline for Early Bird Registration
May 10, 2024
Fun begins
July 7, 2024
Preliminary Program
SMBE 2024
Accepted Symposia
Topic 1:
Phylogenetics and Comparative Genomics.
Topic 2:
Evolutionary Genomics.
Topic 3:
Population Genetics and Demography.
Topic 4:
Paleogenomics and Ancient DNA.
Topic 5:
Evolutionary Medicine and Microbial Evolution.
Topic 6:
Conservation Genomics and Biodiversity.
Topic 7:
Functional Genomics and Regulatory Evolution.
Topic 8:
Genomic Structural Variation.
Topic 9:
Methods and Computational Approaches.
Topic 10:
Research Ethics, Equity, Outreach and Open Symposium
Local organizing
committee
Dr. Maria Avila-Arcos
Associate Professor, International Laboratory for Human Genome Research (LIIGH), National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)
Prof. Valeria Souza
Professor, Institute of Ecology, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)
Dr. Andres Moreno-Estrada
Professor, National Laboratory of Genomics for Biodiversity (LANGEBIO), CINVESTAV
Dr. Federico Sanchez-Quinto
Associate Professor, International Laboratory for Human Genome Research (LIIGH), National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)
Dr. Selene Fernandez-Valverde
Senior Lecturer, RNA Institute / School of Biotechnology & Biomolecular Sciences, UNSW Sydney
Dr. Karla Sandoval
Equity and Gender Office of the Centre for Research and Advanced Studies (CODIGO-C), CINVESTAV
Dr. Diego Cortez
Associate Professor, Center for Genomics Sciences (CCG), National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)
Dr. Mashaal Sohail
Associate Professor,Center for Genomic Sciences (CCG), National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)
Dr. Diego Ortega Del Vecchyo
Assistant Professor, International Laboratory for Human Genome Research (LIIGH), National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)
Contact email