Scientific conferences serve a vital role in the exchange of new ideas and results among scientists funded by the NSF and by other national and international sources. Because the success of scientific research builds increasingly on very recent technical advances and findings, such exchanges serve to accelerate important research, increasing the return on research funding. This proposal will fund a national conference for developmental biologists, the 2012 Santa Cruz Developmental Biology Meeting, centered this year on the theme of Innovations in Developmental Biology. This biennial conference is one of the two major conferences in the field of developmental biology. The 2012 conference, organized by Bob Goldstein, Amander Clark and John Tamkun, will be held August 8-11 on the University of California, Santa Cruz campus. There will be approximately 160 participants, including 28 invited speakers and keynote lectures on recent advances from a Nobel Laureate and two other scientists at the forefront of the field. Each speaker will present results from his/her laboratory's recent research, and workshops will be held on career development issues. Broader impacts from the conference will include the education and training of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who will become the educators, academic scientists and industry scientists of the future. Invited speakers were selected by the organizers based primarily on their contributions to the field and hence the likelihood that they would contribute significantly to exchanges that will advance the field, and secondarily balancing career stage, geography, gender, age, race, and experimental approaches, to help ensure broad exposure to a variety of novel contributions as well as valuable role models for the career development of young scientists. At the conclusion of the conference, results presented will be disseminated widely through publication in scientific journals.
The 2012 Santa Cruz Developmental Biology Meeting, Innovations in Development, took place at the University of California Santa Cruz August 8-11, 2012. The meeting, organized by Dr. Bob Goldstein and Dr. Amander Clark, and local organizer Dr. John Tamkun, resulted in sharing of scientific findings among 174 meeting participants from scientific, academic, and publishing insitutions in 23 states plus Peurto Rico and 6 foreign countries. Findings were shared in 156 presentations (46 talks and 110 poster presentations). In keeping with a major objective to promote our next generation of Developmental Biologists, each platform session had opportunities for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and early career investigators to present their research. Invited speakers were selected by the organizers based primarily on their contributions to the field and hence the likelihood that they would contribute significantly to exchanges that advance the field, and secondarily balancing career stage, geography, gender, age, race, and experimental approaches, to help ensure broad exposure to a variety of novel contributions as well to serve as valuable role models for the career development of young scientists. Career advice to the next generation of developmental biologists was provided through a Career Development workshop, with the aim of facilitating the maintenance of a pipeline of outstanding developmental biologists, and ensuring that all trainees have the opportunity of receiving mentoring towards a career in developmental biology. The results of the meeting were disseminated widely through abstracts published on the meeting web site (www.scdb2012.com/) and through Twitter and web posts about the meeting by attendees and an editor from the journal Development.
