Symposium History

CVG Symposium 2022: Pioneers and Rising Stars ~ June 7, 2022

Schurman Hall
8:30am - 5:30pm

The 2022 symposium included four seminar sessions, lunch, a poster session, and reception. Each session was chaired by a Cornell leader in genetics/genomics and featured two talks: one pioneer guest speaker and one Cornell rising star. A midday poster session highlighted the work of our CVG community graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. This event was a unique opportunity to hear from an incredibly creative and inspiring group of accomplished scientists.

Session 1: Gene Regulation and Genomics (Chairperson: John Lis)

• Dr. Kathrin Plath
  Professor, Dept. of Biological Chemistry
  David Geffen School of Medicine
  University of California, Los Angeles
• Dr. Effie Apostolou
  Associate Professor of Molecular Biology in Medicine
  Division of Hematology/Oncology
  Weill Cornell School of Medicine
  Cornell University

Session 2: Development and Genomics (Chairperson: Mariana Wolfner)

• Dr. Nenad Sestan
  Harvey and Kate Cushing Professor of Neuroscience
  Professor of Comparative Medicine, of Genetics, and of Psychiatry
  Executive Director, Genome Editing Center
  Yale School of Medicine
  Yale University
• Dr. Carolyn Adler
  Assistant Professor
  Department of Molecular Medicine
  College of Veterinary Meidince
  Cornell University

Session 3: Disease and Genomics (Chairperson: Bob Weiss)

• Dr. Olufunmilayo Olopade
  Associate Dean for Global Health
  Walter L. Palmer Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine and Human Genetics
  Director, Center for Clinical Cancer Genetics
  University of Chicago Medicine
• Dr. Charles Danko
  Associate Professor
  Department of Biomedical Sciences
  Baker Institute for Animal Health
  Cornell Univeristy

Session 4: Evolution and Population Genomics (Chairperson: Chip Aquadro)

• Dr. Brenna Henn
  Associate Professor
  Department of Anthropology
  Genome Center
  University of California, Davis
• Dr. Ilana Brito
  Assistant Professor
  Mong Family Sesquicentennial Faculty Fellow
  Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering
  Cornell Univeristy

Fourteenth Symposium ~ July 24, 2020

Virtual Symposium
8:00am - 5:30pm

In 2020, due to COVID-19, the CVG Symposium was held virtually with a full day of online activities. The event included lectures by an inspiring group of accomplished scientists, a blitz-style poster session, and breakout discussion groups.

Speakers

• Dr. Bradley Cairns
  2017 American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow
  Chair, Department of Oncological Sciences, Huntsman Cancer Institute
  University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah
• Dr. Vivian Cheung
  Professor of Human Genetics and the Life Sciences Institute
  University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
• Dr. Frank Pugh
  Distinguished Senior Recruit of the Provost's Genome Biology Initiative
  Professor, Department of Molecular Biology & Genetics
  Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
• Dr. Kathy Niakan
  2019 United Kingdom Blavatnik Award Finalist
  Group Leader, Stem Cell Biology
  Francis Crick Institute, London, United Kingdom
• Dr. Jenny Tung
  2019 MacArthur Fellow
  Associate Professor of Biology
  Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
• Dr. Andrew Moeller
  Assistant Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
  Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
• Dr. Greg Wray
  Director of Genomics and Computational Biology
  Professor of Biology
  Duke Univeristy, Durham, North Carolina
• Dr. Julie Makani
  2011 Winner of the Royal Society Africa Award
  Associate Professor of Haematology and Principal Investigator, SickleInAfrica
  Muhumbili University, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Thirteenth Symposium ~ July 16, 2018

Schurman Hall
8:30am - 5:00pm

In 2018, the CVG held a full day symposium in the newly renovated Schurman Hall of the College of Veterinary Medicine. The event also included a laptop poster session and reception held in Schurman's upper atrium.

Guest Speakers

• Dr. Francis Collins , Director, National Institutes of Health
• Dr. Julie Baker , Professor of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine
• Dr. Bing Ren , Professor of Cellular & Molecular Medicine, UC San Diego School of Medicine
• Dr. Martha Bulyk , Professor of Medicine, Professor of Pathology, Brigham & Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School

Member Speakers

• Dr. John Lis , Professor, Dept. of Molecular Biology and Genetics
• Dr. Nina Overgaard Therkildsen , Assistant Professor, Dept. of Natural Resources
• Dr. Hojoong Kwak , Assistant Professor, Dept. of Molecular Biology and Genetics

Twelfth Symposium ~ July 25, 2016

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology
8:30am - 5:00pm

Guest Speakers

• Dr. Matthew Breen, North Carolina State University
  The Domestic dog as model for cancer gene discovery.
• Dr. Judith Campisi, Buck Institute for Research on Aging
  Cancer and aging: Rival demons?
• Dr. Jeannie Lee, Harvard Medical School & Mass. General Hospital
  To Xist or Not: Lessons learned from X-chromosome inactivation

CVG Member Talks

• Dr. Andrew Bass, Dept. of Neurobiology & Behavior
  Neurogenomic Interrogation of Vocal-Acoustic Communication in Fishes
• Dr. Natasza Kurpios, Dept. of Molecular Medicine
  Transcriptional Controls and Cellular Interactions During Gut and Vascular Morphogenesis
• Dr. Shu-Bing Qian, Div. of Nutritional Sciences
  Swift and Selective: Translational Control in Stress Response

Eleventh Symposium ~ July 10, 2015

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology
8:30am - 5:00pm

In 2015, the CVG held an off-campus retreat at the Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology. This facility also houses part of the Cornell University Museum of Vertebrates (CUMV), and Dr. Irby Lovetter led CUMV tours for our retreat participants. The Retreat also included a laptop poster session. Another important part of the retreat was to convene working groups charged with assessing the Center's activities and future directions.

Guest Speakers

• Dr. Andras Nagy, Mount Sinai Hospital Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute and University of Toronto
  Pluripotency in the Artificial Cell Space
• Dr. Barbara Wold, Caltech
  Architecture and Evolution of Gene Networks

CVG Member Talks

• Dr. Adam Boyko, Dept. of Biomedical Sciences
  Evolution Unleashed: The patterning of phenotypic diversity and genetic variation in purebred and village dogs
• Dr. Ling Qi, Div. of Nutritional Science
  ER-Associated Degradation in Health and Disease: What can we learn from mouse models?
• Dr. Paul Soloway, Div. of Nutritional Science
  Enhancer Control of PolyA Site Selection
• Dr. Haiyuan Yu, Dept. of Biological Statistics and Computational Biology
  A Massively Parallel Pipeline to Examine Molecular Phenotypes of Human Disease Mutations

Tenth Symposium ~ July 10, 2014

Duffield Hall
3:00pm - 6:00pm

In 2014, the Center for Vertebrate Genomics (CVG) held an afternoon symposium in Duffield Hall, featuring two distiguished guest speakers, and a poster session to showcase the research of graduate students and post-doctoral fellows from CVG member labs.

Guest Speakers

• Dr. Arkhat Abzhanov, Harvard University
  Pecking at the Developmental Mechanisms of Morphological Change: Origin and Evolution of the Avian Skull
• Dr. Anthony Wynshaw-Boris, Case Western Reserve University
  Investigating the Pathophysiology of Neurogenetic Disease in Mouse and Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell Models

Ninth Symposium ~ July 11, 2013

Duffield Hall
10:00am - 5:30pm

Guest Speakers

• Dr. Gregory Barsh, Hudson Alpha Institute for Biotechnology
  Genetics of Color Variation: Model organisms in a post-genome world
• Dr. Karl J. Clark, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research
  Genetic Interrogation of the Vertebrate Stress Response System Using Zebrafish
• Dr. Dirk-Jan De Koning, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
  Integrated Approaches to Dissect Complex Traits in Chickens
• Dr. Nancy Jenkins, The Methodist Hospital Research Institute
  Harnessing Transposons for Cancer Gene Discovery
• Dr. Yana Kamberov, Harvard Medical School
  The Evolution of Human Skin: Lessons from the mouse

Eighth Symposium ~ July 12, 2012

Duffield Hall
3:00pm - 6:30pm

Guest Speakers

• Dr. Roger Reeves, John Hopkins University School of Medicine
  From Mice to Men, Translational Studies in Down Syndrome
• Dr. Philip Zamore, University of Massachusetts Medical School
  RNA Silencing

Seventh Symposium ~ July 12, 2011

Duffield Hall
10:00am - 5:30pm

Guest Speakers

• Dr. Joshua Akey, University of Washington
  Next generation human and canine genomics
• Dr. Raju Kucherlapati, Harvard Medical School
  Cancer Genetics and Genomics
• Dr. Cecilia Moens, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
  Cell movements underlying central nervous system morphogenesis in the zebrafish
• Dr. Nathan Sutter, Cornell University
  The Genetics of Body Size Variation in Domesticated Mammals
• Dr. David Threadgill, North Carolina State University
  Experimental modeling of population-level genetic variation from whole organisms to cells

Sixth Symposium ~ May 25, 2010

G10 Biotechnology Building
2:30pm - 5:30pm

In 2010, the CVG Symposium was combined with our annual member reception and a laptop poster session.

Guest Speakers

• Dr. Bruce Beutler, The Scripps Research Institute
  How Mammals Sense Infection
• Dr. George Church, Harvard Medical School

Fifth Symposium ~ July 14, 2009

Duffield Hall
9:30am - 5:00pm

Guest Speakers

• Dr. Mary Dickinson, Baylor College of Medicine
  Imaging form and function in cardiovascular development: where genetics and biomechanics meet
• Dr. Mary Donohoe, Weill Cornell Medical College
  An Epigenetic X Game: Proteins mediating X-chromosome pairing and choice
• Dr. Natasza Kurpios, Harvard Medical School
  Trust Your Gut Instincts: Asymmetric Cell Behavior and Cell Shape Specify the Direction of Intestinal Coiling
• Dr. Val Sheffield, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
  The Molecular Genetics of a Human Obesity Syndrome
• Dr. Robert Wayne, University of California at Los Angeles
  Evolutionary genomics of domestic and wild canids.

Fourth Symposium ~ July 8, 2008

Duffield Hall
9:30am - 5:30pm

Guest Speakers

• Dr. Susan Ackerman, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and The Jackson Laboratory
  Novel mechanisms of neurodegeneration revealed by forward genetics
• Dr. David Beier, Harvard Medical School
  Using mouse mutagenesis to study organogenesis, birth defects, and brain development
• Dr. Manolis Dermitzakis, Sanger Center, UK
  Population genetics and genomics of gene expression in humans and primates
• Dr. Kerstin Lindblad-Toh, Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT
  The power of canine disease gene mapping: lessons learnt
• Dr. Sarah E. Millar, University of Pennsylvania
  Wnt signals in the specification, regeneration and neogenesis of ectodermal appendages

Third Symposium ~ July 19, 2007

Duffield Hall
10:00am - 5:30pm

In 2007 the symposium included a large poster session and an awards dinner.

Guest Speakers

• Dr. Leif Andersson, Uppsala University, Sweden
  Monogenic traits in domestic animals - an underutilized resource for comparative genomics.
• Dr. Keith Cheng, Penn State College of Medicine
  Surprise Insights into the Mystery of Human Skin Color from Zebrafish
• Dr. Gary Churchill, The Jackson Laboratory
  On the subspecific origins of inbred mouse strains
• Dr. Andrew Clark, Cornell University
  Human Genetics in Qatar
• Dr. Monica Justice, Baylor College of Medicine
  Functional Annotation of Mouse Chromosome 11
• Dr. Elaine Ostrander, National Human Genome Research Institute
  Genetic Mapping of Complex Traits in the Domestic Dog

Second Symposium ~ July 20, 2006

Duffield Hall
10:00am - 5:30pm

Our second symposium moved to Duffield which provided a larger lecture hall, and more space for the poster session. An awards dinner followed the event.

Guest Speakers

• Dr. Maja Bucan, University of Pennsylvania
  Genetics and genomics of behavior in mice.
• Dr. Hopi Hoekstra, University of California at San Diego
  Molecular basis of adaptive color pattern in beach mice: from QTL to QTN
• Dr. K. Gordon Lark, University of Utah
  The secret life of canine QTLs: A peek at genome architecture
• Dr. Jeffrey Mogil, McGill University
  The Nature and Nurture of Pain
• Dr. Richard Young, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, MIT
  Transcriptional Regulatory Circuitry in Human Embryonic Stem Cells

First Symposium ~ July 14, 2005

Lecture Hall I, Schurman Hall
10:00am - 5:30pm

Our thanks to everyone who attended the very successful first CVG symposium, which included a poster session with over twenty posters and a banquet.

Guest Speakers

• Dr. Lorraine Flaherty, Wadsworth Center
  Understanding the genetics of behavior. The mouse as a model system.
• Dr. Harold "Skip" Garner, Jr., University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
  Directed discovery: Linking polymorphism to phenotype
• Dr. Michel Georges, Universitè de Liëge
  Epigenetic lessons from livestock: unraveling the molecular basis of polar overdominance at the ovine callipyge locus.
• Dr. Mary Mullins, University of Pennsylvania
  Maternal control of vertebrate development: molecular-genetics from the zebrafish
• Dr. Len A. Pennacchio, Joint Genome Institute
  Exploiting Comparative Genomics for Insights into Human Biology