Research summary: Sudhir Kumar works at the interface of molecular evolution, computational biology and biomedicine. His group develops statistical methods and software to infer molecular phylogenies, divergence times, ancestral sequences and adaptive evolution, and applies them to pathogenic mutations and tumour evolution. A central aim is to link patterns in large genomic datasets to the processes that produced them and to use evolutionary knowledge for biomedical prediction.

Background: Carnell Professor of Biology and Director of iGEM at Temple University. He leads the development of widely used resources for evolutionary biology, including the MEGA software for molecular evolutionary analysis and the TimeTree database of species divergence times.

Research summary:  Emma Teeling studies the evolution, genomics and longevity of bats. Her group uses phylogenomics and comparative genomics to resolve the evolutionary history of bats and to uncover the molecular mechanisms behind their exceptional longevity and disease tolerance, with potential implications for human ageing, deafness and blindness. She leads the ERC Synergy project BATPROTECT, which investigates bats as models of healthy ageing and disease tolerance.

Background: She obtained her BSc in Zoology at UCD, an MSc at the University of Edinburgh and a PhD in molecular phylogenetics at Queen’s University Belfast, followed by postdoctoral research at the US National Cancer Institute. Returning to UCD in 2005, she founded the “BatLab” and, in 2008, the Centre for Irish Bat Research; she is now Full Professor of Zoology. She co-founded and directs Bat1K, an initiative to sequence the genomes of all living bat species, and is a member of the Royal Irish Academy.

Research summary: Tom Gilbert works in palaeogenomics, evolutionary genomics and hologenomics. His research uses ancient and modern DNA to reconstruct the evolutionary history of organisms and investigates how hosts and their associated microbial communities evolve together as integrated units.

Background: He received his BA (2000) and DPhil (2004) from the University of Oxford, followed by postdoctoral research at the University of Arizona on some of the earliest HIV-1-infected tissue samples. He joined the University of Copenhagen in 2005, became Professor of Palaeogenomics in 2011 and in 2020 founded the Center for Evolutionary Hologenomics, which he directs. He is also affiliated with the NTNU University Museum (Norway) and is a member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters.

Research summary:  Current research in Mara’s group spans human malaria vector population genomics to wider biodiversity genomics. She currently leads multiple large projects including the Malaria Cell Atlas, BIOSCAN in the UK, and ANOSPP projects. She is also involved as a founding member in the Darwin Tree of Life project, the Biodiversity Cell Atlas Initiative, and Biodiversity Genomics Europe. All areas of her research areas are aimed at studying evolutionary genomics while simultaneously creating valuable data resources for the wider community.

Background: Mara Lawniczak is an evolutionary geneticist and senior group leader at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. She received her PhD in Population Biology from University of California, Davis and then moved to the UK for postdoctoral research at University College London and Imperial College London, where she also started her faculty group. She moved to Sanger in 2014. 

Research summary: Benjamin Loppin studies the unusual organisation of sperm chromatin in animals and how it affects the transmission of paternal chromosomes to the zygote. Using functional genetics in Drosophilids, his team identifies rare parental-effect mutants that disrupt paternal chromosomes at the onset of embryo development. Current topics include genetic conflicts in the male germline, the mechanism of Wolbachia-induced cytoplasmic incompatibility and the evolution of sperm chromatin components in insects.

Background: CNRS Research Director at ENS de Lyon. His team is also developing the cricket Gryllus bimaculatus as an emerging insect model complementary to fly genetics.

Research summary: Andrea Betancourt studies the genetic basis of adaptation and how populations respond to rapidly changing environments. She investigates how sex, recombination and sex linkage influence adaptation, and how genomes respond to invasions by transposable elements, including the spread of the sterility-inducing P-element through a Drosophila population. Her work combines experimental and evolutionary genetic approaches to study adaptation at the genomic level.

Background: Professor of Evolutionary Genetics at the University of Liverpool.

Research summary: Diego Santos-Garcia studies the evolution of insect–microbe symbioses, focusing on the long-term association between whiteflies and their bacterial endosymbionts. Combining comparative genomics, phylogenomics, microbiology, functional genetics and microscopy, he asks how hosts cope with symbiont genome degradation, how nutritional functions are redistributed among partners, and how facultative associations become obligate. His current work within the ANR project HONEST examines how whiteflies adapt to genome instability in their primary endosymbiont Candidatus Portiera aleyrodidarum, focusing on horizontal gene transfer and changes in bacteriocyte inheritance.

Background: He obtained his BSc, MSc and PhD (2014) in Genetics at the University of Valencia, where his thesis on whitefly–bacteria symbioses received the Extraordinary Doctorate Award. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2015–2019) and the University of Lyon 1 (from 2019), and a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow (2021–2023) working on interactions among whiteflies, bacterial symbionts and plant viruses. Since 2023, he has been a permanent research scientist at INRAE (CBGP, Montpellier).

Research summary: Research carried out by Sara Magalhães encompasses population dynamics, behavioural ecology, evolutionary ecology and evolutionary genetics. She leads the research group "Evolution of host-parasite interactions", which addresses the interaction between herbivorous spider mites and their host plants, bacterial symbionts or competitors. She is currently focussing on the role of individual variation and eco-evolutionary feedbacks on the outcome of coinfections.

Background: She obtained her PhD from the University of Amsterdam (2004), testing food web theory in predator-herbivore-plant systems. After a Marie Curie post-doc at the University of Montpellier on the experimental evolution of host range in spider mites and another at the Gulbenkian Science Institute the fitness effects of mutations during experimental evolution of E. coli. She then moved to the Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Sciences (CE3C) in 2008, having become Assistant Professor in 2016 and Full Professor in 2024. She is currently the president of CE3C and is the president-elect of the European Society of Evolutionary Biology.

Research summary: 

Background: 

Research summary: Fyodor Kondrashov studies how living systems evolve and how evolutionary principles can be used to design new biological systems. His work combines evolutionary genomics, theoretical and computational biology, fieldwork, and experimental and synthetic biology, with topics ranging from genome evolution to endangered Arctic bird species.

Background: Professor at OIST, previously at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA). Scientific Director of the School of Molecular and Theoretical Biology (SMTB).

Research summary: Krystyna Nadachowska-Brzyska studies the processes that shape genetic variation in natural populations, focusing on how genome architecture, especially structural variants such as chromosomal inversions, influences adaptation and evolution. Her current research centres on bark beetles: the genomic basis of their adaptation, speciation and ecological success, and how structural variants and extreme population-size fluctuations in outbreaking species shape neutral and adaptive variation.

Background: Evolutionary biologist at Jagiellonian University. Using population and comparative genomics and demographic inference, she has worked on speciation with gene flow in amphibians and birds, MHC variation in newts, glaciation-linked changes in effective population size in birds, and selection on sex chromosomes, with particular attention to how data quality affects evolutionary inference.

Research summary:

Background:

Research summary: Dmitri Petrov studies the population genetics and genomics of adaptation and genome evolution: how natural selection, mutation and transposable elements shape genetic variation and genome structure in natural populations. Using computational and genomic approaches in Drosophila, yeast and other organisms, his work asks how genomes evolve and how populations adapt to changing conditions.

Background: He received his PhD in Biology from Harvard University (1997) and was a Junior Fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows (1997–2000). He joined Stanford in 2000 and became full professor in 2011. He is now the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor of Biology and Associate Chair of the Department of Biology, and since 2015 has led Stanford’s Program for Conservation Genomics.

Research interests: Natalia Volkova works in experimental and molecular genetics, with interests in developmental and behavioural genetics, the genetic basis of phenotypic variation and genotype–environment interactions. Using Drosophila melanogaster as a model, she studies how genetic background, mutations and environmental factors affect viability, reproductive traits, behaviour and lifespan. Her work also includes molecular analysis of polymorphisms and genetic markers associated with complex phenotypes, and in silico approaches to gene and protein structure and function.

Background: She received her PhD in Genetics in 2008 and has worked at the Department of Genetics and Cytology, Karazin University, since 2007, first as a research fellow and from 2013 as associate professor. She has headed the department since 2025 and served as Deputy Dean for Academic Affairs in 2020–2025. She curates the department’s Drosophila Strain Collection, a national heritage site, and has co-organised the “Drosophila in Experimental Genetics and Biology” conferences and the Ukrainian School in Evolutionary Biology (2005). She has also contributed to the certification of forensic experts in molecular genetic analysis for the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine and has long mentored school students through Biology Olympiads and the Junior Academy of Sciences.

Research summary: Oleksandr Zinenko applies molecular methods to ecology and biodiversity research, translating traditional taxonomic expertise into DNA-based identification through DNA barcoding, metabarcoding and environmental DNA (eDNA). His current interests include the genomics of rapid range expansion and biological invasions, fungal pathogens of animals with pandemic potential, the genomics of rapidly evolving groups such as European vipers, cytonuclear coevolution and incompatibility, and the rescue and digitisation of museum specimens.

Background: Zoologist; member of the European Reference Genome Atlas (ERGA) and President of the Ukrainian Herpetological Society.

Research summary: Svitlana Serga studies the ecology and evolution of interactions between insects and their microbial symbionts, particularly Wolbachia in Drosophila. Combining field sampling, experimental crosses, molecular methods and genomic analyses, she investigates how host genetic variation and symbionts affect reproduction and fitness. She also leads a research programme in Ukraine on Drosophilidae diversity and host–microbe interactions across urban and non-urban environments.

Background: She trained in genetics in Ukraine and completed her PhD (2012) on reproductive parasites in natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster and their effects on host genetic processes. Since 2022, she has worked in France on host genetic modulation of Wolbachia-induced cytoplasmic incompatibility in Drosophila suzukii, while continuing to teach genetics and genomics, supervise students and coordinate research at Karazin University.

Research summary: Oleksandr Maistrenko studies microbial evolution and ecology using metagenomics and pangenomics. His work addresses within-species diversity of bacteria and archaea, the global biogeography of microbial genes, mobile genetic elements carrying antibiotic resistance, strain dynamics in the human gut and host–microbiome interactions. He has also contributed to large public resources for microbial genomics, including proGenomes and SPIRE.

Background: He received his BSc in Biology and MSc in Genetics from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, with a master’s thesis on Wolbachia diversity in Ukrainian Drosophila melanogaster populations, and an MSc in Genomics and Bioinformatics from North Dakota State University as a Fulbright scholar (2016). He completed his PhD (2020) at EMBL and the University of Würzburg on bacterial pangenomes and their use in metagenomics, then worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) on archaeal population genomics before joining the University of Amsterdam.

Research summary: Taras Oleksyk is a human population geneticist working to fill gaps in knowledge of genetic diversity in Ukraine and Eastern Europe, regions long underrepresented in global genomic studies. He led the first survey of genome diversity in Ukraine and now leads a large genome-wide study of type 1 diabetes in Ukraine funded by the Helmsley Charitable Trust. His interests also include the genetics of common and rare diseases.

Background: A native of Uzhhorod, he previously worked in Puerto Rico and joined Oakland University in 2018, where he is associate professor of biological sciences. He is one of the driving forces behind the genomics centre and molecular genetics laboratory at Uzhhorod National University, developed through a partnership with Oakland University since 2019. In 2024–25 he was a US Fulbright Scholar in Poland, studying genetic diversity in Eastern Europe with colleagues in Kraków and Gliwice.

Research interests: Ecology, diversity and distribution of macrofungi; environmental DNA; species distribution modelling; remote sensing and machine learning; habitat and vegetation mapping; GIS and biodiversity informatics; conservation biology.

Background: Mycologist and ecologist (PhD in Mycology, 2018). He heads the Laboratory for Natural Ecosystem Monitoring at Askania Nova and previously spent 12 years as associate professor at V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University. His work on habitat mapping and conservation spans Ukraine and Europe. Head of the Ukrainian delegation to GBIF and author of 30+ peer-reviewed publications.

Research interests: Population genetics, human genetics and archaeogenetics. Her current MSCA4Ukraine project (EU Horizon 2020) studies genetic, social and cultural diversity in Iron Age settlements of the Ukrainian forest-steppe.

Background: Doctor of Biological Sciences and Professor at the Department of Genetics and Cytology, Karazin University, where she has worked since 2005 (professor since 2017), and researcher at the Institute of Genomics, University of Tartu. She has taken part in several international and national projects on the population genetics of Ukraine, including the Genographic Project. Author of 47 papers, co-author of two university textbooks and three school biology textbooks.

Research summary:

Background:

Research summary: Khrystyna Shchubelka works at the intersection of human genetics, genomic medicine, and clinical research. She serves as the Ukrainian coordinator of one of the world's largest genomic studies of type 1 diabetes, investigating the genetic architecture of the disease and its implications for precision medicine. Her research focuses on identifying genetic factors contributing to complex and rare disorders, interpreting genomic variation, and translating advances in genome sequencing into clinical practice. A central aim of her work is to bridge large-scale genomic research with practical healthcare, improving molecular diagnosis and personalized treatment for patients with rare genetic diseases.

Background: Khrystyna Shchubelka holds two PhD degrees, in Medicine from Uzhhorod National University, Ukraine, and in Biological and Biomedical Sciences from Oakland University, USA. She is a practicing clinical geneticist specializing in the diagnosis, clinical management, and personalized treatment of rare genetic disorders, particularly neurodevelopmental and hereditary metabolic conditions. Combining clinical practice with international genomic research, she contributes to the development of genomic medicine in Ukraine and the integration of advanced genetic diagnostics into routine patient care.