Sept. 24-25, 2026
Georgia Tech | Parker H. Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience
Suddath Seminar Room 1128 (unless otherwise noted)
Thursday, September 24
| 8 a.m. | Continental breakfast | Check-in | Poster Setup | ||
| 9 a.m. | Welcome and Introductions - Frank Rosenzweig, Georgia Tech | ||
Session I: Metabolism
| 9:10 a.m. | "Keeping the Battery Charged: CO-Based Maintenance Metabolism in ANME-SRB Consortia when Methane Is Limiting" | Victoria Orphan | California Institute of Technology |
| 9:40 a.m. | "Adaptive Laboratory Evolution Reveals Diverse Strategies for Metabolic Innovation in Gamma-Proteobacteria" | Shelley Copley | University of Colorado Boulder |
| 10:10 a.m. | "Multiple Metabolic Solutions Evolve in ∆pdxB E. coli to Restore PLP Biosynthesis" | Daniel Hassell | University of Colorado Boulder |
| 10:30 a.m. | Break | ||
| 10:50 a.m. | "Simulation of Ligand Dynamics Within Enzyme Substrate Tunnels" | Colin Welsh | Georgia Tech |
| 11:10 a.m. | "Methanogenesis When CO2 is Scarce" | Alta Howells | University of Colorado Boulder |
| 11:40 a.m. | "Cyanobacterial Biofilms, Carbon Flow, and Probing the Initiation of Stromatolite Lithification" | Catherine Fontana | University of Colorado Boulder |
| 12 p.m. | Lunch and Posters - Nerem Atrium | ||
Session II: Cell Biology
| 12:45 p.m. | "Parasitic Pacearchaeota Nano Archaea Co-Occur in Long Term Anaerobic Methane-Oxidizing Enrichment Cultures from a Deep-Sea Methane Seep" | Yurina Hashimoto | California Institute of Technology |
| 1:05 p.m. | "A Bacterial Endosymbiont with a Highly Reduced Genome Forms Extensive Membrane Contact Sites with Host Organelles" | Dalton Leprich | Arizona State University |
| 1:25 p.m. | "Biomolecular Condensates: Nature’s Conformational Computer" | David Lynn | Emory University |
| 1:55 p.m. | "Eukaryogenesis as Viewed Through the Lens of Cellular Homeostasis and Paleoproterozoic Geochemistry" | Zachary Adam | University of Wisconsin-Madison |
| 2:30 p.m. | Break | ||
Session III: Early Life
| 3 p.m. | "Excavating Traces of Ancient Biochemistry in Modern Enzymes with Deep Learning" | Joshua Goldford | Dayhoff Institute |
| 3:30 p.m. | "Mirror Coding of Life's Earliest Machinery" | Jess Warren | Arizona State University |
| 4 p.m. | "Evolution as a Learning Process and Implications for the Nature of the Origins of Life" | Tony Burnetti | Georgia Tech |
| 4:30 p.m. | Poster Session | ||
| 6 - 8 p.m. | Group dinner (cash bar) at midtown restaurant - location tbd | ||
Friday, September 25
| 8 a.m. | Continental breakfast | |||
Session IV: Biogeochemistry
| 9 a.m. | "Unraveling Mysteries of Metallome Evolution: The Curious Case of Molybdenum" | Ariel Anbar | Arizona State University |
| 9:30 a.m. | "Compartmentalization in the Cryogenian: The Isotopic Consequences of Living Large" | Boswell Wing | University of Colorado Boulder |
| 10 a.m. | "Microbial Compartmentalization of Anaerobic Heterotrophy Forms a Bottleneck in the Earth's Carbon Cycle" | Elliott Mueller | University of Colorado Boulder |
| 10:30 a.m. | Break | ||
Session V: Multicellularity
| 11 a.m. | "Multicellular is Different" | Peter Yunker | Georgia Tech |
| 11:30 a.m. | "Exploring the Origin of Multicellularity in Real Time: What We've Learned from 10,000 Generations of Laboratory Evolution" | Will Ratcliff | Georgia Tech |
| 12 p.m.* | Lunch and Posters - Nerem Atrium* | *ICAR Co-Investigators Business Meeting - Exec. Conference Room 1107 | |
| 1:30 p.m. | "From Microscopic to Macroscopic Size: Long-Term Experimental Evolution of Multicellularity in Yeast" | Ozan Bozdag | Georgia Tech |
| 2 p.m. | "Density-Dependence in the Evolution of Coming-Together Multicellularity" | Mike Travisano | University of Minnesota |
| 2:30 p.m. | Break | ||
| 3 p.m. | "The Entrenchment of Multicellularity: Group-Specific Adaptation Limits Evolutionary Reversion to Unicellularity" | Peter Conlin | Georgia Tech |
| 3:20 p.m. | "Plastic Responses to the Environment Can Mediate the Evolution of Cellular Specialization" | Dinah Davison | Augusta University |
| 3:40 p.m. | "Theory, Experiment, and Fossil Record of the Origin and Early Evolution of Animals" | Carl Simpson | University of Colorado Boulder |
| 4:10 p.m. | Closing Remarks - Frank Rosenzweig, Lynn Kamerlin | ||
| 4:20 p.m.* | Posters and Snacks - Nerem Atrium* | *Multicellularity Contributors Meeting - Exec. Conference Room 1107 | |
| 5:20 p.m. | Adjourn | ||