IMPORTANT DATES
March 24 - 28, 2025: Registration Window
May 16, 2025: Deadline for abstract submission
May 23, 2025: Those selected to give talks will be notified.
May 29, 2025: Deadline to upload posters to be printed by HHMI
June 6 - 9: Attend SEA Faculty Meeting

WHO SHOULD REGISTER?
HHMI HQ has a meeting capacity of 175 persons. Given the size of our community, this means that we invite 1 faculty member to represent each SEA institution. An overview of the agenda is provided below to help you decide who best to represent your institution. You may nominate a second faculty member to attend, in-person, in particular for schools offering both the PHAGES and GENES projects. An invitation will be extended to the second person based on space availability.

HOW TO REGISTER
A registration link was sent by email to all SEA faculty on March 24th. HHMI Travel Services will use this registration information to contact participants and begin arranging travel.

WHAT IS ON THE AGENDA?
Final details of the agenda are still being developed. Here is some helpful information for now.

• Guests for the Faculty Meeting can expect to arrive at HHMI Headquarters by 3:00 PM EDT on Friday, June 6, and the Meeting will conclude by 12:00 PM EDT on Monday, June 9.
• There will be a session for faculty posters and talks. As you submit your abstracts, you will have an opportunity to indicate if you would like your abstract considered for a talk.
• The meeting will primarily feature working sessions to improve our collective work, including to improve our annotations (e.g. cluster-specific annotation work), to advance our understanding of research tools and methodologies (e.g. phage clustering, Alpha-fold, lysogeny), to write reports and manuscripts for publications (e.g. genome announcements, GENES reports, Cluster Reports), and to engage in science pedagogy research projects. When registration opens, you will have an opportunity to suggest additional topics or sessions you would like to have included at the meeting.

HOW TO SUBMIT AN ABSTRACT ?
As a way for all of us to share and discuss ideas and data, we encourage you to present a poster or a talk. Posters can FOCUS on one brief item (e.g. idea, question, data point for discussion) or a more developed or even published story. They can be on a range of topics, from intriguing experimental data to pedagogical resources. Submit your abstract using the link at the top of your institutional page on seaphages.org. If you would like your abstract to also be considered for a talk, you can indicate that during abstract submission.

WHAT ARE POSTER SPECIFICATIONS?
Posters should be 3-feet wide. They can be up to 4-feet tall.

WILL HHMI PRINT THE POSTER?
If you would like your poster printed for you, upload your poster >> HERE << by May 29. HHMI will have your poster printed and shipped directly to HQ.

WHAT WILL IT COST?
HHMI will cover the cost of travel to and from the meeting, and provide lodging and meals throughout the meeting.

SEA YOU SOON!

As a result of our Genome Announcement Workflow, the journal microPublication Biology will now have the capacity to publish one genome announcement from each SEA school, and at a reduced publication fee of $150 (discounted by HHMI from $350). If you would like to publish a genome announcement in microPublication Biology in 2025 at this discounted rate, please review the workflow steps below.

1. DOWNLOAD THE NEW TEMPLATE:
Please download the latest version of the QUBES resource for writing a microbial resource announcement. This resource is updated to reflect guidelines for microPublication Biology as well as feedback from the SEA community and reviewers.

2. PREPARE THE MANUSCRIPT WITH YOUR STUDENTS:
Writing a science manuscript is an invaluable opportunity for your students to gain experience with one of the highest forms of science communication. The QUBES recourse includes a meaningful approach to assessing this work as part of your students' educational experience.

3. ATTEMPT TO RAISE LYSOGENS
We recommend generating evidence to support claims whether your phage is lytic or temperate.  To do so, please download and review the Lysogen Datacard Template now posted on our QUBES site (see tab on Research Data). It includes the series of experiments to be performed and how the data should be presented. Several lysogens datacards have already been posted, which you can review for guidance.

4. SUBMIT GENOME ANNOTATION(S) FOR QC BY MAY 1:
It is critical that genomes that you intend to include in your manuscript be submitted for QC by May 1, so that these genomes can be prioritized and QC'ed during the summer and then submitted to GenBank before the end of the year. Since the GenBank accession number is required for a genome announcement, annotated genomes submitted for QC after the May 1 deadline may significantly impact your ability to publish your manuscript.

5. SUBMIT MANUSCRIPT FOR COMMUNITY REVIEW BY JULY 15:
Once you have written your genome announcement manuscript, you must submit your manuscript for "community review" by the SEA program. You can do so by emailing your manuscript and figures to info@seaphages.org with the subject line "Genome Announcement Manuscript for Review".

6. TIMELINE:
Two key steps in the workflow -- Annotation QC & Community Review -- are performed by a small group of SEA faculty. To ensure they are able to complete these tasks before the end of summer (i.e. before the next academic year begins), please adhere to the following timeline:

• March 1, 2025: Deadline to sign-up for the genome announcement workflow HERE.
• Through May 1, 2025: Lead students in genome annotation and manuscript preparation.
• May 1, 2025: Deadline to submit annotated genomes for QC.
• Through July 15, 2025: Review changes made to your annotation during QC (using the R2I template) and update your manuscript accordingly.
• July 15, 2025: Deadline to submit your manuscript to the SEA program for community review.
• December 31, 2025: Deadline to submit the community-reviewed manuscript to microPublication Biology

7. STATUS OF GENOME ANNOTATIONS AND MANUSCRIPT REVIEW
Below is a live spreadsheet with two sheets -- one sorted by faculty who intend to publish a genome announcement and another sorted by the cluster of phages they plan to include in the announcement. We recommend considering collaborating with one another to jointly publish on phages from a given cluster, whenever possible.