Dear SMBE Members,

We're delighted to announce that the Society for Molecular Biology & Evolution is now accepting proposals for symposium for the 2025 Annual Meeting, taking place in Beijing, China, from July 20th – 24th, 2025. Selection of proposals will prioritize the interests of SMBE members, emphasizing innovative scientific developments while ensuring geographic and gender diversity among the participants. In light of the growing influence of new technologies, such as genetic editing, synthetic biology and AI, on evolution research (as outlined in our mission statement), we also encourage proposals that explore these topics.

SMBE 2025 will be held in the Beijing Conventional Center, with facilities allowing five parallel symposia to be held in the same building. We welcome proposals for symposia of 120 min duration, and the invited speaker will have 20 minutes, with 5 minutes for questions and 2 free minutes for participants to change symposium if they wish. Each contributed speaker will have 12 minutes, with 3 minutes for questions, and 2 free minutes for participants to change symposium if they wish. For the upcoming SMBE 2025 meeting, we are encouraging 5 min flash talks to give more opportunities to researchers around the globe to communicate their work. This means each symposium will accommodate 1 invited speaker, 2 contributed speakers, and 6 to 8 flash talks.

For each accepted symposium, the meeting will provide financial support up to 2,800 US dollars, along with fully covered conference registration for the invited speaker, to facilitate symposium organizers in attracting outstanding invited speakers. To submit your proposal please click on the link below and follow the instructions. Please complete and submit the form by 11:59pm GMT +8 November 5th, 2024. Successful applications will be confirmed by the end of November. Please email us at smbe2025@ioz.ac.cn for any questions.

Symposium proposals should include a description of the symposium (250 words max) and the name of the proposed invited speaker capable of delivering a talk of high quality and wide interest (each symposium will be limited to one invited speaker, however, you can nominate multiple invited speakers at this stage). At the time of proposal submission, the proposed invited speaker should have agreed to accept the invitation in principle. Please explain to the proposed invited speaker that the invitation is conditional on funding of the proposal. For the proposed invited speaker, please indicate whether they have been approached, whether they have expressed their interest in participating, and the likely topic for their talk. The symposium organizers will also select contributed speakers from the abstracts submitted by registered delegates.

Please CLICK HERE to access the submission portal.

The final decision on the selection of symposia, invited and contributed talks will be made by the Local Organizing Committee (LOC). Criteria will include quality of the proposals, breadth of interest to SMBE membership, and representation of the diversity of SMBE membership among speakers.

The meeting will be held as a hybrid conference, but the speakers

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Dear SMBE members, 

Greetings from the SMBE 2025 local organizing committee!

We are happy to announce the launch of the official SMBE 2025 website: http://www.smbe2025.org/

Key dates can be found on the website. Please bookmark & share the site!  

We would like to remind you that the portal for submitting symposia proposals will be open on September 20th, 2024.

Stay tuned! 

-The SMBE 2025 Local Organizing Committee 

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Each year, SMBE funds several SMBE SATELLITE, INTERDISCIPLINARY AND REGIONAL MEETINGS. These meetings are organized and held independently of the SMBE annual meeting. 

SMBE is now calling for proposals for meetings and actions to be held between Jan 2025 and Dec 31st 2025. Funds will be awarded on a competitive basis to members of the molecular evolution research community to run meetings on an important, focused, and timely topic of their choice. The number of awards will depend on the quality of proposals, total cost and the budget available.
The deadline for submission of proposals is August 15 2024. Decisions will be communicated to the applicants mid-September 2024. 

List of upcoming and previous SATELLITE/INTERDISCIPLINARY/REGIONAL SMBE meetings:
Upcoming meetings: 
http://www.smbe.org/smbe/MEETINGS/SatelliteInterdisciplinaryRegionalMeetings/Schedule.aspx

Please also consult our archive for further information on previous Satellite, Regional and Interdisciplinary meetings: 
http://www.smbe.org/smbe/MEETINGS/SatelliteInterdisciplinaryRegionalMeetings/Archive.aspx

Participants of Satellite/Interdisciplinary/Regional meetings are eligible for SMBE Caregiver Award:
https://www.smbe.org/smbe/AWARDS/CaregiverAward.aspx 

SMBE SATELLITE MEETINGS
These are small, topically focused meetings with fewer than 100 participants that are organized and held independent of the SMBE annual meeting. In the past five years, SMBE has supported multiple Satellite meetings on diverse topics, a sample of our most recent Satellite meetings include:

● “Ancient DNA beyond allele frequencies” 2024
● “Long-term population resilience” 2024
● “Pathogen Pangenome Evolution” 2024
● “Evolutionary and genomic consequences of drive” 2023
● “De novo gene birth” 2023
● “Molecular evolution in small populations” 2023
● “Fungal pathogens” 2022
● “Molecular Biology and Evolution of Cancer” 2019
● “Towards an integrated concept of adaptation: uniting molecular population genetics and quantitative genetics” 2019
● “Molecular evolution and the cell” 2018
● “Genome Evolution in Pathogen Transmission and Disease” 2018
● “Modern Methods for the study of ancient DNA&rdquo

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2024 CME Symposium

NSF BII for Mechanisms of Cellular Evolution's Annual 2024 Symposium

Date: Wednesday, Nov. 6 - Saturday, Nov. 9

Location: Biodesign Building B, Arizona State University, Tempe Campus

About the Event

The CME Symposium on Mechanisms of Cellular Evolution is being organized by the Biology Integration Institute for Mechanisms of Cellular Evolution at Arizona State University. The event is scheduled to take place from November 6-9, 2024, in Tempe, AZ. The symposium is the third in a series of annual events focused on the emerging interdisciplinary field of evolutionary cell biology (ECB). This field combines evolutionary biology and cell biology with other related disciplines, including biochemistry, biophysics, population genetics, molecular biology, and mathematics. The symposium aims to bring together leading researchers and experts from diverse fields to discuss current advances and future directions in ECB, and to provide opportunities for interdisciplinary discussions, knowledge sharing, and collaboration.

Registration Link: https://na.eventscloud.com/ereg/newreg.php?eventid=798877&

Download PDF Program HERE
Event Flyer (PDF) HERE

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SMBE is delighted to announce our 2024 Faculty Award Winners!

2024 SMBE Early-Career Excellence Award Winner:
Parul Johri

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The Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution (SMBE) is looking for an evolutionary biologist with an active research program to co-lead its journal Genome Biology and Evolution (GBE) as a co-editor in chief alongside Professor Laura Katz. Professor Adam Eyre-Walker’s term will end December 31 2024, and we are seeking a replacement EIC to serve alongside Professor Katz. The EiCs have the opportunity and responsibility to contribute to the advancement of our field and the success of the journal, hence SMBE itself. The EiCs oversee the running of the journal with a focus on scientific content and smooth operations. They also serve as ex officio on the SMBE council to contribute to strategic discussions and deliberations on academic publishing. The SMBE Council appoints the EiCs. Oxford University Press currently publishes GBE.

The term of the new EiC will begin no later than January 2025.

Genome Biology and Evolution (GBE) publishes leading original research at the interface between evolutionary biology and genomics. Papers considered for publication report novel evolutionary findings that concern natural genome diversity, population genomics, the structure, function, organisation and expression of genomes, comparative genomics, proteomics, and environmental genomic interactions. Major evolutionary insights from the fields of computational biology, structural biology, developmental biology, and cell biology are also considered, as are theoretical advances in the field of genome evolution. GBE's scope embraces genome-wide evolutionary investigations at all taxonomic levels and for all forms of life — within populations or across domains. Its aims are to further the understanding of genomes in their evolutionary context and further the understanding of evolution from a genome-wide perspective.

The EiC roles and responsibilities include:

• Nominating senior and associate editors to the editorial board. The SMBE Council provides the final approval. 

• Ensuring that the composition of the editorial board reflects the SMBE policy and practice of equality, diversity, and inclusion;

• Has the ultimate responsibility for decision-making on manuscript acceptances, appeals, and scientific-fit with the journal;

• Making strategic decisions regarding the journal publication strategy and quality control; and,

• Promoting GBE content to the public and all relevant scientific communities.

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