Stellenbosch, South Africa
September 6 – 11, 2026
Dear colleague,
The 29th International Workshop on Virus Evolution and Molecular Epidemiology (VEME2026) will be held in Stellenbosch, South Africa, from 6 to 11 September 2026. The workshop will consist of six full days of theoretical lectures, practical sessions, and keynote presentations.
This workshop brings together leading researchers from around the world, who will provide in-depth training in both practical and theoretical aspects of bioinformatics applied to virus evolution and molecular epidemiology. Participants will gain skills to address complex bioinformatics questions, contribute to scientific research, and support public health initiatives.
The programme comprises two key modules:
The “Phylogenetic Inference” module offers theoretical background and hands-on experience in phylogenetic analysis for those who have little or no prior expertise in sequence analysis.
The “Evolutionary Hypothesis Testing” module targets participants who are familiar with alignments and phylogenetic trees and would like to extend their expertise to likelihood and Bayesian inference in phylogenetics, coalescent and phylogeographic analyses (‘phylodynamics’).
Practical sessions in these modules will involve software such as, PHYML, MEGA, PAML, HYPHY, IQ-Tree, BEAST, SpreaD3, MEGAN, RAxML, Clusterpicker, BEAST2, RDP4, FigTree, Genome Detective, among others.
Participants are requested to bring their own data set to work on during practical sessions and to refer to The Phylogenetic Handbook if they are seeking basic guidance.
The abstract and application deadline is 30 April 2026.
Selections of participants will be made by the first week after the deadline.
The registration fee of $700 covers attendance, coffee breaks and lunch. In each 5-day module, participation is limited to 30 scientists and is dependent on a selection procedure based on the submitted abstract and statement of motivation.
Selection criteria (in order of importance):
- Quality of the abstract: abstracts will be reviewed, and priority will be given to applicants who are first author on the abstract.
- Letter of motivation: how urgent/important is your need for training?
- Each module is preferably restricted to 1 participant from the same lab.
- We strive for participation from diverse countries.
Grant criteria for full attendance coverage (in order of importance):
- Priority to countries with limited resources.
- Ranking according to the abstract quality.
Additional information and application forms are available on our website: http://veme.climade.health/application/.
We are confident that this course will meet the needs of many molecular virologists and epidemiologists and hope we can assist you in your search for training in Bioinformatics methods