The Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution sponsored a full-day symposium, “Molecular Mechanisms of Functional Evolution” on July 10 at its annual meeting in Chicago. Organized by Joe Thornton and Vinny Lynch, the symposium featured great talks from 14 PIs, postdocs, and graduate students from around the world. Mike Harms and Alesia McKeown from the Thornton lab were among the presenters. Check out the abstracts from the morning and afternoon sessions. It was great to see the variety of excellent work happening under the umbrella of the “Functional Synthesis.”