Virus evolution on the mutualist - parasite continuum

Roscoff (Bretagne), France,October 21-25, 2019

Deadline for application : June 21, 2019

Chairperson: Samuel Alizon

Laboratoire MIVEGEC (CNRS, IRD, Université de Montpellier), IRD, 911 Avenue Agropolis, BP 64501 34394 Montpellier Cedex 5 France
Phone: +33 (0)4 48 19 18 67
Email: samuel.alizon@cnrs.fr

Vice-chairperson: Paul Turner

Yale University, Microbiology Faculty, Yale School of Medicine New Haven, CT 06520, USA
Phone: +1 203 432 5918
Email: paul.turner@yale.edu

Since their discovery more than a century ago, viruses have been an object of fascination and controversy. For instance, their status as living organisms is often questioned but, at the same time, they are suspected of having played key roles in the evolution of life. Viruses are also widely feared, especially due to recent Zika and Ebola epidemics; however, they are increasingly used to fight diseases, for example via phage therapy or cancer treatment. Almost all of these risks and benefits stem from the ability of viruses to evolve rapidly, a property that allows them to emerge on new host species, resist drugs and evade vaccines, while also permitting rapid technological development.

Virus evolution is a useful feature for conducting basic and applied research. At the experimental level, rapid evolution provides efficient power to test general biological questions, for instance regarding the evolution of cooperation. At the more applied level, new technologies can be used to monitor real-time viral dynamics in biological systems. For instance, analysing whole-genomics is efficient for deciphering virus evolutionary history and epidemiology. In general, recent years have seen a growing appreciation of virus biodiversity and the roles that viruses may play in the functioning of natural environments and microbiota. Finally, the importance of viral evolution is increasingly recognized as crucial when designing public health policies. These many conceptual ideas and technological advances highlight that research on virus evolution is particularly timely.

This conference aims to encompass this wide variety of vital topics on virus evolution. In particular, the conference will bring together an international community of researchers that use various approaches (e.g., clinical research, mathematical modeling, laboratory experimental evolution, molecular biology, bioinformatics, immunology, biotechnology) to study a wide diversity of viruses that infect hosts including bacteria, protozoa, plants and animals. One of the goals will be to identify promising research questions for the field of virus evolution in the coming years.

Invited speakers
(provisional titles)

Samuel Alizon (Montpellier, France)
Why do viruses harm their hosts? The case of HPV

Raul Andino (San Francisco, USA)
RNA virus intrahost evolution and pathogenesis

Megan Baldridge (St Louis, USA)
Immune-mediated regulation of norovirus evolution in vivo

Monsef Benkirane (Montpellier, France)
Impact of 3D genome organization on HIV integration site selection

Ignacio Bravo (Montpellier, France)
Codon usage preferences and the evolution of viral lifestyles

Siobain Duffy (Rutgers, USA)
Constraints on host range expansion in RNA viruses

Christophe Fraser (Oxford, United Kingdom)
Virus and host signatures that affect the virulence of HIV-1

Fernando Garcia-Arenal (Madrid, Spain)
Host range evolution in heterogeneous environments

Clement Gilbert (Gif-sur-Yvette, France)
Horizontal transfer of genetic material between viruses and their hosts

Katia Koelle (Emory, USA)
Cooperation and defection in influenza virus populations

Eugene Koonin (Bethesda, USA)
Inevitability of genetic parasites and their key role in the evolution of life

Philippe Lemey (Louvain, Belgium)
Phylodynamic inference: from ancient evolutionary histories to contemporary outbreaks

Alice McHardy (Helmholtz, Germany)
Predicting the evolution of human influenza A viruses

Yannis Michalakis (Montpellier, France)
Living with a scattered genome: towards understanding multipartite viruses and their lifestyle

Marie-Agnes Petit (Jouy-en-Josas, France)
Bacteriophage growth in the mammalian intestine: how far and for how long?

Gwenael Piganeau (Banyuls, France)
Genomic insights into host-virus coexistence in phytoplankton

Thomas Pradeu (Bordeaux, France)
The dialogue between mutualistic viruses and the immune system

Andrew Read (Penn State, USA)
Viral virulence evolution in response to enhanced host defenses

Roland Regoes (Zürich, Switzerland)
Parallel evolution of HIV-1 in vitro and in vivo

Marilyn Roossinck (Penn State, USA)
Conditional Mutualism and How it Impacts Evolution

Carla Saleh (Paris, France)
Impact of innate immune pathways on Drosophila C virus diversity and evolution

Rafael Sanjuan (Valencia, Spain)
Social evolution of viruses

Pauline Scanlan (Cork, Ireland)
Specificity of bacteria-phage interactions in the human gut

Manuela Sironi (Bosisio Parini, Italy)
Zoonoses and the Red Queen (evolutionary genetics of zoonotic diseases)

Paul Turner (Yale, USA)
Leveraging evolutionary trade-offs and phage selection pressure to reduce bacterial pathogenicity

Stineke Van Houte (Exeter, United Kingdom)
Anti-CRISPR Phages Cooperate to Overcome CRISPR-Cas Immunity

Anne-Nathalie Volkoff (Montpellier, France)
Virus domestication in ichneumonid parasitic wasps

Lena Wilfert (Ulm, Germany)
Pollinators, plants and pathogens - interactions at a landscape level

Deadline for application : June 21, 2019

Registration fee (including board and lodging)

460 € for PhD students
650 € for other participants

Application for registration
The total number of participants is limited to 115 and all participants are expected to attend for the whole duration of the conference. Selection is made on the basis of the affinity of potential participants with the topics of the conference. Scientists and PhD Students interested in the meeting should deposit online before the deadline: https://cjm5-2019.sciencesconf.org

- their curriculum vitae
- the list of their main publications for the 3 last years
- the abstract of their presentation:

The abstract must respect the following template: TemplateResumeFile
- First line: title
- Second line: list of authors. Presenting author underlined
- Third line: author's addresses
- Fourth line: e-mail of the presenting author
Abstracts should be no longer than an A4 page and preferably be submitted in Times New Roman, font size 10 pts. No figures. ".docx" file format.

After the deadline, the organizers will select the participants. Except in some particular cases approved by the Chairperson, it is recommended that all selected participants present their work during the conference, either in poster form or by a brief in- session talk. The organizers choose the form in which the presentations are made. No payment will be sent with application. Information on how and when to pay will be mailed in due time to those selected.