SMBE symposium Evolution of Alternative Splicing‏

Dear Colleagues,

We are writing to advertise our symposium on *the evolution of
alternative splicing*, which will be held as part of the Society for
Molecular Biology and Evolution (SMBE) meeting, July 12-16 in Vienna,
Austria.

* Invited speaker:
Chris Burge, MIT (http://genes.mit.edu/burgelab/)

* Symposium description:
Post-transcriptional modifications of mRNAs by alternative splicing (AS)
are thought to be an important road for evolutionary innovation. The
advent of RNA-seq has enabled deep surveys of the splicing complexity
across species. However, there are still large gaps in our understanding
of the significance of AS evolution. This symposium aims at moving
beyond simple comparisons of AS events across species to the study of
the functional impact of new isoforms during evolution.
We will highlight the latest advances in the field, notably related to
the following questions:
- How did splicing evolve between species? What use can be made of the
last sequencing technologies (e.g., long-reads) to describe the
evolution of AS at an unprecedented resolution?
- Recent studies have highlighted that many isoforms are low-abundance
and species-specific. What portion of AS might just represent “noise”?
How could it influence the evolution of transcriptomes?
- What is the functional impact of AS on the evolution of proteins?
E.g., does AS modulate protein-protein interaction networks? What are
the changes induced by AS on protein structures?

* SMBE website and registration: http://smbe2015.at/
Abstracts for oral presentations should be sent by *February 8, 2015*.
Abstracts for poster presentations should be sent by March 29, 2015.
Travel awards and childcare support are available to allow young
scientists and parents to attend the conference.

Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions.
We hope to see you this summer in Vienna!

Julien Roux (julien.roux@unil.ch)
Élodie Laine (elodie.laine@upmc.fr)
Hugues Richard (hugues.richard@upmc.fr)

--
Julien Roux
Marie-Curie postdoctoral fellow
Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, Switzerland
http://www.unil.ch/dee/home/menuinst/people/post-docs--associates/dr-julien-roux.html