Upcoming events hosted by or involving Genetics Otago will be listed here. Please check back regularly for updates. A calendar of events that may be of interest to our members can be found at the bottom of this page and in the sidebar of other pages on this site, please note that this includes events hosted outside of Genetics Otago.
GO Annual Symposium
Genetics Otago has partnered with the Australasian Epigenetics Alliance to bring the AEpiA Conference to NZ for the first time, held 1st – 5th December 2024. The GO Symposium will begin with a shared session with the AEpiA delegates on the morning of the 5th of December and will then continue in its regular format for the remainder of the day.
As usual, the Symposium will highlight the fantastic research being done by GO members from around the country through presentations, posters and awards.
Date: Thursday 5th December 2024
Time: 9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Venue: Hutton Theatre, Otago Museum (for those joining from Christchurch and Wellington – a venue will be confirmed soon).
Programme
A draft programme will be available here soon.
Registration
Registration for this event is now open via the button below.
Abstract submission is part of the registration process, all abstracts must be submitted by no later than 5:00 pm on the 14th of November. Registration will close at 12:00 noon on Wednesday 20th November. Please keep the link provided at the end of your registration to make changes to your responses up until the closing date.
Registration Fee
Due to budget constraints, we will be charging a $50 per person registration fee for all attendees to subsidise the costs associated with the Symposium. We have received confirmation that this registration fee can be paid from S accounts, and if you are in a position to make a donation on top of this fee, we would gladly receive it. However, we do not want the payment to be a barrier to attendance, so if you are not in a position to make a payment, please contact us go@otago.ac.nz.
Payment Methods
Payments from an S account (or other University account) can be journaled to Genetics Otago account GL.10.LH.A14.2541 via your finance associate. Please include the surname(s) of the registrants that the payment covers in the narration.
If you need to make payment using funds from outside the University this can be arranged via the Cashier’s Office. Please contact us for details (go@otago.ac.nz).
Awards
The Annual Genetics Otago Awards including The Genetics Otago Award, Outstanding Mentor Awards, Student Supervisor Award, Publication Awards, Poster Awards and Science Communication Prize will be presented at the conclusion of the Symposium and nominations for these are now open.
Award nominations close at 12:00 noon on Wednesday 20th November (except for Poster and Science Communication Awards which are at 5 pm 14th of November) and should be submitted by email to go@otago.ac.nz.
Full details of the awards can be found here: Award Details.
Calendar of Events
The below is a calendar of events hosted by GO as well as events hosted by others that may be of interest to our members. If you have an event you would like us to include please contact us here.
Please refer to the below pdf for details of speakers each week.
Psychiatric Genomics Consortium – What have we achieved and where are we going?
Dr Patrick Sullivan
Dr. Sullivan is the Yeargan Distinguished Professor in the Department of Genetics and Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also a Professor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. His research focuses on the molecular genetics of schizophrenia, depressive and eating disorders, and autism. Dr. Sullivan is a founder and the lead principal investigator of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, the largest consortium in the history of psychiatry and has recently launched the UNC Centre for Psychiatric Genomics.
Lecture begins at 5pm, preceded by drinks and canapes from 4pm.
Changes in our individual book of life – our DNA – can alter who we are and cause disease. Identifying and understanding changes in our DNA, and how they lead to conditions affecting brain development, is of immense importance.
In this talk, Professor of Paediatric Genetics Stephen Robertson, and Dr Adam O’Neill, Research Fellow, both of the University of Otago Department of Women’s and Children’s Health, address how this is being achieved, and outline the future applications of this work.
5.30pm, Tuesday 10 March
Hutton Theatre
Free admission
https://otagomuseum.nz/whats-on/do/programme-and-events/event/genetics-and-the-developing-brain
Associate Professor Elin Gray
Edith Cowan University, Perth
Title TBC.
This special seminar is being held in conjunction with the EUG Symposium to be held on the 13th March.
This event is open to all GO members.
Hosted by Genetics Otago, the 2nd EUG (Epigenetics User Group) Symposium is to be held on 13th March 2020 at the Hutton Theatre in Otago Museum. The Symposium will be preceded by a day of workshops on the 12th of March 2020.
The aim of the Symposium is to bring Epigenetics research and collaboration opportunities to all researchers from students through to principal investigators and as such the Symposium and associated workshops will be free of charge to all delegates.
Key Dates
Abstract Submission Deadline: 17th January 2020
Authors Advised: TBC
Registration Closes: 27th February 2020
More information here
Dr Felicity Newell
QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane
“The genomics of melanoma subtypes”
This special seminar is being held in conjunction with the EUG Symposium to be held on the 13th March.
Please refer to the below pdf for details of speakers each week.
Dr Brad Hurren (Department of Anatomy) “What is the ASERT group all about?” and Mr Tapekaoterangi Hakopa (Department of Anatomy) “Te Mātauranga Māori o te tinana – understanding the human body in te reo Māori/with a Māori world view.”
Professor Graham Wallis
Department of Zoology, University of Otago
Going under down under?
Molecular data provide no evidence for complete inundation of New Zealand during the Oligocene Marine Transgression.
The last 25 years have seen heated debate over whether there was continuous emergent land through the Oligocene “drowning” of current-day NZ some 25–23 million years ago. Such an event would imply that all terrestrial, freshwater and maybe coastal marine lineages must have dispersed here since. A compilation of 248 phylogeographic splits (i.e. molecular estimates of divergence times between NZ lineages and their closest overseas sister groups) follows a smooth exponential over the last 50 Ma or more. ~74 of these lineages appear to have survived the OMT in situ; some of these major lineages comprise multiple additional lineages as a result of autochthonous speciation prior to the OMT. Although extinction of closer
overseas lineages will cause overestimation of some splits, there is no evidence for a deficit of pre-Oligocene lineages, nor an excess of ones arriving just afterwards. Consequently, this large body of molecular data provides no evidence for complete inundation of NZ during the Oligocene.
