Sequencing of whole genomes has become a routine task and large-scale projects are underway that ultimately aim at sequencing all life on earth. This data is complemented with genomes emerging from the sequencing of viruses, and of metagenomes often with unknown taxonomic composition. Together, this amounts to an unprecedented resource which will allow profound insights into the evolution of sequences and their functions, as well as into how this connects to the functional diversity of contemporary and extinct organisms and viruses, including their metabolic capacities and pathogenic potential. The identification of related sequences in different species whose evolutionary lineages were separated by a speciation event, orthologs, forms the foundation of these analyses.

QfO 7 will focus on novel challenges in the quest for orthologs. Topics include, but are not limited to, deep orthology in the light of recent improvements in 3D structure modelling, machine learning methods in orthology inference, ortholog identification in viruses, and the application of orthology inference in large-scale biodiversity genomics projects. We welcome contributions either as oral presentations or posters connected to these topics as well as from all areas directly or indirectly related to orthology inference. Part of the meeting will be held as a workshop under the umbrella of the European Conference on Computational Biology (ECCB) 2022 (https://eccb2022.org/ntb-w11/)

The Quest-for-Orthologs (QfO) consortium is an open community of researchers interested in a diverse set of topics related to orthology inference. The biannual consortium meeting is open to everybody interested in orthology inference to share and discuss recent advances in the field, discuss novel strategies, and to identify open challenges that deserve particular attention in the upcoming years. 

Submission Guidelines

We welcome abstracts for both oral contrbution and posters describing original studies related to all topics in the field of orthology inference. Please limit your abstract to 300 words with no subheadings. 

List of Topics

Possible topics include, but are not limited to

• deep orthology
• orthologs in viruses
• orthology and function
• benchmarking approaches
• community standards

Committees

Organizing committee

• Ingo Ebersberger, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany; LOEWE Centre For Translational Biodiversity Genomics, Frankfurt Germany
• Michael Hiller, Senckenberg Society for Nature Research, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; LOEWE Centre for Translational Biodiversity Genomics, Frankfurt, Germany
• Thomas Rattei, University Vienna, Austria
• Paul D. Thomas, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA
• Sofia K. Forslund, Max-Delbrück-Centre for Molecular Medicine, Berlin, Germany

Venue

The conference will be held in the Hotel Melia, Sitges, Spain

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to ebersberger@bio.uni-frankfurt.de

Sponsors

The conference is financially supported by the LOEWE Centre for Translational Biodiversity Genomics (TBG), Frankfurt, Germany