Intellectual Merit: A satellite meeting on "Post-transcriptional Gene Regulation in Plants" will be held on July 25 and 26th at the Rhode Island Convention Center, Providence, Rhode Island, following the American Society of Plant Biology meeting. The Program Committee of the ASPB has approved this meeting. Regulation of gene expression at the posttranscriptional level has taken center stage in recent years. This field is growing at a rapid pace with many new researchers. Many novel experimental and computational tools are being developed to address the extent of this regulation globally and its impact on plant growth, development and responses to diverse stresses. New unexpected paradigms of gene regulation are emerging from these studies. All aspects of post-transcriptional regulation of gene expression ranging from RNA biogenesis, structure and function will be covered in this meeting. This meeting will bring together a diverse group of researchers from different disciplines (e.g, biology, computer sciences, statistics) that are investigating various aspects of gene regulation at the post-transcriptional level to share recent exciting developments in this area and further stimulate research. This meeting will promote integration of experimental and computation approaches to address large-scale problems in this area. This meeting will facilitate collaborations among researches in different disciplines. The objectives of this meeting are 1) to bring researchers at all levels (undergraduates, MS/PhD students, postdocs, early career and senior researchers) from diverse fields to present and discuss new developments and cutting-edge tools related to all aspects of post-transcriptional regulation, 2) to provide an opportunity to new and established researchers in this field to develop collaborations across disciplines, 3) to facilitate networking and career-building opportunities for younger researchers, and 4) to enhance participation of women and underrepresented minorities in this field.
Broader Impacts: This meeting will facilitate interactions among researches in different disciplines and among researchers at different career stages. Participation in the meeting is open to everyone and all the speakers will be selected from the submitted abstracts. In choosing the speakers, the organizers will ensure that early career investigators, postdoctoral research associates, students, women and members of underrepresented groups are well represented. The American Society of Plant Biology has a diverse membership and the announcement of the meeting will be sent to all ASPB members. To further broaden the diversity of the participants, the meeting will be advertised on web portals that are devoted to promoting the participation of underrepresented minorities. To encourage participation of undergraduates, part of the funding will be dedicated to support to undergraduates. In providing travel support, priority will be given to women, young researchers and underrepresented minorities, who might not be able to attend for financial reasons.
. We had two hundred participants (undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral research fellows, early career faculty members and senior researchers) from a number of institutions form all over the world. There were about 40 oral presentation and over 100 poster presentations. This meeting has brought together a diverse group of researchers from different disciplines (biology, computer sciences, statistics) that are investigating various aspects of gene regulation at the post-transcriptional level to share recent exciting developments in this area and further stimulate research. This meeting has provided an opportunity to new and established researchers in this field to develop collaborations across disciplines. In addition, this two-day meeting facilitated networking and career-building opportunities for the younger researchers. A number of students, postdoctoral researchers as well as pre-tenured faculty gave oral presentations of their research at this meeting. The abstracts of all presentations (oral and poster) were published in the conference proceeding. A copy of this is attached. The funding from NSF was used solely to provide travel grants to over 25 students, postdoctoral researchers and early career faculty members.
