The 13th Biennial Cellular and Molecular Soybean Meeting will be held on August 8-11, 2010 in Durham (NC). This meeting provides a venue for presenting the most recent advances in soybean genomics and traditionally attracts a diverse group of soybean molecular biologists, breeders, physiologists and pathologists. As such, the meeting provides an excellent opportunity for students and young investigators to meet and interact with scientists in the field, to discuss their research ideas as talks or posters, and to begin to establish the scientific networks that will prove invaluable throughout their careers. The funding provided by NSF will broaden participation by defraying the costs of participation for women and those from underrepresented groups in the U.S. scientific community.
The objective of this project was to support attendance of the 13th Biennial Cellular and Molecular Soybean Meeting in Durham, NC, August 8-11, 2010. We wanted to increase the participation of women and minorities at all levels by providing travel and room stipends for session chairs, speakers and graduate students presenting posters. We used an internet web site to advertise the meeting, informed participants of the availability of stipends for underserved groups, provided on-line meeting registration and hotel booking, and we also called several Universities and Colleges. We publicized NSF stipend availability when we received notification of the award. The 2010 Biennial Cellular and Molecular Soybean Meeting was a particularly exciting meeting because the soybean genome was sequenced in 2008, and it showcased some of the first analyses of the soybean genome. Traditionally Cellular and Molecular Meetings have included a range of soybean researchers and they have often offered an opportunity for breeders, physiologists and pathologists to update their knowledge of soybean genomics. Between NSF funding and NC Biotech funding we were able to provide travel, and/or hotel accommodations, and/or registration waivers to 3 female speakers (one of them an early career professor) and one early career male professor speaker, one early career professor from Virginia State University which is a 1882 historically Black land-grant institution, 3 female post-docs, 1 male post-doc, 5 female students, 1 African-american female student, and 7 male students. It was the first time that funds were available for students and post-docs and it was very clear that they were excited to be at this meeting to present their research and to be able to interact with other researchers. The meetings abstracts are available at: http://continuingeducation.ncsu.edu/opd/MCBS/abstracts.html Contributions within Discipline: Researchers from multiple disciplines within the soybean community interacted and shared their most recent discoveries. Several presentations were given in Whole Genome analysis technologies, methodologies and their utility for studying quantitative traits; inheritance, genetics and breeding of quality traits in soybean seeds; genetics and molecular mechanisms of resistance/tolerance to biotic (insects) and abiotic (environment) stress; genomics, functional analysis and genetics of resistance/tolerance to soybean pathogens. Contributions to Other Disciplines: Possibly results from soybean research presented in this conference can be applied to other legumes species Contributions to Human Resource Development: Several students, post-docs and early career professors attended this conference with travel awards supported by NSF. It increased the attendance of young future scientists who are very enthusiastic about their research and their future.
