Funds are requested for partial support of the Annual Meeting of the Society for Developmental Biology for the next five years (2004-2008). The Society has organized the major meeting in developmental biology for the past 62 years (missing two during World War II). And in the last five years the meeting size has about doubled both in attendance (623 to 1,289) and in abstract submission (442 to 801). There is long-term interest in this central biological subject and the increasing public interest in issues such as cloning and stem cells, which highlights the importance of the subject both in terms of scientific advancement as well as in public education. The Society for Developmental Biology is the largest organization devoted to this field, with over 2,300 members worldwide, including graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and established investigators, many of them hold NIH grants. The proposed meetings will continue the tradition of mixing poster presentation, plenary sessions, concurrent symposia, workshops on new technologies and current issues, and an education symposium. In all sessions, a special effort is made to have a diversity of speakers in all aspects: model organisms, experimental approaches, at various stages of career, gender, and racial/ethnic background. The education symposium has a significant impact on teaching at major universities and small colleges, as well as for outreach to the pre-college and lay population. It also addresses career issues and the bioethics of research, which is relevant in the context of establishing national policies for research on stem cells and cloning. The next meeting, to be held in Calgary, will have sessions on Developmental Biology and Human Health, Stem Cells, Homeoboxes, Role of micro RNAs in Development, The Imaginal Disc, Patterning, Inhibition as a Mechanism of Development, Evo-Devo, Tissue and Organ Development, Emerging Organisms, and Technological Workshops. Other meetings on the West Coast, Midwest, and the East Coast will follow the 2004 meeting, as rotation throughout the various regions eases the travel burden for those with lower budgets. All efforts will be made to keep the tradition of using university campuses as venue for they are more economical, and the collegial atmosphere is one that the members cherish, although the number of campuses able to host the growing group has dropped.
