By Keith Cowing

Status Report

NASA RCN

December 5, 2025

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Filed under genomics, LIFE RCN, NASA, webinar

LIFE RCN Workshop

Join us for the 2025 NASA LIFE RCN Seminar Series
Time: Tuesday December 9th, 4 PM PT/7PM ET (Wednesday, December 10th 9 AM JST)
This month’s speakers are Prof. Gergely Szöll?si and Dr. Kai Tong!
Here is the Zoom link: https://cuboulder.zoom.us/j/96506145424#success

Prof. Gergely Szöll?si leads the Model-Based Evolutionary Genomics Unit at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (Japan).

During his scientific career so far Gergely has developed quantitative models addressing questions spanning different biological disciplines. Starting from a PhD in Biological Physics his most significant contributions have been developing and applying probabilistic models of genome evolution that have opened up possibilities to exploit previously untapped sources of phylogenetic information in genome-scale datasets and, more recently, in developing analytical models and stochastic simulations of somatic evolution.

The title of Prof. Szöll?si’s talk: Horror vacui and the seeming antiquity of root ages

Dr. Kai Tong is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Boston University. Dr. Tong received his bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences from Fudan University in 2017 and obtained his Ph.D. in Quantitative Biosciences from Georgia Institute of Technology in 2022, under the supervision of Dr. William Ratcliff. Since 2023, he has been conducting postdoctoral research in Dr. Ahmad (Mo) Khalil’s laboratory at the Biological Design Center, Boston University. His research focuses on the experimental evolution and synthetic biology of multicellular life, and he has published papers as first (including co-first) authors and co-corresponding authors in journals such as Nature and Current Opinion in Microbiology.

The title of Dr. Tong’s talk: Origin of cell differentiation and whole-genome duplication in the Multicellularity Long Term Evolution Experiment (MuLTEE)

Astrobiology

Keith Cowing

Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Station Payload manager/space biologist, Away Teams, Journalist, Lapsed climber, Synaesthete, Na’Vi-Jedi-Freman-Buddhist-mix, ASL, Devon Island and Everest Base Camp veteran, (he/him) ????????