The 2007 Autumn One-day Meeting of the Genetics Society is devoted to Caenorhabditis elegans. This nematode worm has become established as one of the great model organisms, and is now studied intensively in hundreds of laboratories around the world. Two recent Nobel Prizes have been awarded for discoveries made with this system, in 2002 and 2006. New areas of investigation, new methods and new applications for research on C. elegans continue to emerge. This meeting will cover some of the diversity of current nematode science, along with exciting developments and future possibilities for research on the tiny but inexhaustible worm. There will be talks from eight leading C. elegans scientists, ending with the 2007 Mendel Medal Lecture, to be given by Nobel Laureate H. Robert Horvitz. Their subject areas include cell and developmental biology, neurobiology, gene control, genomics, immunity, evolution and cell death.

Scientific Programme

09.30 Registration and Coffee

10.00 Welcome & Introduction to Symposium.

Session 1. Chair: Jonathan Hodgkin (Oxford)

10.10 “Cell division in C. elegans embryos”
Anthony Hyman (MPI, Dresden)

10.50 “C. elegans as a system for understanding stem cells”
Judith Kimble (University of Wisconsin, Madison)

11.30 Tea/Coffee

Session 2. Chair: Lindy Holden-Dye (Southampton)

11.50 “C. elegans in an evolutionary context:
natural populations and vulva development variation”
Marie-Anne Felix (Institut Jacques Monod, Paris)

12.30 “Assembling a circuit for olfactory behavior”
Cornelia Bargmann (Rockefeller University, New York)

13.10 LUNCH

Session 3. Chair: David Gems (UCL, London)

14.30 “Innate immune responses in C. elegans”
Danielle Garsin (University of Texas, Houston)

15.10 “Worlds within the tiny RNA world “
Gary Ruvkun (Harvard/MGU, Boston)

15.50 Tea and Coffee

Session 4. Chair: Brian Charlesworth (Edinburgh)

16.20 “Mapping and predicting genetic interactions in the worm”
Andrew Fraser (Sanger Institute, Hinxton)

17.00 GENETICS SOCIETY MENDEL MEDAL LECTURE
“Genetic control of programmed cell death in C. elegans.”
H. Robert Horvitz (MIT, Cambridge MA)

18.20 WINE RECEPTION

Registration required:

Yes

Free:

No