Training and Outreach
Seminar Series
Weekly seminars include a mixture of local, national and international speakers chosen for their alignment with evolutionary cell biology, particularly in relation to the research of institute trainees.
BII for Mechanisms of Cellular Evolution’s Annual Symposium
The event is scheduled to take place from November 5-8, 2025, in Tempe, AZ and is the fourth in a series of annual events focused on the emerging interdisciplinary field of evolutionary cell biology (ECB). This field combines evolutionary biology and cell biology with other related disciplines, including biochemistry, biophysics, population genetics, molecular biology, and mathematics. This year, our meeting will focus on the evolution and diversification of cellular proliferation systems across diverse unicellular taxa.
Our theme is: Unicellular Diversification of Cell Types and Division Systems
This symposium aims to bring together leading researchers and experts from diverse scientific fields to discuss current advances and future directions in ECB, and to provide opportunities for interdisciplinary discussions, knowledge sharing, and collaboration.
The registration page is coming soon.
Courses
Our flagship course will provide a rigorous and comprehensive introduction to the emerging and interdisciplinary field of evolutionary cell biology. Course topics include, but are not limited to, the origin of cells, genetic mechanisms of cellular evolution, evolutionary scaling laws, evolution of cellular structures, energetics and metabolism, information processing, and the evolution of organismal complexity. This survey course is designed for graduate and advanced undergraduate students, possessing a strong foundation in both evolutionary biology and cell biology, who are looking for training in interdisciplinary thinking across these fields and an introduction to research methods and approaches to questions in evolutionary cell biology.
Community College Internship Program
The Community College Internship Program in Mechanisms of Cellular Evolution is a research exchange program that provides students of the Maricopa County Community College District (MCCCD) an opportunity to actively engage with research activities in the Biological Integration Institute for Mechanisms of Cellular Evolution (BII-MCE).
The community college internship program seeks to bridge this gap through an integrative, year-round research experience that exposes students to the field of evolutionary cell biology.
This integrative, year-round internship program seeks to provide a rich and challenging, yet supportive and community-building, scientific research experience that will support MCCCD students in pursuing careers in STEM fields. This program provides sustained support and a real path for URM students to enter scientific research, presenting a clear path from community college to university undergraduate to graduate school and beyond.