Thank you for joining us at Berkeley Lab and virtually for our VEGA Symposium 2022!
WATCH select videos from the Symposium.
VEGA, Viral EcoGenomics & Applications
Hosted by the Joint Genome Institute (JGI), October 6 – 7, 2022, the goal of this series of seminars is to bring together a “Viral Ecogenomics” community to foster discussion on how to best capture and characterize uncultivated viruses, understand the role of viruses in natural ecosystems, and functionally explore viral genetic diversity toward innovative biotechnological and industrial applications.
All are welcomed to register and join this hybrid event – in person at the Lawrence National Berkeley Laboratory Campus, Bldg 50 Auditorium and virtually through Zoom.
Onsite attendee registration fees:
– General Attendee $150
– Student $100
The deadline to submit an abstract has passed.
Agenda and Speakers
Go here to see the full VEGA 2022 agenda.
Keynote Speakers
- Arvind Varsani, Arizona State University
- Kimberley Seed, UC Berkeley
- Paul Bollyky, Stanford Medicine
Other Confirmed Speakers
- Alison Buchan, University of Tennessee
- Alexander Probst, University of Duisburg-Essen
- Adair Borges, Arcadia Science
JGI Organizers
Jonelle Basso, Maureen Berg, Rex Malmstrom, Stephen Nayfach, Simon Roux, Frederik Schulz
External Co-Organizers
Joanne Emerson (UC Davis), Vivek Mutalik (LBNL), Ella Sieradzki (UC Berkeley), Katie Mageeney (Sandia National Lab)
Overview of the Symposium
The VEGA 2022 symposium aims to bring together a “viral ecogenomics” community to foster discussion on how to best capture and characterize uncultivated viruses, understand the role of viruses in natural ecosystems, and functionally explore viral genetic diversity toward innovative biotechnological and industrial applications. This 2022 edition will focus in particular on experimental innovations, computational advances, and other technological developments that will enable researchers to functionally characterize novel viral diversity and investigate virus-virus and virus-host interactions in nature. The symposium will also include organized discussion sessions to gather input from the community on the most pressing challenges faced by researchers in the viral ecogenomics fields.
Participants will notably be invited to open discussions designed to shape the future design of IMG/VR (the database of uncultivated viral genomes) to maximize its usefulness for the different actors in the field (i.e. gene-centric experimental approaches, ecosystem models, host-based evolutionary analysis, etc), as well as frame a potential viral-focused calls for projects at the JGI.