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Function of Evolving Systems

Gordon Research Conference

Understanding, Predicting, and Controlling Functional Outcomes of Biological Systems in the Context of the Rapid Eco-Evolutionary Dynamics

August 9 - 14, 2026

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GRC Education Requirements: Undergraduates or those who have not obtained a bachelor's degree in science/engineering (or acceptable equivalent) are not eligible to apply to attend Gordon Research Conferences or Seminars.

Chairs

and

Vice Chairs

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Waterville Valley

56 Packard's Road

Waterville Valley, New Hampshire, United States

Venue and Travel Information

Application Information

The application deadline for this meeting was July 12, 2026. You may still submit an application, which may be considered by the conference chair if there is still room available.

Conference Description

The Function of Evolving Systems GRC is a premier, international scientific conference focused on advancing the frontiers of science through the presentation of cutting-edge and unpublished research, prioritizing time for discussion after each talk and fostering informal interactions among scientists of all career stages. The conference program includes an array of speakers and discussion leaders from institutions and organizations worldwide, concentrating on the latest developments in the field. The conference is five days long and held in a remote location to increase the sense of camaraderie and create scientific communities, with lasting collaborations and friendships. In addition to premier talks, the conference has designated time for poster sessions from individuals of all career stages, and afternoon free time and communal meals allow for informal networking opportunities with leaders in the field.

It is becoming clear that one cannot understand how biological systems function without understanding the nature and the impacts of rapid evolutionary dynamics within ecological communities. This conference will bring together researchers across traditionally disparate disciplines of Evolution & Ecology, Functional Biology (e.g. Cancer Biology, Immunology, Virology etc), Physics, Statistics, and Engineering as well as traditionally disparate systems such as microbial ecology and tissue biology to discuss how to investigate and control biological function within the necessary complex and dynamical eco-evolutionary context with the goal of arriving at emergent simplicity of understanding.

Conference Program

Sunday
2:00 pm - 9:00 pm	Arrival and Check-in
6:00 pm - 7:00 pm	Dinner
7:30 pm - 7:40 pm	Introductory Comments by GRC Staff / Welcome and Introduction from the Chairs
7:40 pm - 9:30 pm	Keynote Session: Predicting Structure and Function in Microbiomes Discussion Leader:
7:40 pm - 7:50 pm	Introduction by Discussion Leader
7:50 pm - 8:30 pm	"Learning Functional Groups in Complex Microbiomes"
8:30 pm - 8:40 pm	Discussion
8:40 pm - 9:20 pm	"Predicting Gut Microbial Community Assembly Across Nutritional Environments"
9:20 pm - 9:30 pm	Discussion
Monday
7:30 am - 8:30 am	Breakfast
9:00 am - 12:30 pm	Eco-Evolutionary Dynamics: Feedbacks Between Ecology and Evolution Discussion Leader:
9:00 am - 9:10 am	Introduction by Discussion Leader
9:10 am - 9:30 am	"Large Combinatorial Strain Diversity from Frequency-Dependent Selection and its Role in Ecological Resilience"
9:30 am - 9:40 am	Discussion
9:40 am - 9:50 am	"Predictable Evolution of Interactions in Microbiomes"
9:50 am - 9:55 am	Discussion
9:55 am - 10:15 am	"Rapid Evolution and Species Coexistence: From Theory to Empirical Evidence in an Orchard Fly System"
10:15 am - 10:25 am	Discussion
10:25 am - 10:55 am	Group Photo / Coffee Break
10:55 am - 11:05 am	"Cross-Feeding and Competition Differentially Shape Microbial Mutant Fitness by Altering Resource Limitation"
11:05 am - 11:10 am	Discussion
11:10 am - 11:30 am	"Functional Redundancy and Strain-Level Diversity in Complex Microbial Communities"
11:30 am - 11:40 am	Discussion
11:40 am - 11:50 am	"Genetic Variation Among Strains Impacts Within but not Between Species Interactions"
11:50 am - 11:55 am	Discussion
11:55 am - 12:05 pm	"Growth Rate and Yield are not Constrained by a Trade-off in Microbes"
12:05 pm - 12:10 pm	Discussion
12:10 pm - 12:30 pm	General Discussion
12:30 pm - 1:30 pm	Lunch
1:30 pm - 4:00 pm	Free Time
4:00 pm - 6:00 pm	Poster Session
6:00 pm - 7:00 pm	Dinner
7:30 pm - 9:30 pm	Ecology and Evolution of the Gut Microbiome Discussion Leader:
7:30 pm - 7:40 pm	Introduction by Discussion Leader
7:40 pm - 8:00 pm	"Pervasive Gene-Specific Selective Sweeps Spreading across Human Gut Microbiomes"
8:00 pm - 8:10 pm	Discussion
8:10 pm - 8:20 pm	"Phylosymbiosis, Convergent Evolution and Cohabitation: Taxonomic and Functional Overlap in the Gut Microbiota of Humans, Mice, and Cockroaches"
8:20 pm - 8:25 pm	Discussion
8:25 pm - 8:35 pm	"Negative Frequency-Dependent Selection Promotes Within-Species Coexistence in Complex Microbial Communities"
8:35 pm - 8:40 pm	Discussion
8:40 pm - 9:00 pm	"Emergent Dynamics of Multispecies Communities"
9:00 pm - 9:10 pm	Discussion
9:10 pm - 9:30 pm	General Discussion
Tuesday
7:30 am - 8:30 am	Breakfast
9:00 am - 12:30 pm	Escaping Immunity: Viral Adaptation and Antibody Pressure Discussion Leader:
9:00 am - 9:10 am	Introduction by Discussion Leader
9:10 am - 9:30 am	"Complete Identification of Viral Mutations that Affect Antibodies use to Prevent RSV in Infants"
9:30 am - 9:40 am	Discussion
9:40 am - 9:50 am	"Decoding Transmission Success from Phylogenetic Large-Scale Analysis of Long Branches in SARS-CoV-2 Evolution"
9:50 am - 9:55 am	Discussion
9:55 am - 10:15 am	"Convergence in Immune Repertoires"
10:15 am - 10:25 am	Discussion
10:25 am - 10:55 am	Coffee Break
10:55 am - 11:05 am	"Mapping the Landscape of Viral-Immune Coevolutionary Dynamics"
11:05 am - 11:10 am	Discussion
11:10 am - 11:30 am	"Ultra-Soft Sweeps Drive HIV Evolutionary Escape from Broadly Neutralizing Antibodies"
11:30 am - 11:40 am	Discussion
11:40 am - 12:00 pm	"Design Principles of the Adaptive Immune Response in T-Cells"
12:00 pm - 12:10 pm	Discussion
12:10 pm - 12:20 pm	"Ciliate-Facilitated Transmission of a Zebrafish Picornavirus"
12:20 pm - 12:25 pm	Discussion
12:25 pm - 12:30 pm	General Discussion
12:30 pm - 1:30 pm	Lunch
1:30 pm - 4:00 pm	Free Time
4:00 pm - 6:00 pm	Poster Session
6:00 pm - 7:00 pm	Dinner
7:30 pm - 9:30 pm	Cancer as an Evolutionary System: Mutation, Selection and Spread Discussion Leader:
7:30 pm - 7:40 pm	Introduction by Discussion Leader
7:40 pm - 8:00 pm	"Cancer as a Functionally Evolving System: Selection, Mutation, and Epistasis in Tumors"
8:00 pm - 8:10 pm	Discussion
8:10 pm - 8:30 pm	"Disentangling positive selection during normal tissue evolution from cancer causation"
8:30 pm - 8:40 pm	Discussion
8:40 pm - 8:50 pm	"Disentangling Evolutionary Rate Heterogeneity in Tumors Using Mutational Signatures on Phylogenies"
8:50 pm - 8:55 pm	Discussion
8:55 pm - 9:05 pm	"Pre-Existing Non-Genetic Cellular Variation Modulates the Fitness Effects of Oncogenic Mutations in Somatic Evolution"
9:05 pm - 9:10 pm	Discussion
9:10 pm - 9:30 pm	General Discussion
Wednesday
7:30 am - 8:30 am	Breakfast
9:00 am - 12:30 pm	Design Principles of Plants Discussion Leader:
9:00 am - 9:10 am	Introduction by Discussion Leader
9:10 am - 9:30 am	"A Million Shades of Green: Understanding and Harnessing Plant Metabolic Diversity"
9:30 am - 9:40 am	Discussion
9:40 am - 9:50 am	"Core-Conserved and Accession-Specific Immune Receptor Responses to flg22 in Arabidopsis Thaliana"
9:50 am - 9:55 am	Discussion
9:55 am - 10:15 am	"A Grass-Eating Primate Changed the World: Now the System Needs to Evolve Again"
10:15 am - 10:25 am	Discussion
10:25 am - 10:55 am	Coffee Break
10:55 am - 11:05 am	"Microeconomics of Cell Metabolism"
11:05 am - 11:10 am	Discussion
11:10 am - 11:20 am	"Bacterial Epigenetic Memory of Stress Response"
11:20 am - 11:25 am	Discussion
11:25 am - 11:35 am	"Ecological Interactions Between Microbes Globally and Idiosyncratically Alter Mutant Fitness"
11:35 am - 11:40 am	Discussion
11:40 am - 11:50 am	"Interpreting and Navigating High-Dimensional Fitness Landscapes"
11:50 am - 11:55 am	Discussion
11:55 am - 12:05 pm	"Cell growth under high antibiotic concentration reshapes the bacterial transcriptome"
12:05 pm - 12:10 pm	Discussion
12:10 pm - 12:30 pm	General Discussion
12:30 pm - 1:30 pm	Lunch
1:30 pm - 4:00 pm	Free Time
4:00 pm - 6:00 pm	Poster Session
6:00 pm - 7:00 pm	Dinner
7:30 pm - 9:30 pm	Microbial Ecosystems: Mapping Function and Eco-Evolutionary Dynamics Discussion Leader:
7:30 pm - 7:40 pm	Introduction by Discussion Leader
7:40 pm - 8:00 pm	"Mapping and Shaping the Space of Microbial Ecosystem Functions"
8:00 pm - 8:10 pm	Discussion
8:10 pm - 8:20 pm	"Amino Acid Auxotrophy Evolves as a Feature of a Distinct Lifestyle Across Environments"
8:20 pm - 8:25 pm	Discussion
8:25 pm - 8:45 pm	"Some Relationships between Genomes and Environments"
8:45 pm - 8:55 pm	Discussion
8:55 pm - 9:05 pm	"The Mechanistic Origins of Emergent Predictability"
9:05 pm - 9:10 pm	Discussion
9:10 pm - 9:30 pm	General Discussion
Thursday
7:30 am - 8:30 am	Breakfast
8:30 am - 9:00 am	Business Meeting Nominations for the Next Vice Chair(s); Complete the GRC Evaluation Forms; Election of the Next Vice Chair(s)
9:00 am - 12:30 pm	The Physics of Evolution: Linking Molecular Structure and Population Change Discussion Leader:
9:00 am - 9:10 am	Introduction by Discussion Leader
9:10 am - 9:30 am	"Generative Models for Protein Function"
9:30 am - 9:40 am	Discussion
9:40 am - 10:00 am	"Gene Regulatory Networks Evolved as a Data Compression Device"
10:00 am - 10:10 am	Discussion
10:10 am - 10:20 am	"Geometry of Fitness Peaks causes Mutations to Forget their Fitness Effects"
10:20 am - 10:25 am	Discussion
10:25 am - 10:55 am	Coffee Break
10:55 am - 11:15 am	"High-Dimensional Antibody and Antigen Sequence-Function Landscapes and the Constraints on Viral-Immune Coevolution"
11:15 am - 11:25 am	Discussion
11:25 am - 11:35 am	"A Geometric Framework for Microbial Community Composition, Function, and Design"
11:35 am - 11:40 am	Discussion
11:40 am - 11:50 am	"The Evolution of Niche Dimensionality due to Frequency-Dependent Competition"
11:50 am - 11:55 am	Discussion
11:55 am - 12:05 pm	"Ecological Chaos in Experimental Bacterial Populations"
12:05 pm - 12:10 pm	Discussion
12:10 pm - 12:30 pm	General Discussion
12:30 pm - 1:30 pm	Lunch
1:30 pm - 4:00 pm	Free Time
4:00 pm - 6:00 pm	Poster Session
6:00 pm - 7:00 pm	Dinner
7:30 pm - 9:30 pm	Keynote Session: Evolutionary Tradeoffs and Adaptation in Host-Pathogen Systems Discussion Leader:
7:30 pm - 7:40 pm	Introduction by Discussion Leader
7:40 pm - 8:20 pm	"How Evolutionary Tradeoffs Shape Function in Microbial Ecosystems"
8:20 pm - 8:30 pm	Discussion
8:30 pm - 9:10 pm	"Evolutionary Gymnastics of Dual-Host Viruses"
9:10 pm - 9:20 pm	Discussion
9:20 pm - 9:30 pm	General Discussion
Friday
7:30 am - 8:30 am	Breakfast
9:00 am	Departure

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Conference Fees

Poster Information

Poster sessions are an integral part of the our conferences, and offer all conferees an opportunity to discuss their research.

Preparing your GRC poster

Funding Opportunities

Financial assistance is available beginning in 2026 for qualified applicants through the Carl Storm Opportunity Fellowships program. Learn more.

Registration Fees

Conferee Single Room:

$1,750.00

Conferee Shared Room:

$1,560.00

Conferee Off-Site:

$1,115.00

Guest Single Room:

$1,530.00

Guest Shared Room:

$1,340.00

Guest Off-Site:

$895.00

Child 4-12 yrs Shared Room:

$670.00

Child 4-12 yrs Off-Site:

$448.00

Child Under 4 yrs Shared Room:

Free

Child Under 4 yrs Off-Site:

Free

Bus Arriving:

$65.00

Bus Departing:

$65.00

Additional Fee Info

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