VEME2022

26th International Bioinformatics Workshop on Virus Evolution and Molecular Epidemiology (VEME)

Panama City, Panama

August 21 – 26, 2022

Dear all,

We are pleased to announce the 2022 VEME workshop.

After 25 years organizing VEME with tremendous help of many people, especially the module organizers, it is time to pass on this wonderful workshop to a younger generation and the global South. Luiz Alcantara and Tulio de Oliveira will do splendid, I could not have wished for a better team to commit to taking VEME further.

I will not be leaving VEME, in fact I am starting a new module together with Samuel Hong: “From trees to public health policy”. I hope you are as excited as myself to go to Panama City this year for VEME2022.

For more details and for the registration please visit the link below: http://veme.climade.health/application/.

We hope to see you face-to-face during the VEME 2022!

See you there,

Anne-Mieke Vandamme, Luiz Alcantara and Tulio de Oliveira

Dear colleague,

The 26th International Workshop on Virus Evolution and Molecular Epidemiology (VEME2022) will be organized in Ciudad del Saber (https://ciudaddelsaber.org), Panama City, Panama, during August 21–26, 2022. The workshop comprises 6 full days of theoretical lectures, practical sessions and keynote presentations.

This workshop gathers several paramount important researchers in the bioinformatics field worldwide, which gives you deep knowledge of the practical and theoretical concepts of bioinformatics. You will be well qualified to answer your academic questions and give feedback to peers as well as society, contributing to the advancement of science and public health.

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 is targeting participants who are well 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’). The “NGS Analysis” module will cover the analysis of Next Generation Sequencing data of viruses and metagenomics. And for the first time, the VEME will have a new module entitled “From Trees to Public Health Policy“, which aims to support decision-making for public health managers in the face of surveillance, to better prepare to respond to epidemics and pandemics.

Practical sessions in these modules will involve software such as, PHYML, MEGA, PAML, HYPHY, IQ-Tree, BEAST, SpreaD3, UGENE, MEGAN, RAxML, Clusterpicker, BEAST2, RDP4, FigTree, Genome Detective, among others.

We ask participants to bring their own data set to work on during practical sessions and suggest to The Phylogenetic Handbook if they look for basic guidance.

The abstract and application deadline is June 15st.

Selections will be made by the first week after the deadline.

The registration fee of 700 dollars covers attendance, coffee breaks and lunch. In each 4-day module, participation is limited to 30 scientists and is dependent on a selection procedure based on the submitted abstract and statement of motivation.

A limited number of grants are available for scientists who experience difficulties to attend because of financial reasons. Thanks to the financial support of the PAHO/WHO. Selected number of Latin-American and African participants will receive a grant. These grants will cover travel and registration fee.

Selection criteria:

(in order of importance)

    1. Quality of the abstract: abstracts will be reviewed, and priority will be given to applicants who are first author on the abstract.
    1. Letter of motivation: how urgent/important is your need for training?
    1. Each module is preferably restricted to 1 participant from the same lab.
    1. We strive for participation from diverse countries.

Grant criteria for full attendance coverage:

(in order of importance)

    1. Priority to countries with limited resources.
    1. 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 meets the needs of many molecular virologists and epidemiologists and hope we can assist you in your search for training in Bioinformatics methods.

Important VEME Update
2025 Workshop Cancelled
2026–2027 Secured

Dear VEME applicants,

We regret to inform you that, due to a global decline in international funding, we will need to cancel VEME2025. Despite our best efforts to secure financial support for this exceptional workshop, we were unable to obtain the necessary commitments to host the event at the Institut Pasteur de Dakar (IPD) this year.

While this is disappointing news, we are pleased to share that funding has been secured for VEME2026—and most likely for 2027 as well. The 2026 edition is expected to take place in Stellenbosch, South Africa, and the 2027 workshop in Dakar, Senegal. Both events will be supported through the CERI and IPD African Stars Fellowship Program, in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation. Unfortunately, these funds could not be applied to the 2025 event, as it was reliant on a different funding source.

We thank you for your patience and regret we cannot give you better news. We encourage you to apply again for next year’s VEME. Now more than ever, it is essential that our VEME training continues to prepare the next generation of scientists to respond to global health challenges.

Warm regards,
Xavier, Tulio, Luiz, and Anne-Mieke