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Thursday 1 March 2012

NCBS 2012 IV and end: WF Martin

The meeting closed by a spectacular show by William Martin. Clearly deeply involved in what he was presenting, Bill started by a thorough recapitulation of all evolutionary scenarios that have been proposed for the origin of the eukaryotes, starting back in 1910, a century ago. The presentation was very comprehensive and Bill's own style ensured the audience of a great show.
Bill went on to present his latest work, including the Evolutionary network of gene in eukaryotes where they present a new method to solve the evolution of eukaryotic genes based on a network of lateral gene transfer. This is based on the fact the the origin of much eukaryotic genes shared with prokaryotes are found all over the tree of life. The conclusions stress the importance of archaea and of mitochondria in the origin of eukaryotic genes, and thus of the eukaryotes.
Bill ended up by discussing the Energetics of genome complexity according to which eukaryogenesis was only possible thanks to the release of the energetic constraints on the genome due to the internalization of the mitochondria. We were even treated by evolutionary movies during the questions. In conclusion, a very complete, entertaining and stimulating presentation by Bill Martin.

There were many other very interesting talks at the conference, including M Munson on the exocyst, Mara Duncan on the linear motifs interaction in the clathrin adaptors, M Bettencourt-Dias on the centrosome, and Frances Brodsky on clathrin, amongst many others. However, time and space constraints and the subject of this blog don't allow me to describe them here. Contributions from other attendees are welcome to present those talks not covered here or even to correct, comment or contribute to the discussion of those covered. The conference itself was actually preceded and followed by tutorials on Cell biology and immunology as well as on Evolutionary and informatic approaches.

All together, a very interesting conference. As I said, one of the most interesting and most interactive I have been to. Thanks a lot to Frances Brodsky, Satyajit Mayor and Mukund Thattai for the organization and ensuring its success. Words are circulating that there might be a follow up to this one, may be in Europe in two years. I will certainly be looking forward to it.

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