Meeting Report: Pan-Am Evo-Devo’s first meeting

The inaugural meeting of the Pan-American Society for Evolutionary Developmental Biology took place from August 5th–9th at the Clark Kerr campus of UC Berkley, USA. Registration was full, with nearly 350 attendees, and excitement was in the air. An established researcher, Tamara Franz-Odendaal (Mount Saint Vincent University, Canada), and a graduate student, Allison Edgar (Duke University, USA), discuss the highlights:

TFO: It would be an understatement to say that there was lots of excitement and enthusiasm from all types of scientists.

AE: We all felt that buzz in the air! I think it was a celebration of how Evo-Devo bridges disciplines.

TFO: Definitely. The conference organisers did a fantastic job of inviting speakers with diverse research topics that included plants, invertebrates and vertebrates. As a vertebrate biologist myself, I really enjoyed the plant talks. I never knew people were studying the gene regulatory networks (GRNs) underlying diversity in flowers, seeds and fruits.

AE: Yeah, as a specialist in invertebrates, it really sparked my interest in plant diversity too. It was wonderful to be at a conference that was united by a theoretical outlook. You know it’s going to be good when the first person you ask about their work just says: “Novelty,” instead of an organism or cell type. I love that outlook – remembering that whatever you work with – from fish to flowers ­– isn’t necessarily the same as what you work on conceptually. It was great to see people who might not have encountered one another at other meetings they regularly attend able to talk about their shared interest in, for example, patterning or plasticity. Natalia Pabón-Mora’s Early Career Award talk modeled that kind of communication, using analogous animal groups to orient those less familiar with plant evolutionary relationships so the whole room could appreciate her look into gene regulatory network evolution underlying floral and fruit diversity.

TFO: Yes, I really appreciated that. Although many talks included developmental genetics and GRNs underlying diversity, others included embryo manipulations, fossils, ecological interactions, developmental constraint, asymmetry, regeneration, etc. Of the approximately, 22 invited talks and 34 selected talks, several stand out for me. I learnt about fossil hearts and evolutionary simplification of the heart over time, about GRN co-option and how it reveals unexpected paths to evolutionary novelty, whether miRNAs can drive evolutionary changes, the importance of the frontal-parietal boundaries in vertebrate skulls, about studying regeneration in Polypterus using transcriptome analyses, and so much more.

AE: Some of my favorite talks focused on cis-regulatory evolution, from a nematode polyphenism to butterfly wing patterns. Other talks that really stood out for me were unfinished or big-picture stories. That willingness to go out on a limb because the science is fun impressed me.

TFO: Both Sean Carroll’s opening and Rudy Raff’s closing presentation were fantastic, as always.

AE: Agreed. They both captured major themes of the meeting, and they both exemplified what I mean about people presenting work they just think is cool. I loved hearing about embryo fossilization in Rudy Raff’s Pioneer Award talk, and Sean Carroll’s keynote talk about co-option and evolution by loss rather than gene duplication in snake venom got me thinking. What about the other meeting activities?

TFO: Well, there were parallel workshops on the second evening, including Evo-Devo Education, Latin American Challenges in Evo-Devo, and round table discussions on new and developing tools for emerging model organisms. I attended the Latin American Challenges in Evo-Devo workshop, not because I am from Latin America but rather because I know that Latin America has a lot of animal and plant diversity and I wanted to find out more about the evo-devo researchers living there… possibly as potential future collaborators. I learnt that there is a small network of evo-devo researchers in Latin American countries and that they are now building an Evo-Devo distribution list amongst themselves.  Watch out for a future Latin American Evo-Devo page linking from the main society page.

AE: It’s great that this international community is going to be highlighted! Honestly, I had a hard time choosing because so many of them looked good. I ended up attending the CRISPR round table discussion, which had a lot of really detailed technical advice. Besides the formal workshops, I appreciated the informal workshops during session breaks for self-identified members of under-represented groups: people of color, women, rainbow/LGBTQ folks, and persons with disabilities. I think it makes a strong statement for a society to state from its first meeting that it is inviting and inclusive. It’s especially valuable for early career scientists like me to build social networks with other scientists who recognize the challenges imposed by institutionalized systems of privilege.

TFO: I attended the women in science workshop with about 30 other female scientists. We shared our thoughts on challenges we face and how these have been overcome.

AE: I was at that one, too. I appreciated that not everyone who came was a woman. One of the things we talked about was the need for allies to speak up when they see something that’s not right. I also liked the reminder that women can be allies for one another. Sometimes it’s easier to point out someone else’s good ideas than your own.

TFO: Speaking of early career scientists, the talks were also well balanced with respect to level of researcher – from PhD candidates, to post-docs to new and established researchers.

AE: And I loved how the poster sessions also had that balance. Posters invite a totally different presentation style. Those sessions showcased the field’s flexibility and creativity (and adaptability to change, when the unthinkable happened and the outdoor poster session was rained out – in the middle of a drought!). They sparked some intense discussions.

TFO: What’s your take-away impression of the meeting?

AE: There were too many fantastic presentations to do them all justice. My interest in the evolution of developmental gene regulation was solidified, and all the new tools and systems being developed are going to give us a lot of powerful ways to answer big questions. It’s a great time to be a scientist. Most of all, the meeting was just plain fun. This meeting felt like coming home, a family reunion, a barbeque where all your favorite cousins show up. How about you?

TFO: I came away with some new ideas on strategies to move my group’s research forward, and made some new connections. I even shared some protocols – everything one wants from a scientific meeting!

If you work anywhere at the nexus of evolution and development, we hope to see you at #EvoDevo17! For more information, check out the excellent Twitter feed of the meeting, download the program and workshop handouts from the meeting page. You can join the society and follow the Facebook page to keep up with what’s happening.

(5 votes)

Loading...