The 2010 Keystone Symposium on RNA Silencing Mechanisms in Plants will be held February 21-26, 2010. The meeting will provide a forum for scientists working in different areas of RNA silencing in plants to present their results and to discuss with other experts in the field. Plants have evolved a number of novel proteins acting in various RNA silencing pathways (e.g., Pol IV and Pol V in small RNA-mediated epigenetic modifications) and it therefore is important to maximize the possibilities for information exchange among a diverse group of plant scientists. The comprehensive meeting program will allow cross-fertilization among various subfields of RNA silencing and give participants from industry an excellent overview of current research and its potential applications to agricultural biotechnology. Students and postdoctoral scientists that attend will be able to hear, and interact with, the top scientists in the field. They will be encouraged to present posters, which is one of the most effective ways to network and interact with other scientists for current and future career activities. Additionally, students and postdocs will be selected to deliver oral presentations during several sessions. The organizers are committed to selecting diverse speakers from among the student and postdoctoral pool.
Broader impacts: This meeting will enhance education by acquainting students, postdoctoral researchers, and investigators new to field with state-of-the-art science in this area and by providing them with critical scientific feedback on their own efforts. For these individuals, the meeting will also promote career development by including opportunities both to see successful scientists presenting cutting-edge science and to network with prospective mentors and others who might contribute to their scientific and professional development.
Keystone Symposia’s meeting on "RNA Silencing Mechanisms in Plants" aimed to provide a timely forum for scientists working in different areas of RNA silencing in plants. RNA silencing is a recently discovered process – occurring in most or all higher organisms – in which RNA participates extensively in the regulation of gene expression, well beyond the textbook picture of "DNA-makes-RNA-makes-protein". More specifically, many RNA molecules have been found to directly feed back onto, or "silence", the steps in which DNA makes RNA and in which RNA makes protein. This meeting highlighted recent mechanistic advances about how RNA silencing pathways integrate with plant processes – acting at levels ranging from single-nucleotides to populations – as regulatory devices. Session topics emphasized integration between silencing mechanisms and developmental regulation and stress responses, DNA and chromatin modification, host-pathogen dynamics, and natural variation. The meeting also highlighted cutting-edge, high-throughput technology being developed and applied to understand the roles of RNA-mediated silencing across the plant genome. This meeting was designed to allow cross-fertilization among various subfields of RNA silencing and give participants from industry an excellent overview of current research and its potential applications to agricultural biotechnology. Plenary and short talks, poster sessions and unstructured informal discussions were all used to address key issues in this area. There were 194 total attendees at the meeting. Attendees were diverse with regard to gender, ethnicity, stage of career, and institutional affiliation. More specifically, 31% of the meeting participants were female researchers, and ~3% of all attendees (or ~6% of attendees who were US citizens or permanent residents) self-identified as scientists from under-represented minority groups. The meeting was also highly international, drawing 55% non-US attendees. Approximately 44% of attendees were students and postdoctoral fellows. The meeting provided ample opportunity for training and professional development. Plenary sessions included short talks drawn from submitted abstracts and many, if not most, of the presenters were students, postdoctoral trainees and newer investigators. Trainees and newer investigators were exposed to dozens of high-quality oral presentations by more senior investigators, who served as models for high-quality research and communication skills. Two poster sessions provided venues for trainees and newer investigators to share their research and to discuss this research with more experienced investigators. Finally, the unstructured portions of the meetings and the retreat-like venue provided significant opportunities for productive informal interactions between trainees, newer investigators and more senior investigators. We assessed outcomes with regard to attendee perceptions of the quality and impact of this meeting through post-conference surveys sent via email. We received responses from 101 (52%) attendees. The survey results demonstrated that attendees felt that the meeting was of high quality and value. For example, all exit survey respondents agreed that their scientific expectations for this meeting were met, 98% rated the scientific content as very good to excellent, and 97% of respondents agreed that presentations provided usable ideas and/or techniques. The meeting provided a unique forum for scientists working in different areas of RNA silencing in plants to report and critically discuss the latest research findings, many unpublished, and to interact with other experts in the field. More specifically, the meeting program was designed to juxtapose research in very different areas, such as chromatin structure and evolution, with forefront research in all areas of RNA silencing. With the specific intention of exposing participants to state-of-the-art technologies that can be applied to their research, the program featured a strong contribution by experts in cutting-edge genome-wide, high-throughput technologies. The unparalleled degree to which plants have expanded and diversified RNA silencing mechanisms, as well as the importance of RNA silencing for agricultural biotechnology, made this meeting on plant systems particularly timely, and capitalized on the intellectual excitement and rapid pace of discovery in RNA silencing mechanisms in plants. The outstanding genetic and genomics tools available in Arabidopsis and important crop plants (e.g., rice, maize) are accelerating discoveries in basic science and facilitating their rapid application to agriculture. Moreover, RNA silencing mechanisms research contributes to other disciplines, impacting on numerous processes in plants including development, pathogen defense, responses to stress, intercellular and long distance communication, and regulation of chromatin structure and gene expression. The fields represented by this meeting also have significant impacts on many other areas of biological research, e.g., sustainability, ecology, and agriculture. In summary, the meeting gathered plant biologists working at the cutting edge of these areas, and hence was designed to optimize synergistic interactions leading to the creation of new knowledge and original concepts. In addition, the meeting offered opportunities for career development for trainees and new investigators, including a forum for observing successful scientists presenting cutting-edge science and for networking with prospective mentors and others who might contribute to their scientific and professional development.
