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We are happy to announce that the PhD school on Evolution in
Computational Pangenomics will be held at the Lake Como School of
Advanced Studies, on
8-12 September 2024.

The school, sponsored by the MSCA-RISE Project PANGAIA (Pan-genome Graph
Algorithms and Data Integration) and the MSCA-ITN Alpaca, focuses on the
evolution aspects of Computational Pangenomics, guiding the transition
from linear genomes to graph-based representations.  The fundamental
task of capturing genetic variations  largely benefit from graph-based
pangenome representations: they summarize redundancies without
discarding individual differences and graphs lend themselves to data
structures and algorithms for pangenome analysis.
The main guiding questions driving the school are to determine
efficiently and accurately how human, tumor, virus, and bacteria
populations evolve, what are the computational aspects of different
models of evolution, how to analyze a pangenome to identify genetic
variants associated with human diseases, distinguishing them from the
plethora of neutral variants that arise from “healthy” evolution.

This school is an opportunity for interacting with the computational
pangenomics community of two European Research Networks, ALPACA and
PANGAIA.  The school provides a forum for being exposed to novel
approaches on how to push the shift from sequence to graph-based
representations of genomes.

The expected audience consists of PhD students and young researchers
that are interested in the new field of computational pangenomics and
that are eager to learn from world-renowned scientists.

The lecturers that have already confirmed their presence are:
*    Evan Eichler (Univ. of Washington, USA)
*    Dan Gusfield (UC Davis, USA)
*    Iman Hajirasouliha (Weill-Cornell Medicine, USA)
*    Layla Oesper (Carleton College, USA)
*    Manuela Sironi (IRCCS Medea, Italy)

The deadline for registering is June 15, and the application must
include a CV with a letter of intent. Only 25 students will be admitted
to the school, to guaranteed lively interactions.

The registration fee is 100 euros, lunches and coffee breaks are
included.
The registration form, together with other relevant information
(accommodation, traveling information, mode of payment,
instructions for students etc.) is available at

https://copa24.pangenome.eu/

Please feel free to forward this message to your colleagues and
students.

The school board

*    Paola Bonizzoni (Univ. Milano-Bicocca)
*    Gianluca Della Vedova (Univ. Milano-Bicocca)
*    Alex Schönhuth (Univ. Bielefeld, Germany)