EvoPAD Kick-off Symposium

On 17^th May 2017, the RTG EvoPAD held its Kick-off Symposium in glorious sunshine and summer temperatures at the Vom-Stein-Haus in Münster. The event opened with welcome addresses from Prof. Joachim Kurtz, Spokesperson of the RTG, and Prof. Michael Quante, Vice-Rector for Internationalization and Knowledge Transfer on behalf of the Rectorate of the WWU. Afterwards, Prof. Quante switched into his role as EvoPAD Philosophy PI and highlighted with his talk on “Ethics – lost in the lab?” once again how Philosophy and the Life Sciences will intertwine within EvoPAD. The second session of the symposium featured presentations by two promising junior scientists: Marjon de Vos from Wageningen University gave interesting insights into eco-evolutionary interactions in polymicrobial infections, while Christoph Preuss from The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor demonstrated how evolutionary principles improve our understanding of human disease and what role mouse models can play in this. The session was closed by Prof. Joachim Kurtz with a talk about his research on host-parasite coevolution and how this relates to the core research idea of EvoPAD. The final highlight of the symposium was a public lecture by Prof. Bert Hölldobler – Pulitzer Prize winner and member of the National Academy of Sciences – who offered a deep look into cooperation and conflict in ant societies and the concept of superorganisms. After an inspiring afternoon, the EvoPAD members enjoyed networking during a dinner at the Botanical Garden of the University.

We thank everybody who participated in Kick-off Symposium and helped make it a success!

Programme

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