The day of departure is a good chance to walk around Kyiv, meet people, talk about impressions, discuss possible projects, and get home.
Archives: Schedule
Poster Prize & Goodbye
Eugene Koonin. Evolutionary principles and concepts in the postgenomic era
The Modern Synthesis of Evolutionary Biology solidified in the 1950s, years before even the idea let alone the practice of deciphering evolutionary mechanisms and reconstructing the history of life by direct comparison of genome sequences entered the mind of evolutionary biologists. However, since the late 1990s, evolutionary genomics has been coming of age. What is the standing of the Modern Synthesis in light of evolutionary genomics? Have our concepts of evolution changed substantially? Do we need a ‘Postmodern Synthesis’? I will argue that, although the tenets of the Modern Synthesis have not been rejected, genome analysis dramatically expands the range of major evolutionary mechanisms and relevant phenomena, and changes evolutionary thinking, indeed calling for a new level of generalization. Somewhat paradoxically, it was the advent of comparative genomics, and more specifically, the drastic difference in genomic architectures of prokaryotes and eukaryotes, that brought to fore the essentiality of the population-genetic theory (largely developed by Fisher, Wright and Haldane already in the 1930s) for understanding the processes and results of evolution. As Michael Lynch paraphrased the famous motto of Dobzhansky, “Nothing in evolution makes sense except in the light of population genetics”. Indeed, comparative genomics provides ample material for testing evolutionary models that replace vague notions of selection and adaptation with concrete regimes of evolution and evolutionary parameter values. No less important, genomics has opened a widening window into the evolution of microbes and viruses that remained completely hidden in the days of the Modern Synthesis and has not contributed to the formulation of its concepts. Microbial and virus genomics reveal new evolutionary dynamics, engendered by horizontal gene flow, and the enormity of the evolutionary effects of host-parasite coevolution that was a key factor of major evolutionary transitions. The ‘Postmodern Synthesis’ of Evolutionary Biology is still in the making, but I will try to provide a general outline of its essential components.
Pavel Gol’din. Heterochrony as a driver of cetacean evolution
Fully aquatic cetaceans (whales and dolphins) evolved from semi-aquatic ancestors nearly 45 million years ago and gave a broad diversity of forms. Much of this development can be explained as heterochronies, with paedomorphosis leading as to diminishing, as to increase in body size, and peramorphosis expressing itself in bizarre structures. Initially, paedomorphosis could develop as a factor facilitating suction feeding or social interactions, whereas peramorphosis could be driven by sexual selection. A possible genomic mechanism for heterochrony may be positive selection in regulatory genes.
Lunch & Posters Discussion
Klas Udekwu: AMR in the Built Environment Mobilome, The Stockholm Subway
Using a combination of classical microbiology and NGS, we studied the colistin resistant fraction of the BE microbiome in 20 Stockholm subway stations. This talk will highlight the methodology and partial results of a longitudinal dataset currently being assembled.
Next generation sequencing is the key method for identifying genetic disorders on population scale
Using genomic tools like SNP microarrays in whole genome association studies and Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), markers and actionable genetic targets have been identified
for common complex diseases, like various types of cancer, neuronal disorders or metabolic and heart diseases. These marker panels can now be used for improving diagnostic procedures, patient stratification, outcome prediction and to optimize individualized treatment strategies. In addition, we know more than 7000 rare diseases affecting all together about 7% of the total population. The WHO estimates that over 300.000.000 individuals are globally affected, predominantly children and newborns. Due to their low population penetrance (>0.05%) these disorders are very difficult to diagnose. Even in countries with a well-developed healthcare system like the USA, it takes on average 7.6 years (in UK 5.6 years) to identify rare diseases, far too long especially for newborns, that account for over 50% of the cases. Whole genome and exome sequencing, as well as sequencing large panels with known target regions can significantly speed up the identification and characterization of these rare diseases and open new options for therapy selection. These technologies supply the input of large global databases that will continuously improve and speed up the development of diagnostic and treatment procedures, using the combined resources of the global research community.
Tatiana Yakushkina: Evolutionary models with lethal mutations
Victoria Novitska: V-table© – an interactive tool to explore virus diversity providing a structured overview on a viral world.
Viruses are highly diverse biologic entities. They do not share a single gene, nor do they have a common origin. Viruses differ extremely in terms of genome and capsid size, as well as in host range. Taxonomy of viruses is currently undergoing massive changes, including taxa reassignment, renaming and creating new taxa of higher level from the lower ones.
The number of new viral taxa is constantly growing and each new one presents another example of pushing the limits and balancing at the edge of survival by co-evolving with a host.
To explore and understand the limits of different viral characteristics we first applied categorization according to the type of genome and host, as most fundamental. It allowed creation of small manageable groups related by content, instead of a long alphabetical list of all viruses.
Viral family is the highest level of virus taxonomy, covering most of viral species currently recognized by International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses. Each viral family has its unique set of characteristics and is used as unit of information in V-table.
The interactive database of viruses allows observing trends in viral diversity by grouping viruses of particular type of genome and host further according to the type of capsid symmetry, size of genome and capsid. The structure of V-table is based on placing viruses with similar characteristics of genome and capsid near each other to reveal trends in viral diversity and simplify learning virology.
The new approach in understanding virosphere is to combine viral taxonomy, phylogeny and molecular characteristics.
Oleh Lushchak. From small observation to big discovery
It is always difficult to predict exciting results for great paper. More and more rich labs are using screening strategy to get ideas. These screens are time-consuming and expensive way to discover something new. There is also another way to big discoveries but they require step-by-step development of the project based on small observation the experimenter had noticed. Within my talk I will present the story built on the interesting observed unexpected phenotype. I will go through the experiments made within time period of about 5 years to show the main milestones and decisions we have made. Even when all data was generated one additional experiment forced us to look on these data completely from unexpected side.