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Variant Effects Seminar Series (VESS)

In this series, early-career scientists from around the globe share and discuss their research related to interpreting human genetic variation. Seminars are held on the 1st Tuesday each month from 9-10am Pacific (4-5pm UTC).

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NEXT SEMINAR: October 6th, 2026

9-10am Pacific timezone converter

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Previous Seminars

Latest Flyer

Upcoming Speakers

Mariano Martín

Systematic mutational mapping reveals optimal amyloid formation for RIPK function

Mariano Martín  Gomez

Institute for Bioengineering in Catalonia (IBEC)

Presentation Date: 6 October 2026

EVENT FLYER for VESS Flyer Oct 6 2026

Mariano is a senior postdoc in Benedetta Bolognesi's lab at the Institute for Bioengineering in Catalonia (IBEC). He obtained his degree in molecular biology (University of Buenos Aires) and his PhD (National University of Cordoba) in Argentina. Since his early career steps, he has focused on understanding how sequence variation impact protein function. Currently, he is studying how mutations affect amyloid formation, in both pathological and functional amyloids.

Social: @marianomartin.bsky.social @mariano-martín-phd-5b81a6b5/

Seulki Kwon

Human proteome-wide mechanistic interpretation of missense variants through protein feature enrichment score

Seulki Kwon (She/Her)

Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

Presentation Date: 6 October 2026

EVENT FLYER for VESS Flyer Oct 6 2026

Seulki is a research scientist at the Bioinformatics and Machine Learning group at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Her research focuses on connecting genetic variant data to protein structure and function by using bioinformatics and computational biophysics methodologies. Her talk will focus on the protein feature enrichment score (PFES), a proteome-wide scoring framework that leverages protein features to mechanistically interpret missense variants and their impact on protein function.

Social: @seulki-kwon-877611227/

Seminar series FAQs

Publications

  • 1st Tuesday of each month (9am Pacific)
  • Start time is 9am Pacific (timezone converter)
  • We have members and presenters from around the globe (multiple time zones)
  • Our inaugural seminar was Tuesday, September 7th, 2021

Early career scientists: Students, postdocs, and new faculty (<1 year in position)

If you are interested in presenting or would like to recommend someone, please fill out this online SPEAKER NOMINATION FORM

  • One hour long virtual meetings (zoom)
  • Each month, two presenters discuss their work in 20-minute talks, followed by lively Q&A sessions.
  • Questions from the audience can be asked using chat or Q&A during the webinar
  • AVE members can also follow / continue conversations on our VESS AVE Slack Channel (#variant-effects-seminar-series)
  • Our meetings are over Zoom and anyone is welcome to attend.
  • We use the webinar format, but participants can ask the speaker questions using the chat or Q&A
  • Anyone can attend. However, if you are interested in becoming a member of the Alliance, please sign up > HERE
  • If speakers consent, the recordings will be publicly available on our YouTube channel
  • Speakers can also now link their VESS talks to bioRxiv preprints!
  • You can also find a list of previous speakers and talks > HERE

Future Seminars

We are looking for speakers, including students, postdocs, and new faculty (<1 year in position)!!
If you are interested in presenting or would like to recommend someone, please fill out this online >> SPEAKER NOMINATION FORM

or contact one of the VESS Organizers on our AVE slack channel!

(sign up to become a member and join conversations on slack https://www.varianteffect.org/membership/)