Villars Symposium 2016 – «NON-coding RNAs: function and evolution»
Dates: 12-14 September 2016
Organizers: Prof. Yves Poirier, UNIL, Mrs Debora Zoia, UNIL
Speakers:
Ana Eulalio, Univerity of Wurzburg – webpage
Caroline Dean, John Innes Center, Norwich – webpage
Brian Gregory, University of Pennsylvania – webpage
David Baulcombe, University of Cambridge – webpage
Ramesh S. Pillai, EMBL Grenoble – webpage
Chung-I Wu, University of Chicago – webpage
Lingling Chen, Shanghai Intsitutes for Biological Sciences – webpage
John Rinn, Harvard, USA – webpage
Torben Jensen, Aarhus University – webpage
Igor Ulitsky, Weissmann Institute – webpage
Description: Annual seminar for PhD students of 4 CUSO doctoral programs (StarOmics, Microbiology, Ecology and Evolution, Molecular Plant Sciences). This seminar will allow PhD students to meet, present their thesis project (posters or oral presentations) and discuss publications in the presence of invited speakers in a spirit of conviviality. In the last decade, the diversity and role of non-coding RNAs (e.g. RNAs that are that are not coding for proteins) has considerably expanded. Multitude of non-coding RNAs are now known to play key roles in a number of biological processes required for cell viability and function, in both prokaryotes and eukaryote. Analysis of the cell transcriptome reveals that genomes are pervasively transcribed to generate many additional RNAs, raising questions as to their function and contribution to evolutionary processes. The aim of the 2016 Villars Symposium on “Non-coding RNAs: function and evolution” is to provide an interdisciplinary look at the roles and evolution of non-coding RNAs in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. The symposium is targeted to participants of all four CUSO programs in biology, namely Staromics, Plant Molecular Biology, Microbiology and Ecology and Evolution. The symposium will include both lectures by invited experts in the fields and discussions in smaller groups (journal club format) in order to promote dynamic exchanges between students and experts of different disciplines and close contacts with the invited speakers. Program will follow.