Name:

Haruka Yamashita

School Year: Graduated in September 2022
Lab:

Evolutionary Genetics Laboratory

Conference: The Annual meeting of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution
23rd – 27th July 2023
Report:I had a great opportunity to attend the Annual Meeting of the Society for Molecular
Biology and Evolution 2023 (SMBE23) held at Ferrara, Italy. The city is relatively small
compared to surrounding big city (e.g., Bologna and Venice) and had a non-busy atmospherewhich I thought was a good character for the academic conference venue. Despite of humid
and hot weather throughout the conference days, I believe that many researchers, of course
including me, enjoyed exchanging latest findings and ideas in the meeting.
This conference covered a wide range of research topics such as theoretical works to
explain unexpectedly large proportion of advantageous changes in unicellular organisms,
field works to understand adaptations to extreme environments, and population genomics
analyses to understand protein evolution.
I was able to have fruitful discussions in poster
sessions. I gave a poster presentation to report our recent
analyses of evolutionary forces shaping GC content in
Drosophila (Fig. 1). We showed the variations of GC
content of introns and four-fold redundant sites within
CDS in D. melanogaster, consistent with previous studies.
Our population genomics analyses suggest that directional
forces may not fully explain the GC content variation andwe may need to account for the heterogeneity in mutation
bias. During the presentation, I was able to interact withresearchers who have been working on GC content
evolution in Drosophila and other species. They kindly
gave me suggestions about datasets which are essential forFigure 1. Discussion with aresearcher during the posterpresentation.
Kitano-sensei kindly took thisphoto.

my future studies.
Aside from the evolutionary genetics research topics, there were several symposiums
related to topics to improve the society (e.g., IDEA, publication fees). I was able to attend a
symposium for celebrating Nei-sensei’s career, which was held at City Theater (Fig. 2).

Although the symposium was held at a
relatively late nighttime (20:45 –22:15), City Theater was almost filledwith people to listen to the memoriesof researchers who worked with Neisensei. I understood that Nei-senseiwas very kind and helpful to his
students and co-workers and madeconsiderable effort to facilitate thedevelopment of the Molecular
Evolution field (e.g., founded
Molecular Biology and Evolution andFigure 2. City Theater just before an opening ceremony.
The resolution is lowered from the original image to prevent
individuals from being identified.

the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution). One of the most impressive Nei-sensei’s
research attitudes many speakers were emphasizing was that Nei-sensei acknowledged theimportance of thinking simply and its relationship with clear writing.
Attending this meeting was impossible without “the travel support for the students of theGenetics Program, SOKENDAI to attend and give a presentation at an international meeting
held abroad”. I am immensely grateful for the financial assistance, which allowed me to share
our group’s effort and findings with researchers who engaged with similar problems.

Figure 3. Scenery from Estense Castle.
I visited Estense Castle which is the house of the Este family who dominated Ferrara between the 13th and 16
century. This picture is from the top of the castle overlooking Ferrara.