Intellectual Merit: The 20th Annual Southeastern Regional Yeast Meeting (SERYM) will be held on the campus of University of Alabama at Birmingham from March 8-10, 2013. This annual meeting provides a unique opportunity for yeast researchers from states in the Southeastern region of the U.S. to come together to share their preliminary research findings and discuss new research tools and emerging technologies. As model organisms, yeasts are ideal for the study of complex molecular, cellular, and biochemical processes. Researchers studying these simple eukaryotes have made significant contributions in areas as diverse as DNA damage/repair, RNA processing, cell cycle progression, chromosome segregation and organelle biogenesis/ maintenance. The meeting has been organized to encourage student participation in both platform and poster presentations, provide student participants with timely evaluations of their performance, and provide students with opportunities for one-on-one scientific interactions with senior scientists in attendance. The 2013 meeting will feature a full schedule of poster and oral presentation by predominantly student and post-doctoral trainees and a keynote lecture by a leader in the field, Randy Schekman (University of California-Berkeley).
Broader Impacts: The SERYM 2013 conference brings together scientists studying basic biological processes in fungi and thus provides a collaborative forum for the exchange of research results, ideas and technical expertise. A key strength of this meeting is the opportunity for both undergraduate and graduate students to present their research in platform and/or poster formats. More than half of the participants are students or postdoctoral trainees; these groups generally present 60% of the platform talks and 88% of the poster presentations. These presentations will be evaluated by assigned judges, awards will be presented to the top two oral and poster presentation and all trainees will receive their judging sheets to provide valuable feedback. To increase participation of undergraduate and graduate students from groups that are underrepresented in the sciences, who have never attended this meeting and who have financial need, 16 travel awards will be made to help defray meeting costs. The regional nature of this meeting provides opportunities for students to discuss their research work with leading scientists (often for the first time), laying the foundation for future scientific development and collaborations. The SERYM meeting exposes students to recent advances in the fields of molecular and cell biology from studies using yeast and thus provides a stimulating and rewarding educational experience.
The 20th Annual Southeastern Regional Yeast Meeting (SERYM) was held at the University at Alabama at Birmingham, in Birmingham, Al from March 8 to 10, 2013. SERYM hosts yeast ‘minded’ researchers from Universities and Colleges located in the Southeastern region of the United States, including Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and Virginia, but often welcomes researchers from more Northern states, such as Illinois and Ohio. Funds provided by this NSF award supported the participation of sixteen undergraduate and graduate students at this SERYM 2013 meeting. In addition to the opening Keynote address, twenty-seven platform talks and thirty-five posters were presented over a three-day meeting. Abstracts of all presentations were made available to all meeting participants and are freely downloadable for any interested party from the SERYM 2013 website. Intellectual Merit: The 20th annual SERYM meeting provided opportunities for scientists that use yeast as model system to study various aspects of cell biology to come together to present and discuss their latest findings, methodologies and future directions. The SERYM 2013 meeting covered a broad array of topics, including DNA and RNA metabolism, transcription and translation regulation, signal transduction/cell signaling, stress response, and mechanisms of human disease development and treatment. One hundred and twenty-one scientists attended this meeting, representing a diverse group with regards to gender, ethnicity, and academic standing. Specifically, 68% of participants were female, and females presented 55.5% of the oral presentations and 49% of the posters. Additionally, undergraduate and graduate students represented the majority (68%) of the meeting participants, making up 77.5% of oral presentations and 94% of the poster presentations during the three-day meeting. The program was structured to include formal presentations, combined with periods for informal discussions between participants to stimulate early career scientist (students) to start scientific networks and to maintain networks for more senior scientists. Broader Impact: NSF funding provided support for nine undergraduate students and seven graduate students to attend the SERYM 2013 meeting. NSF support also stimulated the director of the University of Alabama at Birmingham Comprehensive Cancer Center to support ten additional travel grants for early career scientists. Overall, these twenty-six students were able to attend the SERYM 2013 meeting, showing the regional support for this meeting to stimulate early career scientists to start a prosperous scientific career. Additionally, all students that presented an oral or poster presentation received constructive feedback, as part of their training, on their performance from two senior participants (faculty or senior postdoctoral fellows) to improve their presentation skills to enhance their scientific careers. Communication of scientific findings is very important for a scientist to evolve the knowledge of their fields, make impacts on society, and obtain funding for their future scientific research. The broad diversity of topics covered during SERYM 2013 in the form of oral and poster presentations represent the latest scientific achievements and provide an opportunity for trainees to interact and discuss their research with senior scientists, providing a strong and stimulating educational component of this annual meeting.
