Dear Colleagues:

I encourage you to submit abstracts for oral and poster presentations
at SMBE 2026 on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML)
in molecular evolution and phylogenetics.

The symposium title is "Powers and pitfalls of artificial intelligence
for molecular evolution and phylogenetics." You can find its description
at https://smbe2026.org/programme

Abstract submission deadline: February 3, 2026  (please specify symposium
#S02).

Invited Speakers are:
Anne-Florence Bitbol - EFPL (�cole Polytechnique F�d�rale de Lausanne),
Switzerland Sudhir Kumar - Institute for Genomics and Evolutionary
Medicine, Temple University, USA

Symposium description
Artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to reshape the landscape of
molecular evolution and phylogenetics. A growing number of machine
learning and deep learning methods are being developed for tasks ranging
from inferring evolutionary trees and detecting selection to modeling
sequence evolution and predicting protein structures. Yet many remain
skeptical, as fundamental questions persist: What exactly do these models
learn from biological data? How do their internal representations relate
to established evolutionary principles? And crucially, what are their
blind spots?

This symposium at the SMBE annual meetings in Copenhagen (Jun
28-Jul 02, 2026) will provide a timely forum for examining both the
transformative potential and the critical limitations of AI and ML
in evolutionary research. Speakers will explore how AI models capture
patterns of evolutionary variation and divergence, and whether their
learned representations and models genuinely reflect underlying
evolutionary mechanisms. The session will also feature discussions
of new methodological advances, emerging interpretability frameworks,
and benchmark analyses testing the reliability and reproducibility of
AI-driven inferences.


Sudhir Kumar <s.kumar@temple.edu>

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