Ver Midi XXV

Ver Midi is the annual meeting of researchers using Caenorhabditis elegans and other nematodes in France. Ver Midi is a key event for our community, bringing together around a hundred participants every year for more than twenty years. With more than 30 teams across France, this community is developing a biological model that has played a central role in the major innovations of the last 30 years, such as the use of green fluorescent protein as a research tool, the discovery of RNA interference and the discovery of programmed cell death, discoveries that have won Nobel Prizes (Brenner, Sulston and Horvitz, 2002 ; Fire and Mello, 2006; Chalfie, 2008), but also in the field of evolutionary genetics (Marie-Anne Félix, CNRS Silver Medal, 2012) and in the medical field (Campbell & Ōmura Nobel Prize, 2015). The "nematode community" is characterised by its openness, which enables the exchange within the community of materials, techniques and ideas, which are often the driving force behind scientific progress and technological innovation. This annual gathering is the concrete expression of this openness, and the central medium for this scientific sharing. Ver Midi is a free annual event that brings together all the scientific staff from laboratories working in French research community teams.