Funds are requested for partial support of the 64th Annual Meeting of the Society for Developmental Biology, to be held July 27 - August 1, 2005 at Hyatt Regency, San Francisco, CA. The Society has organized the major meeting in developmental biology for the past 66 years, missing only two during World War II. The meeting size has more than quadrupled in the past ten years (from less than 300 in 1993 to just under 1,300 in 2003) and abstract submissions have done just as well (from less than 200 to almost 800). 1. What is the intellectual merit of the proposed activity? Participants will be presenting their latest data, many yet to be published, contributing to advancement of knowledge in the field. As it has become a successful tradition, the scientific sessions in platform and poster formats encompass work on diverse organisms including plants, invertebrates and vertebrates. All the invited speakers listed in the preliminary program have accepted the invitation to tell us about some of their most exciting findings in the following areas: Fundamental problems in developmental biology, Cell in development and heredity, On growth and form, Ontogeny and phylogeny, Chromatin and development, Egg polarity, Signaling: From individual regulators to networks, Stem cells, Gradients in space and time, Metazoan evolution, RNA and development, Vertebrate organogenesis. About 30 additional speakers will be chosen from submitted abstracts for short talks, allowing the inclusion of the latest results and providing an opportunity for postdoctoral fellows and graduate students to address a large audience, as priority will be given to junior investigators. Educational workshops addressing Concepts in Developmental Biology, The road to the professoriate: Getting a job and writing a dynamite grant and Dev Bio 2010, and workshops on Optics technology and Omics technology complete the program. 2. What are the broader impacts of the proposed activity?
Besides dissemination of new scientific findings in the field, meeting participants will have ample opportunity to discuss during the education workshops, and maybe come to a consensus, about what the basic and most important concepts in developmental biology are. This should serve as a guideline for those of us who want to teach the subject effectively but are undecided as to what needs to be taught within the standard semester course period without getting lost in the explosion of new information, or selectively choosing topics related to our own research.
The organizers expect an attendance of over 1,000 people, and most of them will present their new data in the dedicated poster sessions each day. These social hours around the posters will provide a forum to bring together junior and senior investigators and to allow them to exchange ideas on science, education and the role of science in today's society. Travel awards will be available to bring underrepresented minorities, students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty at primarily undergraduate institutions, and Latin American faculty and students to attend the meeting.
