Events
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.
Logan Walker IPL
Preparing for the future of genetic health
Logan is a cancer geneticist and the current Associate Dean Research, at the University of Otago Christchurch. His research focuses on understanding the impact of genetic changes on health. After completing post-doctoral training in Australia, and returning to the University of Otago, his research programme was significantly strengthened by being awarded a Sir Charles Hercus Health Research Fellowship (Health Research Council) followed by a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship (Royal Society Te Apārangi).
He is an invited member of several international groups tasked with improving protocols for genetic testing around the world. This work includes developing RNA diagnostic guidelines for both the clinical and research setting, and providing expert advice about the implementation of these guidelines and the interpretation of genetic test results. In collaboration with multiple international consortia, he has also contributed to and led some of the largest genetic association studies to discover inherited DNA copy number changes that increase or decrease susceptibility to cancer.s.
Date: Tuessday, 11th March 2025
Time: 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm
Venue: Rolleston Lecture Theatre, Christchurch Campus (and via Zoom)
AlphaFold for Geneticists
The AlphaFold for Geneticists workshop will introduce participants to the AI tool AlphaFold. Attendees will learn how to run AlphaFold on their chosen variant and interpret outputted results. Led by experts Prof Peter Mace and Dr Adam Middleton, the session will provide insight into the strengths and limitations of AlphaFold. Further details will be provided to registrants.
Date: Monday, 24th March 2025
Time: 9:00 am – 12:00 pm
Venue: TBC, Dunedin Campus
This workshop is now full, please email go@otago.ac.nz if you would like to be added to the waitlist.
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.
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.
Please refer to the below pdf for details of speakers each week.
Presented by Professor Birgitta Tomkinson, visiting academic from Uppsala University. The title of her talk will be “Tripeptidyl-peptidase II: An interesting enzyme involved in intracellular protein turnover, antigen presentation, MS and more”,
Please refer to the below pdf for details of speakers each week.
Please email bioc.reception@otago.ac.nz to RSVP for this event by 25th March and contact Iain Lamont if you are interested in presenting. More details in the attached poster:
Please refer to the below pdf for details of speakers each week.
Please refer to the below pdf for details of speakers each week.
Please refer to the below pdf for details of speakers each week.
Please refer to the below pdf for details of speakers each week.
Please refer to the below pdf for details of speakers each week.